If your computer has external speakers, make sure that they are turned onand that the volume is turned up. Make sure that the speaker cable is securelyplugged into the “output” audio socket on your computer. This socketis usually light green in color.Some sound cards can switch between the socket they use for output(to the speakers) and the socket for input (from a microphone, for instance).The output socket may be different when running Linux, Windows or Mac OS.Try connecting the speaker cable to a different audio socket on yourcomputer.A final thing to check is that the audio cable is securely plugged into theback of the speakers. Some speakers have more than one input, too.Go to the Activities overview and open a Terminal.Run lspci as;either type sudo lspci and type your password, or typesu, enter the root (administrative) password,then type lspci.Check if an audio controller or audio device is listed:in such case you should see the make and model number of the sound card.Also, lspci -v shows a list with more detailed information.You may be able to find and install drivers for your card.
It is best toask on support forums (or otherwise) for your Linux distribution forinstructions.If you cannot get drivers for your sound card, you might prefer to buy anew sound card. You can get sound cards that can be installed inside thecomputer and external USB sound cards.
- Apr 17, 2019 - Nevertheless, a few more modifications may need to be carried out aside from the above alterations to make the USB sound card fully useful as.
- It depends what your looking for.A 5.1 sound card is a must plus you say you have a 5.1 surround system so your good to go for movies but when it comes to music don't expect to get true 5.1 till you play 5.1 music and MP3 is plain garbage.my I suggest dvd audio or sacd ebay has a good selection.Even then you have to extract the music and convert to flac but it's worth it playing 24 bit 96khz 6ch 8000kbps best quality known to man.
This article has been so popular that I've written a. The book shows you exactly how you can build the scope into a nice enclosure so that you can conveniently use it on all of your projects.I've also included a project which adds two additional features that allow you to generate signal waveforms using the headphone output and to calibrate the scope so that you make absolute amplitude measurements. The book is available now in kindle format from here:The oscilloscope is the single most useful piece of electronic test equipment but it took me years to save up for one. It was a very expensive item back in the 1960's.The most inexpensive yet usable PC based oscilloscope that I've come across is the.
Mar 4, 2019 - The best USB sound cards. Whatever kind of computer you use for work, whether it's a Mac or PC, a desktop or laptop or even something like.
It isn't perfect but it is incredible value for money and great for the hobbyist or anyone that has need for a small portable scope.If you can't afford to buy even the cheapest scope available then try building one for yourself by following this project. It won't do as much as the USB oscilloscope but it will cost you very little to construct.You are so lucky to live in a time where personal computers are so readily available. I'm betting that you either have one of your own already or you have the use of one fairly readily.
If you are still at school then you need one for your homework right? If you are not in school then you need a PC to do pretty much everything there is. I am going to show you in this project how you can build yourself a very inexpensive add-on for your PC that will turn it into a very simple but useful oscilloscope. To keep the cost down to rock bottom I am going to present the simplest PC based scope probe that you can imagine. I made mine using parts from my electronics junk box so to me it comes for free. Don't worry if you don't have a junk box, you soon will do if you start building electronics projects.So what's the catch?
You can't build an for free can you? Well yes you can pretty much.
Just so long as you accept that there will be limitations. You are not going to get the same capabilities that you might expect if you went out and spent good money on but if you can't afford to do that and you have no other way of looking at electrical signals produced by your circuits then this project might work magic for you.The limitations of the sound card oscilloscope are mainly the microphone or audio line input of the sound card that comes with your PC. This means that it will only be capable of displaying relatively slowly moving low frequency signals and the input levels must be kept very low.Audio sound cards are designed for handling audio surprisingly enough. To handle that job effectively they only need to have a bandwidth of 20kHz because that is the limit of the human ear.
Most people can not hear anything at all past that point even if some animals are able to. Also the microphone input is only designed for a 10mV input signal so we must try to keep the input levels low. If you have an audio line in input then you should try and use that instead as it will tolerate a higher 100mV input level.Not all PC sound cards have stereo audio inputs. If your computer only has mono input then you will only be able to display one signal on your oscilloscope.
If you have a stereo input then you will be able to simultaneously display two input signals which is a very useful feature.I found several software applications that can be used to turn your PC into an oscilloscope and I opted for a free one. Not only will this software turn your computer into a twin beam oscilloscope it will also provide an FFT analysis of the signals too. Hi Saurabh,The trigger pulse of the HC SR-04 is a minimum of 10 micro seconds which will not be easy to see with the sound card oscilloscope with a maximum bandwidth of 20kHz. However the trigger pulse doesn't have to be that fast.I used a trigger pulse of 50us in the project that I published on the site. At 50 micro seconds the pulse is just detectable by the scope. It won't look very square of course but you can detect it's presence which is usually what you want to see.
You can extend the trigger pulse more if you want it to look better on the scope.The echo pulse is measured in the 10s of milliseconds which is easily viewed using the oscilloscope.Hope this helpsSteve. Hi Pokke,Using an electrolytic input capacitor is not a good idea. Worst case the capacitor could explode if you apply voltage in the wrong direction.It is more than possible that you will be applying AC signals to the probe that swing both '+ve' and '-ve' which may cause the capacitor to malfunction.Electrolytic capacitors work best when there is a DC bias across them. The terminal marked with a '+' should always be positive with respect to the '-ve' end.
Electrolytic capacitors are easier to manufacture with high capacity and are generally used to smooth the output of power supplies and other other things.You need to use a non-biased, non-electrolytic capacitor in this instance.Steve. Could you clarify a few things?
I was looking at the one that Make did that is a copy except for the values and yours. There are 3 wires for the input and 3 for the output. So one is common on the input and one on the output. Your diagram shows 4 inputs and 3 outputs. On the input, I am guessing the v1- and v2- are the common ground. On the output, I am guessing the same is true, v1- and v2- are common ground and the v1+ and v2+ are separate on the plug to the sound card. Which pin on the output goes to what wire?
Is the tip the negative and the other 2 side pins the 2 channels? Does it make any difference that the make resistors were a different value then the ones shown here? Thanks for the design. I await your answer. (don't want to blow up the computer).
Hi Alessandro,I'm pleased that you liked the project. I think that it's a great addition to anyone's tool kit.You might like to know that I've recently published a Kindle book entitled 'Sound Card Oscilloscope: Build Better Electronics Circuits'. It is far more comprehensive and shows you how to put it into a neat enclosure to make a permanent job of it.The book also covers building a calibrator to allow absolute amplitude measurements and a signal generator output from the headphone socket.if you are interested the book can be purchased hereSteve. Hi CT,The input resistor and potentiometer were chosen to provide maximum sensitivity and a degree of overload protection.The small 3.3k ohm resistor limits the current through the protection diodes to about 10mA max. With input signals up to 30V. The 470k ohm pot allows for small signals to be displayed while providing a higher input impedance with larger inputs.I'm currently trying out an alternative arrangement using a 470k ohm fixed input resistor and a 4.7k ohm potentiometer. This provides a more consistent high input impedance and much better overload protection.This new arrangement is not so sensitive of course but I'm guessing that most uses of this circuit will be to observe signals ranging from about 1V - 15V peak to peak.
How To Make A Free Pc Sound Card Oscilloscope
The diodes are just ordinary diodes not zeners. I'm making use of the fact that if you forward bias a diode with a small voltage less than about 0.5-0.6v it will not conduct but if you increase the voltage then it conducts so hard that it will not allow the voltage to rise above 0.5-0.6v unless it burns up with excessive current.Connecting the diodes back to back prevents the AC signal amplitude from going more than plus or minus 0.5-0.6v.The objective is to protect the microphone input on the pc which is only supposed to work properly with 10mV signals or 100mV if it's the line input. It will tolerate larger signals without damage however and the diodes stop the signal getting too large. You should assume that there is an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services linked to on this page and that we may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. Homediyelectronics.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.Copyright © 2013 - 2019.