Oscilloscopes 101 - How to use an o-scope! | Basic Electronics
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- Опубліковано 21 лип 2024
- With all the knobs and buttons, an oscilloscope can be intimidating to new users. We decided to just focus on the most important things you need to know to be able to use an o-scope. After this, you will be able to find your signals and understand what you're looking at, be comfortable with the interface, and have the foundation needed to start exploring other features on your own.
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Table of Contents:
0:00 Introduction
0:10 The Auto Button, friend or foe?
1:45 Divisions, horizontal scale, and phase offset
3:48 How to find rise time
4:40 Divisions, vertical scale and shifting
5:40 Probe and X10 or X1 scaling
6:28 Trigger
7:42 Measurement tools
9:00 Summary
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Besides these videos, we like to put the transcripts or written tutorials up on our website as well, to help give a little more depth on these tutorials. To see the written tutorial for this video, go check it out at: www.circuitbread.com/tutorials/oscilloscopes-101
This complementary website with the written tutorial really put the icing on the cake! Very nice! Thank you for going the extra mile!
I'v spent 2 days going through UA-cam videos to find out basic stuff-nearly all assume you know how to use one, but you're the first to explain these 3 basic but for me most important bits. Thank you so much - I feel much mor confident now, to start exploring my new machine (btw I'm 64 so learning takes a bit longer for me now and you've been the best tutor on here!)
Awesome, thank you very much for the feedback and good luck with your new o-scope!
At 2:30 in, I got no idea.
I’m 67
Still looking for a good explanation.
Thanks
One of the best I've watched yet. Thank you!
Great video to help out the novice like me. Thank you for sharing.
Greetings, your videos are so informative and elegant, please do more 🙏
thank you so much I've learned a lot. just got my 1st scope today and been having a blast playing with some signals I've generated
Awesome!
My teacher used to clip the long lead of an LED to make it shorter to teach us not to *always assume*
I like that! That's pretty funny.
An observant student would have seen that it was not clipped to exact specific length and this immediately identifying which it is
NOW.. THAT is not an assumption because he has already checked which is the correct lead,
THAT'S AN OBSERVATION :P
GOOD VID!
Excellent! I will share with my students. Thanks
very good episode :) but I would like to see more on this subject :)
This video was amazing. I love the presentation, and the extra tips. Please Tela hire CircuitBread (not to be mistaken with gamebread), and have him show people how to replace their car battery! Well, maybe not the car battery but you get he point...
In my second circuits class, my teacher was embarrassed at how many EE's couldn't jump start a car or do other simple things, so he took half a class period once and showed everyone. Being at Boise State University in Idaho, half of us were raised on a farm and dealt with farm equipment all the time and had at least a bit of practical knowledge. But it has made me wonder every once in awhile if we should do a couple "around the house" tutorials - like installing light switches and outlets, jump starting a car, and stuff like that. I don't know...
@@CircuitBread Thank you for taking the time respond to my comment! I h
ave the feelings that those video would be amazing, and a nice addition to your channel!
One heads up that might should have been said, not too frighten beginners with OSC.
The alligator clip on the probe is earth ground, hook that one up at the wrong spot and... BOOM.
But that's only a risc when dealing with equipment connected to the mains, essentially. As long as your project is battery powered or isolated from tho grid you're most likely to be fine.
Good insight, thanks for sharing! If you know what you're doing and pay attention, electricity can be quite safe, but it can go south quite quickly...
It will be nice to tell the practicality of their usage. In some of your video I am looking for to build an electricity that can sustain a 4 bed room house.
Hi Ronnette! Yeah - oscilloscopes will be rarely used in power applications within a house (unless you're looking into automation and control systems). However, a multimeter is incredibly useful. We have already shot a tutorial about multimeter usage and it's currently being edited before publication.
Great. Thank you. I look forward to reading it. I really like how you explain Electricity. I know nothing about it. But, It is one of my interest and I know I can learn pretty quickly from how you explain. I would like to build a house that is more dependent on the sun without using commercial solar panel. Sound like a continuation of Tesla. I just come across your UA-cam and will read more..... Thanks again.
Hi Ronnette! Sorry, I forgot to notify you when the video was published, but the multimeter video is up. Let us know what you think and if you have any questions. Thanks!
ua-cam.com/video/2ScCNtJmr8w/v-deo.html
"An Electricity " ??
Perhaps you meant, Generator, Solar Panels ?
Great vid. Should I invest in a new o scope or use the old Techtronics that I have
Oh, that's a good question. If you already have one and if it works, I'd put that money towards different parts/projects/tools. If it's the size of a small car, sounds like a moderate sized plane, and doesn't really work that well, then I would invest in a new one.
Firstly... You should not disrespect the scope by calling it "Techtronics "
i'ts TEK or TEKTRONIX
that's like being a megadeth fan and calling the song The Mechanics, instead of The Mechanix
or being a Def Leppard fan and calling it Deaf Leopard
LOL Possibly even as bad as calling the band Jon Bovi
Sacrilege mate, Say 3 hail mary's and 2 our fathers and you are absolved of your sin and never let it happen again.
LOL
it is however forgiven if you mis spell Rhode and , i mean... Rohde and shwartz i mean Rohde and Shwarz , i think that's right
Cool!
How can I test a home stereo cable? Do I need a separate audio signal (like white noise or sign wave generator)? I have various test tones in my computer and various audio output jacks. Thanks!
Ps I want to see if my older cables are not passing the higher frequencies due to corrosion or wear. Weed out the crappy cables.
That sounds like an interesting test! Yeah, basically you could just output a high frequency signal on the cable and then test the output compare to the expected input. Even though I've never done this and probably am missing some key parts of the process, I imagine you'd want to transmit a square wave so that you can see your slew rate, rise/fall time, and harmonics more easily than you would be able to see with a sine wave.
That's easy
Test 1 - Use a 9V Battery to test if the speakers respond (Pop)
Test 2 - Short one side of the speaker wires together, and on the other end, Get a multimeter and test the resistance, if they are corroded or rusted the resistance will be significantly higher , I'm expecting that on a 30m run You would get 0.5 Ohms or less say 1 Ohm or less to be safe
@@martinkulizathanks. I tried this with shorter guitar cables and a multimeter and I didn’t notice any difference with any of my cables old or new.
@@caseykittel
Guitar Cables ???
No No.. hang on LOL What are you doing mate ?
1. so.. By Guitar cable do you mean Speaker cable that goes from the guitar to the Amplifier. or are you talking about something else.
and also
2. How did you go from Speaker wire (Which is 2 pieces of copper or 1 copper and 1 Silver) to a guitar lead ?
See when you get into guitar and P.A. Stuff you have balanced and unbalanced cables, You need to consider these things. I was just talking about standard speaker wire.
which is basically JUST A COPPER WIRE for the most part.
Now being a standard wire depending on certain factors , Diameter , Density, Etc it will have a certain Resistance, the More copper so... the thicker it is , the more resistance it'll have, but also the longer it is the more resistance again it'll have.
Now these tests also are basic tests, They do not account for Impedance and Reactance, (Google the difference if you don't know ) but as a basic point of view.
When using AC (and you are) it's referred to as impedance, but in a DC Circuit it's referred to as Resistance, so your first port of call is to make sure that the speakers pop when there is a battery put on it, this means the coils work and the membrame responds (ON A BASIC LEVEL)
Next you do your Loop Resistance test as described.
Now when you say you tried this with SHORTER Cables. and didn't notice a difference
well...
1. How short were the cables, because on a 5m cables you're not going to see much difference, Probably 0.01 Ohms
2. Now if you were using a DMM that had 1 digit resolution, again you wouldn't see the difference, but if it had 10 Digit resolution you would. Realistically you need to have maybe 2 or 3 digits resolution for a valid result
but if you still do this and the cables are copper and you still don't see a difference and you're getting low resistance, THEN THE CABLES ARE OK
You can then proceed to test the frequency response of the cable (This is where impedance comes into it) assuming you have a sig gen that can take you up to 100MHz
although you really only need to be testing to 20kHz possibly 50kHz
You can put a signal into the cable and see if the same signal at the same amplitude comes out the other end.
if you have a scope or Sig Gen you can go into the function Generator of the device and set it up say... SINE WAVE at 1 Volt (Most of your signals are going to be in mV anyway for the most part, 1 V would be the upper end)
AND RUN A SWEEP FUNCTION on it Most people who have scopes don't really know this stuff, but let's say you had a Rigol scope, that most people do
Now if you have a DS1054Z or MSO5000 with built in Sig Gen You go into the G1 Channel
Set it to
SINE
20khZ
1v
Then go the bottom to MORE or OPTIONS i can't remember.
then turn on MODULATION
then you will have options and one of them is SWEEP
Set it to sweep from 1Hz to 50kHz
and set it to do this over 10 seconds or 30 seconds, the default is 1 second
then go to the other end with a scope and monitor and see if the signal amplitude drops at certain points
so again if you have a rigol scope, You can set up a PASS FAIL MASK, where if the signal drops below a certain level it will fail and capture the error
Now if all this passes, Your problem is in the D.SP. (Digital Signal Processor) it's internal in the device.
but on the grounds that you suspect the cable, i recommend doing what it's designed to do and feed some signals into it and test the frequency response
Thank you for your video. I am itching to buy the Rigol oscilloscope. My problem is why do i need it? The videos are mostly about the knobs and there functions. I would love to see a video that you are actually using it on something simple I can under stand and then describe what is working or not. Like a broken power supply or small radio or a tv remote control? Its unfortunately so over my head with just the words let alone the instrument. Maybe you have another video in you????
We actually use the oscilloscope on a quite few different videos (recently with the 555 timer series, intro to capacitors, intro to inductors) but I'm not sure if it's what you're looking for because I don't focus on the knobs too much but the results. But they are practical examples of when you'd want an oscilloscope! In regards to fixing things, I guess it could help if you're trying to figure out if your remote control is sending out the appropriate signals but it really just depends on the situation.
I JUST BOUGHT ONE OF THESE TO CHECK POWER-SUPPLIES , HOW WOULD I KNOW WHAT MILI OR MICRO SECONDS I SHOULD WANT TO SEE ??
It depends on the noise you're looking for - if you're looking for the 60Hz ripple, you'll want to be in milliseconds. If you're looking for higher frequency noise, you'll want to be in the microseconds. Either way, I recommend you just play around with your oscilloscope - that's the best way to get familiar with it and become comfortable with what your settings will need to be.
Have been looking for a tutorial that I could understand. With you, I hit the spot. I am a beginner, never took any lessons on electronics. Had a sudden urge to learn. Purchased a 25 mhz o-scope to check my gadgets at home, for a decent price. Is 25 mhz sufficient for a beginner? I am a bit confused about the mhz, please let me know. Thank you for your time.
I'm glad we could help! The MHz rating is just referring to the maximum frequency your oscilloscope can accurate show before the signal starts degrading (degrading is a non-technical term but works here). 25 MHz is actually pretty low by oscilloscope standards but there are still a LOT of waveforms generated in circuits that are well below that frequency, so this will be an awesome opportunity for you to become familiar with oscilloscopes in general and learn a ton!
@@CircuitBread Thank you very much for responding. I will be following your channel closely. 👌
So do I need a function generator to get familiar with an o scope?
No, but it certainly would help! You can use a 555 timer or a microcontroller to create different signals that you can explore. Or hook up an audio output from your computer and examine different tones and music. I'm sure there are other, even better ideas out there as well that I can't think of off the top of my head.
Not really, BUT IT DOES HELP.
if you don't have 1 here are some ideas
As circuit bread said... Get a 555 Timer circuit happening or
Pull a USB port with circuit board out of an old computer case off the side of the road, Use the pins on it for your scope probes, and you'll be able to (when plugged into USB) to see signals coming from the USB Ports, both Power and Data
Find a circuit board, Say from a TV, Plug it in (VERY CAREFULLY) then find the Xtal (Crystal ) and you can probe that to see the signal that is generated from the Xtal
You can find a chip on a circuit board while powered up and probe the pins to see what signals come from it.
You could do this on an Arduino board with the Xtal of the arduino.
You could create an Arduino circuit that flashes an LED and then put the scope probes across the Led legs to see the change in voltage and what signal is coming off the Arduino pins
TO GET FAMILIAR WITH A SCOPE, You actually need very little, You could literally start with a 9V Battery and a Plug back that OUTPUTS AC, Say like 15V AC Output or something like that
and this will be safe because that plug pack will be floating
REMEMBER NOT TO PROBE ANYTHING ON THE HOT SIDE OF A CIRCUIT BOARD OR THAT IS MAINS REFERENCED.
I downloaded an app called Oscope. I have a very strong vibration coming through my apartment floor. It seems to be moving around and I cant tell what the Oscope reading is. Any way you could help me? I just want someone to look at the footage and tell me if it shows what my neighbor is doing to me. I cant tell. Cause I have no idea how to read it.
Im uploading a video to my channel if you can take a look at it and tell me if that shows the vibrations I would very much appreciate it. ty
Listening to it, it is a rather regular rumble rather than a musical beat. Is it possible that it's a large mechanical device? AC, clothes dryer, something like that?
@@CircuitBread There is No music coming from it at all. Just vibration. All the way up to my uterus! I have a second floor and I can feel it up there as well. I feel sorry for all the other neighbors around us cause Im 100% positive they can feel it too. Thank you for responding. He alternates with this rumble and a very high pitched screaming ear piercing sound as well. I guess he's causing everyone hearing damage. I had to buy professional ear protection ear muffs from Lowes. Worth every penny. He's gotta be damaging his own ears as well . Even if its up to the ceiling.
That is so weird! I remember the strange news about the US embassy in Cuba and the "sonic attacks" - I wonder if this is something similar.
Can you elaborate on a wave form generator?
Sure - it's something that creates a signal shape you want and can modify a lot of the other characteristics as well, such as frequency, peak to peak voltage, DC offset, and more. You can check out more detail on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary_waveform_generator
A.W.G. (Arbitrary Waveform Generator)
WAVE GEN (waveform Generator)
SIG GEN (signal Generator)
Now, some would say they are all the same thing, TECHNICALLY the first 2 are and the second does have a difference, However since you don't know what a Wave Gen is..... For now don't worry about it
In a nutshell, i'ts an instrument that creates (Generates) a Signal for you, As circuit bread stated, You can modify and have control over many aspects of the signal
EXAMPLES,
Say you're generating a
SINE WAVE
You can set it to a frequency, Say 1Khz, You could then set it to 1.001 KHz if you wanted to
You can set the amplitude to 1V or 5V or 10V if it was supported
Beyond that, You have other capabilities like adjusting the DC Offset
Also you could control the Phase Offset
However if it was a Rectangle wave, you would have the option of Adjusting the Duty cycle
or... they allow you to create your own custom wave and then generate that
as the name suggest
A Generator of Waveforms
0:20 hmmm it sounds like SOMEONE used a hammer and "the magic touch" (with their fist) to ajdust their Oscilloscope :P
Not a clue