<div dir="auto"><div>A name you'll hear when it comes to logic analyzers is Saleae. They got their business started by noticing that there was a certain Cypress microcontroller that was very good at copying the state of the digital IO pins into memory using DMA and then transferring that over USB to the host computer. They have since graduated from that method of data acquisition, but their original product lives on in the form of clones from China. These little clone devices are a very cheap way to get started, as you can find them on AliExpress etc for about $20. These devices can be used with Sigrok, which other people already mentioned. These devices will happily stream 8 digital channels at a sample rate of 8-12 MHz, meaning that essentially only your computer's RAM is the limit for how much data can be captured. The sample rate is probably overkill for your application but perhaps 8 channels could be limiting. The other downside of these devices is that they can be a bit fiddly to set up with drivers.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Saleae's own products today are a bit pricey. If you're looking for something a bit better, I'd instead suggest DSLogic's products. Their baseline offering is a 16 channel/400 MHz logic analyzer for $200. It's using a fork of the open source Sigrok software. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I have their DSLogic U3Pro32 which I use for probing the full bus of an 8 bit CPU. It's ok but a pet peeve of mine is that the protocol decoders are using Python, which makes them pretty slow when you have a capture of multiple hundred megabytes.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The upside of Python decoders is that you could even make a custom decoder that could warn you about invalid states, which could help you in debugging. Although just displaying the state if the lines as hex is trivial to do.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">As for connectivity, DSLogic has a pretty well thought out system with shielded fly wires which terminate into a 2.54 mm socket which you can optionally connect to a clip that you can clip onto component legs. It also supports variable logic thresholds for different voltage standards.</div><div><br></div><div dir="auto">If you want something a little more serious, DSLogic's products would be my suggestion. If you want something cheap to play around with go for the Saleae clone. I would not consider standalone devices personally. As much as the device may be a beautiful piece of tech, it's fixed function and the functionality can't be improved or extended.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature">/Didrik</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, 16 May 2025, 19:28 Terry Bowman via Synth-diy, <<a href="mailto:synth-diy@synth-diy.org">synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div style="word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space">I need to repair some old frequency counters and whatnot. It sounds like a job for a logic analyzer but I've never actually used one. What would be wonderful is the ability to put a clip on the counter DIP, tell it what chip it is and then watch it count away in hexadecimal. Someone told me that this is "decoding" the data which makes sense. Anything that doesn't require me to do any mental gymnastics is ESSENTIAL. I'm not rich but I'll pay for what I need. Anything less is a waste of time.<div><br>What would be best for this? I'm sure there are factors that I'm not even aware of. PC based is an option as I'm going to put a 32" monitor on my bench. I have a line on a beautiful old HP DSO that's a dream to use and has one built in but there's no "decoding".</div><div><br><div><div>The counters in question have Nixie tubes in them. Some go down to 1Hz so they're not bad for fooling around with trans-AF. I have an LED model that I'll practice on first.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div>
<div dir="auto" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space"><div dir="auto" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none;word-wrap:break-word;line-break:after-white-space"><div>Terry Bowman, KA4HJH<br>"The Mac Doctor"<br><br><a href="https://www.astarcloseup.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">https://www.astarcloseup.com</a></div><div><br></div><div>#1: There is no substitute for good tools;<br><br>#2: Always use the right tool for the job.</div><div><br></div><div>Linn Westcott</div></div></div>
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