Tools for Embedded Developers. Tools for Embedded Systems. We're tool makers and tool users. Embedded developers - both those doing hardware work and those crafting firmware - use a wide range of tools, but it can be awfully hard to distinguish the good from the ugly. Here's thoughts from a number of engineers. Feel free to submit your own reviews to jack@ganssle. Suggestion: Subscribe to my free newsletter which has tool reviews in almost every issue.
Test Equipment. Jack has written some extensive reviews of test equipment: Scopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers and signal generators. Agilent's MSO- X 3. A mixed signal scope. Tektronix's MDO4.
Gabotronics Xprotolab tiny little $4. Philco's 7. 01. 9 6. Siglent's SDS1. 10. CML oscilloscope.
Hundreds of reviews of software and hardware tools used by embedded engineers. A thorough list of highly recommended, must-have programs, free tools and utilities for the Windows operating system, across a wide range of categories.
And here's a video about it I made, plus another. GW Instek's GDS- 1.
U is a $3. 00 bench scope. Here's a video review, and here's a written review. Rigol's DSA 8. 15- TG spectrum analyzer is a great deal for $1. Here's a video review. There are a number of cheap DDS signal generators on e.
Bay. Here's a video review of a $5. And here's a written review. Siglent's SDG 2. 04. X arbitrary waveform generator video review.
Download the free trial version below to get started. Double-click the downloaded file to install the software. How to Install OpenERP Odoo 8 on Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS. Introduction. Welcome to the latest of our very popular OpenERP Odoo installation “How Tos”. Compare features and options for EndNote reference manager, including auto-formatting for APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, and many more styles. Free trial available. Zotero is a powerful, easy-to-use research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources and then. Version 5.20 Released on 06 June 2017. Fixed several Chrome crashes in Win 10. Free Download Mac Os X. Fixed auto-recovery dialog failure to popup in Win 10-CU. Firefox H264 video decoder. The following tables compare reference management software. Researchers using the tables below for comparison in order to evaluate and choose reference management.
The literal definition of the word is “secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose.” When it comes to competition and antitrust.
And a written review. Review of a 1. 29. Here's more. Embedded Artist's Lab. Tool USB scope and logic analyzer. And here's a video review of it. Oscium's i. MSO- 1. Phone and i. Pad.
Tools that monitor power and/or current. Voltage. Standard's DMMCheck calibration standard for DMMs. And here's a video review of it.
Extech's EX3. 30 DMM. Digilent's Analog Parts Kit, an analog prototyping resource. Bed's unusual and interesting IDE, a web- hosted development tool. Here's a neat trick to measure a system's idle time. Philip Freidin sent a very comprehensive chart of USB instruments, which is here . Clyde Shappee wrote: I have used the Instek PST- 3.
As with many of their supplies (I think) it has a power- on button and a button which effects the connection to the loads- -a very nice feature. If any of the supplies should trip, they are all instantly disconnected. I did get a surprise one day when the supply tripped for apparently no reason.
Turned out an unused supply was current limited to 0. A. A little noise got in there! Chris Svec also has a GW Instek power supply: I have a GW Instek dual output power supply which is just okay - it's got a loud fan that runs all the time, and the voltage output seems to drift a bit, but that could be because I nudge the sloppy control dials unknowingly. The power supply is a GW GPS- 2.
It puts out 3. 0V @ 3. A, which I need. Michael J. Linden wrote: I've been using a Clever. Scope. CS3. 28. A USB MSO for a few years now and my decision to purchase it over some less expensive units has been validated time and time again. This is a 1. 00 MHz USB MSO with two analog channels, eight digital channels (nine if you include the external trigger which can be displayed along with the other digital channels), and 4 mega- points of memory. The sampling rate is 1.
MSa/sec (one- shot = 1. MHz) which is more than enough for the embedded work I do. In my case I opted for the 1. MHz signal generator options.
This USB MSO just seems to be better thought- out than others on the market. It also has a beautiful and intuitive user interface that seems leaps beyond the others I've looked at. In particular, I find the time and voltage scales that are displayed on the edges of the graph to be very useful. When I bought this unit it had no serial decoding capabilities.
However, thanks to updates, I can now decode UART, SPI, and I2. C communications (this has come in handy more than once) with this scope.
I can also stream captures (trigger- by- trigger) to disk files for later evaluation. All in all, a very nice and capable unit that I use on a daily basis. Also, it looks like Pico. Scope just came out with this one (their first MSO). Nice feature set, but not much sample memory. Fair price, though.
Jerry Isdale wrote: I recommend taking a look at the offerings from Seeed Studios. In particular the DSO Nano and DSO Quad, but their other (board only, no enclosure) products are quite cool and inexpensive. I simply cannot say enough good things about the Saleae .
Finally an embedded tools vendor that understands there's other operating systems out there than Windows. Graham Whaley writes: On a similar vein to the LOGIC little logic analyser, I surveyed the market for small cheap units a few years back, and we decided on the LOGICPORT from Intronix It is a 3. It will also go up to 2.
MHz external clocked, or 5. MHz internally clocked. We find it invaluable for I2. S and SPI issues, and it also has CAN, I2. C, SPI and RS2. 32 decoders built into the software. I can recommend this unit.
Scott Whitney also likes the Logic. Port: The info about the Saleae logic analyzer was a good tip. It's called the LA1. Logic. Port, and is a 3.
USB connection, with 5. MHz timing mode or 2. MHz state mode. The cool thing about it is that it provides complex triggering, and directly decodes CAN, I2.
C, SPI, and RS2. 32 data streams. Bill Knight wrote: The project on which I've been working required the design of a dual band, printed circuit board antenna operating at 3.
MHz & 4. 34. MHz. I first looked at USB scopes but then ended up just buying a Rigol DS1.
E. Cheaper than many of the USB scopes and doesn't take up PC screen real- estate. Wilk also weighed in: In response to Charles' comment about a scope: I did almost the exact same thing investigating USB Scopes. Since I do almost entirely software/firmware, I had a hard time justifying an expensive scope (especially since most of what I do is not high speed).
I just needed to be able to see/debug a variety of slower signals, mostly serial communications and/or GPIO's. I ended up with the Rigol DS1.
E (which Davy Jones demonstrated a special modification to bring it to 1. MHz like the DS1.
E). It has more than met my needs and more than paid for itself. A good friend recommended this scope after I was looking for the end- all, be- all device that could do as much as possible in a single package. He gave me the (good) advice of buying decent tools that did single things well rather than a single device that did multiple things . I could always sell these entry level instruments and upgrade.
Or, better yet, keep them as . My GW Instek function generator hasn't justified itself yet but I expect it will someday (I got it at the tail- end of a debugging session and solved the problems before I needed it).
Another couple of very handy devices I've purchased are the Microchip Serial Analyzer (about $5. WAV, Inc. USBee SX (~$1. These devices do similar things and are also assets in my debugging toolbox. Gonzalo Sanchez likes Pico Technology's products: . It was a very nice gadget, and the software was really user friendly and feature- rich.
Pico has now a very wide range of products, notably scopes (up to 1. MHz BW, 8, 1. 2 and 1. S to MS); some of these are quite affordable. Some of the models seem to include Arbitrary Waveform Generators, which avoid the purchase of a separate signal generator. I guess TEM readers would probably like to give a look to the 2. Mixed- Signal Oscilloscope; the description states it is a USB- powered, 2 analogue channels scope (up to 2.
MHz) having 1. 6 digital channels (up to 1. MHz) and capable of 2. MS/s mixed- signal sampling; it also includes a built- in function generator and arbitrary waveform generator. Price tag is around US$5. The accompanying Pico.
Scope software lets you have an oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer and signal/waveform generator all in one; it has ability to continuously stream data so the scope can be used for data acquisition, too. Very appealing feature: free updates. Seems to have an SDK that facilitates to connect the scope software to other software tools such as Lab. View, Matlab and even Excel (for those who like it).
Another nice feature is that you can download a demo version with 'built- in data' for trying it. Just for Windows users, though drivers for Linux are available in case anyone wants to develop his or her own software.
Please note I have not used them in years, but at the time their scopes were among the best price- performance compromises we could find, and the software at the time was really, really very good. We did give the Linux drivers a try at the time, and they worked for us, but we did not develop anything useful. Good Web Sites. Miro Samek has a free set of videos on You.
Tube which explain the basics (and more) of writing in C for the ARM Cortex- M series of parts. This is one of the more important microprocessor families around today. If you buy the suggested $1. IAR's free IDE (Miro shows exactly how to obtain and configure it) and work in parallel with the lessons. Unlike other C classes, in this series you'll get exposed to both the C code and what the processor is really doing behind the scenes.
That's critical info for any embedded developer. Highly recommended. Richard Tomkins likes Dev. Docs: Dev. Docs works standalone (within a browser) and integrates with Brackets.
Although both Dev. Docs and Brackets are oriented towards the Internet, Dev. Docs contains C, C++ and Java. Script references and Brackets is turning out to be a really strong text editor with a huge plugin community. C/C++ coding standards.
Another decent coding standard. Tim Peterson wrote: I wanted to pass along information about a potentially useful podcast. Though it's not embedded or even engineering specific, I felt that the information would be valuable to many. The podcasts Manager Tools and Career Tools can be found here .
EEWeb has a number of interesting places for electronics people. I find the toolbox (on the upper right part of the screen) especially useful. The EEWeb German version is an electronic forum that offers electrical and electronic design articles and resources in one place, with electronics and electrical engineering design articles and resources in the area of RF design, analog design, embedded design, PCB design, test and measurement.