Transcript Oscilloscope Exercise 1

Familiarizing Yourself with the Oscilloscope
The Digital Oscilloscope
On the oscilloscope at your station identify the following items.
In the course of the next several exercise we will determine
what each one is used for.
I. Display System
A. Graticule with individual divisions
A
Observe the menu of items to the right of the screen.
Note particularly how they change in the steps below.
II. Vertical System
B. Vertical POSITION
C. CH1 / CH2 selection
D. Volts/div
Note what pressing the CH1 and CH2 buttons
repeatedly do. You should be able to turn ON and
OFF the signals (empty but for electronic noise now)
from the 2 different input channels. Note how the
menu items change. What do you notice changes
when you change the POSITION or VOLTS/DIV
knobs? Watch the text information reported at the
bottom of the screen.
III. Horizontal System
E. Horizontal POSITION
F. SEC/DIV
B
C
D
E
F
With either CH1 or CH2 selected, note the visible
changes adjusting these knobs do.
IV. Trigger System
G. Trigger LEVEL
H. TRIG MENU
For now just note how TRIG MENU presents new menu
options. Two things change when the LEVEL is adjusted:
look at the text line at the bottom of the screen, and for a
small curser along the right edgeof the display.
G
H
Exercise 1: Using the Oscilloscope as a Voltmeter
Objectives:
1.
2.
3.
4.
An introductory exercise to help you
become familiar with the controls on your oscilloscope.
review some concepts of DC (direct current) electricity.
learn to read the display grid and use its scale settings to make measurements.
read positive (+) and negative (-) voltages from the oscilloscope display.
Refer to the
labels in the
figure for the
steps below.
1. Connect the black & red probes to the CH1 input (BNC connector).
2. Turn on the oscilloscope.
3. You will most likely see a flatline signal (see right).
If no signal is being traced on the screen:
4. Make sure you have CH1 selected.
5. You can play with these buttons to toggle between
different settings. See what the options are. For this work
we need the coupling set to DC and Probe to ×1.
6. Let’s 1st try cranking the VOLTS/DIV down to 20 or 50mV, and
7. the SEC/DIV down to 50 msec or even lower to 100 sec.
Sketch what you see:
(if you see nothing cool,
ask for some help)
Why are you seeing this sort of signal at all?
Move the probes around.
Short their ends together.
What changes do you
observe?
Trying this at home
If the oscilloscope you have access to does not have a probe attachment, Radio Shack
carries a large array of spare/replacement probes for handheld Voltmeters. Most of
these attach to “banana”-type plugs, but the store also carried assorted adapter plugs
and can certainly find you something that will work with your oscilloscope.
An easy cheap alternative is just two lengths of 22 gauge “Bell” hook up wire.
Get a foot each of red and black. Strip both ends of wires using needle nose pliers;
you will need about an inch of wire exposed at both ends. Place one stripped end of
red wire into the center hole input to CH1. Place one stripped end of the black wire
on the outer metal casing of the CH1 input (this is ground!). You may want to secure
the black wire there with a small piece of electrical tape.
6. Now set the VOLTS/DIV to 500mV or 1 V (play around a little).
8. Check the TRIG MENU.
5. You may need to set the TRIGGER MODE to AUTOMATIC to get a
continuous trace on the oscilloscope display.
Ground (connect) the probes ends together. Observe the trace. Next place them
across the ends of a single battery (you have a variety to test). How does the
trace change? If it disappears entirely, it may simply have jumped off scale!
Adjust the VOLTS/DIV to a higher value (reduce its sensitivity) and try again.
Illustrate what you observe:
Use this key:
Signal trace
Ground trace
Displacement________
(in unit squares)
The VOLTS/DIV
fixes the scale per
full square at left
(not tick marks).
What voltage do you
measure for this battery?
VOLTS/DIV setting: ______ mV / V (circle)
Now let’s practice by measuring several battery configurations
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
Single AA cell battery
Single D cell battery
Heavy Duty Lantern battery
Single transistor battery
4 D cell batteries in series
8 AA cell batteries in series
Trial VOLTS/DIV setting
TRACE DISPLACEMENT VOLTAGE