| 2011/8/1 Dries Hulens – Student Master in electronics-ICT (Holland) |
The logic analyzer is one of my best purchases so far. It is certainly not too expensive and is very useful for a hobbyist in electronics as I am, but also for the professional electronics it is an indispensable tool . I was recently asked to create a DMX transmitter(DMX is a protocol used to control light effects on stages). I have studied the protocol and written some code for the microcontroller in the dmx transmitter. Because the code didn’t immediately worked, I used the logic analyzer to see what the dmx transmitter was transmitting. After a few milliseconds of monitoring the bus, the problem was found quickly. The software of the analyzer examinates the data and tells you what the data means. For example, in the DMX protocol there is a “brake”, “mark after brake”, “info”,… and the program gives the right name to the right piece of data. Through this I noticed that the time of the brake wasn’t long enough. A few adjustments to the code and everything worked like it should be. I have chosen this analyzer because it supports all the protocols that I frequently use like I²C,SPI,one wire and DMX. The logic analyzer supports many more protocols, so if I have to make another project in the future, with another protocol, I’m sure I can use my logic analyzer to debug the project if there are problems. The software is very user friendly. Like most electronics I only read the manual when a device is not working after 2 days of trying. But this was not the case with the logic analyzer, it was very easy to use. So far I didn’t have to read the manual. In no time, everything is ready to analyze a certain protocol. It is also very easy to find a certain data-package in al long string of data due to a very easy search engine. I didn’t find any negative points so far. The logic analyzer is highly recommended for any electronics because it saves you a lot of time debugging . Dries Hulens – Student Master in electronics-ICT |
