Chibitronics Love to Code: Chibi Scope & Alligator Clips

The Chibi Scope is a tiny screen designed to help you understand what’s going on inside your Chibi Chip. It’s an essential tool for educators, and for intermediate and above coders. It packs three functions — text, volts and wave — into one compact package.

The Chibi Scope connects to your Chibi Chip using the three included alligator clips; wire up +5V, GND, and TXT, and you’re ready to go.
Use the default “text” mode to help debug programs, display sensor values, and create text-based interactions. With the press of a button, the Chibi Scope goes into “volts” mode, showing the current input voltage on the screen. Press the button again, and the Chibi Scope goes into “wave” mode, displaying the shape of the voltage on its input pin over time, similar to an oscilloscope.

The volts and wave mode were created expressly for educators who need measurement tools to help explain what’s going on: use the volts mode to measure how full a battery is, or the voltage across different color LEDs. And the wave mode was designed to help illustrate the mechanism behind PWM (pulse width modulation), the trick used to implement fading LEDs and other analogWrite() effects.

As the Chibi Scope will display any serial text at 9600 baud (9600-N-8-1 for the technically inclined), the Chibi Scope works with a wide range of other systems, including Arduinos and Raspberry Pis. So even if you already Love to Code, a Chibi Scope might still be a handy gadget to have around in your lab or office!

Check out the code examples at https://ltc.chibitronics.com, under Examples/3.Chibiscope, for ideas and documentation on how to print text to the Chibi Scope.
Below is a selection of quick videos of the Chibi Scope in action:

• Chibi Scope cycling through the three modes of operation: text, volts, and wave.
• Chibi Scope visualizing PWM waveforms, used to create the “fading” analogWrite effects.
• Short video illustrating a typical Chibi Scope setup.