Saturday, June 10, 2023

FNIRSI DSO-TC3 Component tester, Osilloscope and Signal generator

My (simple) component tester is very useful however it has some problems: It does not have a nice enclosure and is an open PCB powered with a 9 V battery on a cable and also the display screen is not fixed.


I could make my own enclosure however i looked on Aliexpress what are the other options. On Aliexpress the component tester is often called Transistor tester, however it can test many other components.

There are versions with enclosure and a rechargeable battery for around 18 euros, however i also found the FNIRSI DSO-TC3. This device does not only has the component tester, it also has e a one channel oscilloscope, a signal generator and some other tools onboard. Including shipping to the Netherlands it costs just above 50 Euros. 

Some days ago i ordered it and it came relative fast however some days later than the expected delivery day as mentioned on Aliexpress. I have played with it a few hours (and also used to test some of my components)
and am happy. On the internet you can find a description and several reviews of this device. I mainly used the component tester, The oscilloscope is single channel and has a limited bandwidth. The signal generator and the oscilloscope are nice for audio range frequencies. Unfortunately i could not find how to use them at the same time. Via the tools option you can also use a DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor or a DS18B20 temperature sensor.

The DS18B20 is a 1 Wire temperature sensor is a sensor that i already used in some projects and i have some in stock for further projects. It is very small and uses 3 connections ( +V GND and a 1 Wire data connection) It is possible to connect multiple sensors in parallel and get the temperature from each individual sensor as each sensors has a unique 64 bit serial code. Unfortunately on my DSO-TC3 i only see data of one sensor and the serial code of the sensor is not visible. It would have been a nice feature if at least this code would be visible so the DSO-TC3 could be used for identifying each sensor. If it was possible to read multiple DS18B20 on a bus it would have been even better. Perhaps this is something that in a new software version could be added? 

In summary the FNIRSI DSO-TC3 is for its price an interesting device. It is not possible to expect form that the same possibilities as from a much more expensive multichannel oscilloscope. Perhaps a firmware upgrade can even give additional features.  

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