DIY Test Equipment

This page captures information about my Do It Yourself (self-made) test equipment. I have been working with, repairing, using, designing/building/testing various types of test equipment for many years. A few of the more recent project successes are listed below:

• One-wire USB thermometer - An inexpensive temperature sensor with a packaged/hardened sensor element used for general laboratory remote sensing. Thermometer is based on a COTS 1-wire sensor and an Arduino UNO processor board. Multiple versions of this sensor have been built and are in regular use around the home laboratory. Details are at this blog post:
  https://qsl.net/n8dmt/1-wire-temp-sensor/index.html 
  
  
• Noise Figure Meter - The current version covers from 140 MHz to over 3 GHz and is based on SATSAGEN software controlling a ADALM Pluto SDR (or RTL-SDR) receiver with noise on/off controlled over USB to an Arduino + Relay Board interface supplying +28VDC to a commercial NoiseComm noise source. This is a very capable NF system and compares favorably to commercial systems costing well over $1K USD. A follow on project to utilize a far-lower-cost noise source is planned with coverage from 50 MHz up to approximately 2 GHz. Details for the current NF Meter version are at these blog posts: 
  https://qsl.net/n8dmt/rf-noise-source-part-1/index.html
  https://qsl.net/n8dmt/rf-noise-source-part-2/index.html
  https://qsl.net/n8dmt/rf-noise-source-part-3/index.html 
  
  
• LabVIEW RF Power Meter - Have had a spare Mini-Circuits ZX47-55LN RF Detector module in the misc. RF modules box for a while now and having recently sold off my HP/Agilent RF power meters/sensors, wanted to put the little ZX47-55 detector to use as a RF power meter in the home laboratory. Built a functioning RF power meter using the ZX47-55LN sensor interfaced to a computer via a Digilent Analog Discovery 3 interface module and controlled by LabVIEW Community Edition software. Details are at the blog post: 
  https://qsl.net/n8dmt/labview-rf-power-meter/index.html 
  
  
• Stand-Alone RF Power Meter - With the LabVIEW based RF Power Meter completed, the thought to create a stand alone benchtop RF level meter came into focus. The idea was to take a small embedded processor board, add a two line text display, and connect the ZX47-55 to it via an analog interface. Run it off of a wall wart DC (ideally +12V) module, and just plug it in and hook it up to RF when needed. Sounds simple right? The project was a success, with details at the blog post:
  https://qsl.net/n8dmt/stand-alone-rf-power-meter/index.html 
  
  
• RF Comb Generator - The discovery of a commercial RF comb generator module mixed into the lab's RF amplifiers yielded an opportunity to learn about these broad-band non-linear devices. The details of testing and using the commercial version and later building and testing a DIY version are captured in the following blog posts. (The final DIY version works great!)
  https://qsl.net/n8dmt/rf-comb-generators-part-1/index.html
  https://qsl.net/n8dmt/rf-comb-generators-part-2/index.html
  https://qsl.net/n8dmt/rf-comb-generators-part-3-diy-combs/index.html
  https://qsl.net/n8dmt/diy-rf-comb-gen-test/index.html

Will add additional DIY test equipment items as they're created. You, too, can build and use your own test equipment. Give it a try!