After a confusing start, (entirely self inflicted complications caused by not just simply doing what the instructions said) the Scope Clock is nearing completion. The final steps went really fast, in fact much easier than expected, and after only a few minutes, it was clear that we are on the right path.

Putting on the DAC

The DACThe poor DAC chip looks like it had a tough journey. It was squashed completely flat in the package, and the first task was to straighten the pins, solder the socket onto the board and put the DAC into the socket. There were no other components needed. The two turret pins also needed to be soldered. In total this only took two or three minutes.

At this point, the temptation was simply too great. Even though I only have one lead made up and could only look at a single channel, I just had to have a look what the scope was doing. In the video you can see what it looked like. It was of course totally unreadable, but staring at the pattern for a few seconds, it became clear that something good was going on.

 

Some RS232 with that?

RS232 circuitThere is no need for the RS232 interface at the moment, but I know I'll just lose the parts if I don't put them on the board right now. One of the cool features of the Dutchtronix Scope clock is that you can link it up to another computer and use it as a terminal (with only very few characters per line, and only few lines.

To complete the build, the RS232 chip (a HIN232ACP, a new one to me) was added and the chunky D-Type socket.

Giving it a first try

After all that, plugging the board into the scope with both channels immediately gave a picture that was recognizable. It was turned on it's side and back to front, but it was clearly a clock face. Switching the X and Y axis and turning off a channel invert made the clock face appear correctly.

How cool is that?

 

Video wrap-up

Links

Dutchtronix Scope Clock Kit Main Page

Part one of the Build

YouTube video

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