Monday 2 November 2015

Building the DSO138 portable oscilloscope

A friend of mine once said:
"All it takes to assemble an electronic kit is a trained monkey."
While the construction of this kit did in fact not take much brains, it would take a very nimble fingered monkey to do the SMD soldering.
I couldn't have done it without a little help from my magnifying lamp
My somewhat yellowed, late 80s Ersa 230 - 15W iron's conical tip shouldn't have been any wider, but was ok for both the resistors and the IC.
The through-hole components were not a problem at all. I just misplaced two components and the solder is very hard to get out of the through-plated holes. So better double-check before soldering.

The instructions are nicely printed in colour and, easy to follow and include full schematics.

As an alternative, for just one extra euro, there is a version available that has all the SMD components in place already.
Very neat measurement readout
This thing is not a replacement for a fully featured scope. Still I'll try to get it into a 3d printed enclosure like this one, to use it as a portable scope.
Equipment needed:

  • Soldering iron 15W / conical tip
  • Fine tweezers
  • Desondering pump / braid (just in case)
  • Solder 1,0mm or less
  • Small soft wire cutters
  • Magnifying lamp (if you're over 40)

Bottom line: Fun little project for just over 20 bucks. Not really worth the effort if you already have a scope.

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