Pickup Analysers buy or do-it-yourself?

[hansgeerdink]

Hi,

I have been considering for a while now to buy a pickup-analyse device.
However, since the price is kinda high, I could not help noticing people using USB scope devices with integrated function generators to do the job.

Looking at a (a.f.a.i.k.) descent USB scope device would be the Analog Discovery 2 By Digilent.
It is a 15 bits device, which I believe means it can display better at low frequencies and low voltages.
The idea is making a coil that excites the pickup with a frequency sweep and generating a bode plot.

All fancy terms, but I have no electro-technical experience, s forgive me ;-)

Question would be: any experiences in the field?
Also, is it wise to spend twice or triple the money for a fixed setup that works out of the box?
As apposed to doing some fiddling around (...spending, already way too much time investigating... ) and/but perhaps be flexible for way less $$$

Many thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!
Cheers,

Hans

[Helmholtz]

How much is the PU analyzer?

I use this: https://www.velleman.eu/products/view/?id=407512 (PCSU200).
Works great!

Useful information here: http://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thr...guitar-pickups

[hansgeerdink]

Thank you very much for your response!

The pickup analyzer will set me back €690 without the software which is another €39 (excluding VAT that is, since I have a VAT registration the VAT is deductible)

That link was a good read for sure.

It appears my USB scope just does not have the bode plot function.
Generating a sweep and reading / looking at the frequencies picked up works fine, also with a 8 bit depth apparatus :-)

Almost convinced now it is worth doing the fiddling around myself, thanks!

Cheers!
Hans

[salvarsan]

It appears my USB scope just does not have the bode plot function.

The Syscomp Design doesn't exactly do that but handles it in the host computer application.

Since you already have a USB scope, there may be Bode/FFT applications written for it on Github.com.

Searching on "Bode plots on an oscilloscope" is worthwhile, for instance
Hackaday as an example.
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/19/bode...-oscilloscope/

This runs perilously close to selling wares on a forum that forbids it:

I have an older Syscomp CGR-101 that works fine for testing pickups. I don't need it since I purchased a modest Hantek 5102 stand-alone scope with USB data stream.

While the CGR101 software application is still available and is open source, be warned that it is written in Tcl/Tk and not for the faint of heart.

software updates will not be available any time soon, if ever. Syscomp Electronic Design's chief partner and CEO died last year. The surviving partner is deciding whether or not to continue the business.

-drh