Key Of Grey

Photo courtesy of Mark Bowers

January 23rd, 2009 – Now that I’m getting into making my own audio gear, I’m thinking of adding an oscilloscope to my arsenal of tools. That would double my tool count from just a Phillips screwdriver. Of course, I’m joking…or am I? I’ve posted about a cheap oscilloscope option before, but what if you want to be environmentally friendly and use materials already at your disposal? Well if you have an old CRT monitor hanging around, Mark Bower has a tutorial on how to turn it into a basic oscilloscope.

From his post, it looks like the hack doesn’t take much more work than cutting the horizontal sync coil, and feeding it with an audio signal. You can also manipulate the colour of the lines by jumping the monitor connectors in some cases. It’s a pretty cool hack, especially since many of us have old monitors kicking around that we can’t even give away. As with all electronic projects, be careful when messing around with electricity. I’ve embedded a video below of Mark playing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” so you can get an idea of how accurate it is.

How to make an oscilloscope out of an old monitor