LEVERSCOPE is the New Zealand-based company behind the CS328A, a dual channel 100MHz mixed signal USB oscilloscope with two analog and eight digital input channels. With optional accessories two units can be linked to double that number of channels.

Main specifications

The CleverScope CS328A provides two analog channels and eight digital channels (the corresponding analog only model is the CS320A). Its analog bandwidth is 100MHz (measured at the -3dB point), while the digital sampling rate is 100MS/s (millions of samples per second). There is a hardware 25MHz anti-aliasing filter for better spectrum analysis.

The vertical sensitivity ranges from 20mV/div to 20V/div (using a x1 probe). The vertical resolution of the digitising system is 10 bits for the basic model and you can increase this to 12 or 14 bits by purchasing an additional sampler board.

Unlike some USB oscilloscopes, this one has a deep memory of 4Mpts (Million Points) for the basic model.

Front and rear panel connections

The front panel of the CS328A comprises three BNC connectors (two for the analog channels and one for the external trigger), two RJ45 sockets (for connecting the eight digital inputs), two probe compensation terminals and two LEDs, green for power and red to indicate triggering.

On the back, there is the USB port, a BNC connector for the signal generator output and the power input jack and an RS422 port.

The optional RS422 link cable forms a 100 Mbit/s communication link between the two. When you connect the two CleverScope CS328As together in this way, you effectively have a four channel analog scope with 16 digital inputs and a single user interface.

Probes and accessories

The CS328A is supplied with two switchable (x1, x10) 100MHz analog probes. Also included are adaptors that connect to the two front panel RJ45 jacks allowing you to connect up to eight (two lots of 4) digital inputs.

The CS328A is controlled using the supplied PC software for Windows. The software is controlled from the main window and secondary windows become visible as needed. Like other oscilloscopes, the CS328A has an "Auto Set" button, which will analyse the signals and choose the vertical and timebase settings for displaying them on your PC screen.

The signal window also has small buttons, whose function is selected by hovering over them with a mouse. These allow you to either zoom in or out or scale the window to fit the signal.