About
In this post, I’ll show you how to make a signal generator and oscilloscope from a PC soundcard. I used a cheap USB soundcard so in case the input voltage gets too high, I don’t damage my PC. This signal generator and oscilloscope obviously don’t have the best specs and are very limited. They can produce/measure a very narrow range of voltages and frequencies(0-20KHz).
The soundcard oscilloscope and signal generator can be controlled with an application from your PC. You can download it from here.
Signal Generator
The wiring is as straightforward as it can possibly be. The left speaker wire and ground make one output while the right speaker wire and ground make the other output.
Signal generator test:
Oscilloscope
Just like the signal generator, the wiring here is also pretty straightforward. The left microphone wire and ground make one input while the right microphone wire and ground make the other input. The only thing that was added here is a voltage divider to each channel to drop down the voltage by half. Also clamping Zener diodes were added for protection in case the voltage gets too high.
Oscilloscope test:
