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Smart Phone test equipment

Mike Sweeney

Mike Sweeney

Well-Known Member
We all have traditional test gear like sine wave generators etc. And some of us have PC based gear like O scopes. I even have some cheapo kit stuff bought for pennies where I dont see how they can make money on the kit plus parts plus shipping :)

The new thing I'm trying out are apps on my phone. I just found a pretty sweet sine wave generator to make a test signal for working on amps, receivers etc where I just want a straight tone. The price was right as in free :) and it seems to work pretty well.

What else has anyone found for apps on the bench? I've been poking around with spectrum analyzers because I'm curious.. Anyone found a favorite test app?
 
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Wouldn't using phone apps be limiting because you can't observe what's going on over a broad range of tests - at the same time?

Chris
 
Definitely the real time spectrum analyzer. There's a few you can get, but it's super useful for a finger to the wind idea of speaker frequency response, all you have to do is play a pink noise CD and you get a graph of frequency response.
 
I dunno.. for example, I just need to feed a 2Khz tone into the amp and then check along the path. The phone works perfectly for that application. I dont need a big ol box tone generator or even the 10 dollar chinese kit which drifts all over the place ;) Maybe I'm a bit biased since I have a dozen iPads and phones laying around here. I even use an old iPod for music to play through the amps :)
 
Mike Sweeney said:
I dunno.. for example, I just need to feed a 2Khz tone into the amp and then check along the path. The phone works perfectly for that application. I dont need a big ol box tone generator or even the 10 dollar chinese kit which drifts all over the place ;) Maybe I'm a bit biased since I have a dozen iPads and phones laying around here. I even use an old iPod for music to play through the amps :)
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I have a 30lb military audio frequency generator from the 1950s, I use it any time I need a sine wave. Your way seems more convenient, but I'm conservative, I stick with what works.

The main thing I use my phone for is taking a bunch of photos before taking something apart, and of course looking up schematics, and posting to AK.
 
maxhifi said:
The main thing I use my phone for is taking a bunch of photos before taking something apart, and of course looking up schematics, and posting to AK
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Same.. and I've have found it to be invaluable with being able to zoom on schematics in real time. Honestly, I'd be lost without my phone working on my projects on the bench.
 
I did actually use a tone generator on my phone, to test a speaker I bought from a classified ad. The seller said he has no way to test it, I just downoaded the app and hooked it straight up to the headphone jack. A simple test showed it was okay, so I didn't feel so bad about spending money.

At home though my oscillator has a calibrated attenutor, goes to 200kHz, and has an output meter, not to mention it can output ten volts. It's way more useful than any app would be.
 
Perhaps.. but I can fit a few phones or tablets into the same space my 475 scope takes up plus the Heathkit signal generator. And I'm cramped for space .. maybe I'm just trying to justify a new digital scope ;)
 
I've tried a spectrum Analyzer but didn't work. Seems it's picking ambient noise all the time, I couldn't take one single measurement to trust.

I have installed a speed test for turntables, to measure wow -flutter, it's set to 3150Hz but using a custom freq sinewave generator, I can test tape decks.
 
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