You recorded this over 12 years ago and you helped me today (6/27/2023) to understand this capability. I was confused by the trigger offset setting but I understand it now. With your explanation and demonstration, it now makes perfect sense. I also gained experience with my waveform generator to properly set it to generate the burst pulses for the scope. THANK YOU!
A seasoned electronics tech (+15 years) I work with spend two days replacing IC's and parts to fix an "intermittent problem". It was just the holdoff a previous tech set. :) I learned what it does just by using scopes, especially when I needed to capture longer digital pulses. I'm one of those who refuse to use the auto-scale, unlike my classmates. I love your blog!
I've been using scopes - analog and digital, for years and never understood how to use Holdoff. I'm doing a circuit design analysis right now and I think Holdoff will remove the analog signal confusion I am seeing. THANK YOU!
Dave, ABSOLUTELY| FANTASTIC! The most useful thing I've learnt this month! MAGIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Rigol is on its way and already saving for that Agilent, that feels and looks incredible! VERY valuable lesson here, been troubleshooting my I2S interface the other day with my analogue 30MHz Hameg scope and it "does" the job, but this is 10000 times better mate, thanks for this keeeeeep them comingggggggggggg!
Excellent explanation! I just posted a question to the eevblog forums and they pointed me here - your example is almost EXACTLY what I'm trying to achieve. Keep up the great work!
Arghhh! It's exactly the kind of feature I needed for my project. Been searching for something like that in the bloody trigger menu for months without finding anything ( and it's in the horizontal menu of my scope actually). Thanks a lot.
Loved this episode! Just got my Rigol scope last week, never really used a scope before, so educational videos like this go a long way. I had this exact problem scoping a signal already, so it was great to know how to deal with it, other than hitting the stop button. :)
Hi, I just wanted to say thanks for posting these informative videos. I first watched your videos when I bought a multimeter based on your multimeter comparison video 3 years ago and now I am 1 year away from my BA in EE. Thanks for helping me understand along the way!
Thank you very much for you clear, motivated, kind and didactic explanation , it helped me very much for my Electrical Mesurement's exam. Greetings from Argentina!
Excellent video ! Thanks for taking the time to make it. On another note, an oscilloscope without triggering of some sort is extremely limited in what it can do. Thanks again.
Cool........i didn't knew that my cheap rigol DS1052E was able to do that...thanks Mr. Dave J. I hope you can make more videos explaining tricks like that, they are very useful.
wow great video, i learned a lot from this video it explains a lot when i see multiple waves on the scope and how i can fix it! i've been taking electronics since gr9 of high school, and no one have ever taught what that knob does! definitely something that should be taught tho Thanks!
March 2011 :( Why no more? I would love a whole beginners series! :) Love this guy, so much passion and a breath and depth of knowledge. Also as a American every saying he uses is the first I have ever heard it, just love it! :) Current favorite is "young players". N.B.-I know "young players" is not necessarily an Australian phrase, it just happens to be my favorite one at the moment.
+victormgv Check out Fundamental Friday playlist. Tutorial is another search term. You need to fossick around a bit to get all the lecture stuff. It's a trap for young players. :-)
Great video, always great to learn new stuff! Holdoff trigger was always a bit in the dark side for me:) BTW, that Agilent looks better and better every time I see it. Too bad that grey dealer Niatel in my country asks 4x regular US price.... Regarding the crickets, it instantly reminded me of warm summer nights, keep them on for every video:)))
"I think you choose very bad example to showing this feature" Give us the link to your uploads so that everyone will learn more effectively from your superior videos .
I learned all this info in on O-scope usage in C school in the US NAVY i was a IC 2 e-5 electronic tech on board submarines I used the scope to repair all the electronics on board . The bad part about the subs is you must use a isolation transformer or a bad way a cheater cord with no ground . I leaned that the hard way first time I used one in a Gyro switch blew the hell out of the first scope had to replace it during offcrew man those were the days.
So, basically each trigger is a horizontal scan line! The horizontal retrace is non-drawing time, which can be used to do computation. All the triggering (pre and post) are good for notifications via interrupts. This is just like software.
@truhlikfredy Holdoff time still matters on a signal like that. If you use time/div to enlarge the signal, for instance, you may get the end of the packet outside the first sweep, triggering a second sweep. Hold off can remove that second sweep properly, and then you can use a trigger delay to closely inspect any part of the signal you like. Of course, techniques like this matter more when you don't have a deep sample buffer.. and my scope is fully analog.
I find this feature usefull if a waveform has a lot of harmonics and I need to see it more clearly, it's allmost like I can ''tune in'' to the waveform.
I just taught a lab where students decoded IR remote control packets, would have been nice to have this tutorial to give the students - that looks like an IR packet in your example at 13:00.
I am a beginner. Could you do a video on what a beginner can do with a scope that would justify buying one. Maybe using Remote control transmitter or an old radio or something to show how or what you can do to trouble shoot small electronics with a scope. Maybe using a 100mhz or less (cheap to buy used). Thanks and I enjoy your videos even though some of it I don't understand as of yet.
Run your trigger in Single mode, instead of Normal or Auto. This should "capture" that pulse and let you move around it. (it only works with storage oscilloscope though)
Actually, I'll proudly say that I learnt how to use holdoff all by myself. I was probing a digital signal and got that typical jumble all over the screen and I thought "wouldn't it be good if there was a function that delayed the triggering" and then I loked at the panel. :)
@EEVblog Any kind data that they continue after sampling and the hold off time is during data transfers so it won't trigger. Showing the case where after sampling are none data and the hold off time is long precisely enough before the next data stars will I think behave the same, with, or without hold off. So showing on that case were it behaves exactly the same in both cases is not good. (I mean the drawn timeline, where you explain the theory)
hey dave I am a novice electronics junkie and new subscriber. I wonder if you would make a video discussing analog sinthisizers from the late 70s up to today and talk about how they work. I am a big fan of electronic music that is sometimes made with modular sinth components and think it would make a facinating episode. perhaps some gear such as moog sinths and such??
Hi Dave, very nice basic introduction to holdoff time. Yet, I have one question: If there's only 1 occurance of "digital pulses sequence", instead of repetitive sequences with a "modulation period" equaling the "holdoff time", how shall I capture the single sequence? Thank you!
@dave: thanks for all you efforts and videos. For advanced users this might be all boring, but for beginners it's really great to understand. Again: THANK YOU SO MUCH !! If there is a wishlist for your videos, I'd like to ask you to add following topics on oscilloscope ( :-) ) - "missuse" Oscilloscope as an logic analyzer - Triggering (video, pwm, etc) - what else interessting stuff can be done with an oscilloscope. (I got one tekway dst1062b, so I am wondering what all can be done with this..)
From what I understand, the trigger holdoff disables the trigger for a given period of time after the first trigger occurs. So the drawing and theory presented here are wrong. The holdoff time should be set to equal or slightly longer period of time than the packet length and not slightly shorter than the packet gap (no signal period) length as was shown and told in the video. Of course this would work best in normal trigger mode.
What he presented was right for analog scopes (maybe?), but not so relevant to digital scopes indeed. He got it right towards the end of the video, though.
Yes tzok83 is 100% right. The first part of the video, he specifically said to set to length of the idle period. But that isn't right. Dave does get it right at the end, as mentioned, but he should've gone back and reshot it or something. From the video, it looks like ideal range for the holdoff time would be between the length of time for a single packet up to and including the idle time before the next packet. Overall I found this a useful discussion, but you've got to make it to the end of the video to get the full story.
@0LoneTech Exactly, for instance the packet can be outside the sweep, and therefor drawing example where the packet is inside the sweep and after the sweep it won't trigger anyway is for me very bad example for hold off.. Is almost misleading.
You recorded this over 12 years ago and you helped me today (6/27/2023) to understand this capability. I was confused by the trigger offset setting but I understand it now. With your explanation and demonstration, it now makes perfect sense. I also gained experience with my waveform generator to properly set it to generate the burst pulses for the scope. THANK YOU!
A seasoned electronics tech (+15 years) I work with spend two days replacing IC's and parts to fix an "intermittent problem". It was just the holdoff a previous tech set. :) I learned what it does just by using scopes, especially when I needed to capture longer digital pulses. I'm one of those who refuse to use the auto-scale, unlike my classmates. I love your blog!
This geezer never uses autoset either 😊
I've been using scopes - analog and digital, for years and never understood how to use Holdoff. I'm doing a circuit design analysis right now and I think Holdoff will remove the analog signal confusion I am seeing. THANK YOU!
@neutron7 If one person learned something then I'm happy!
Never knew this. What an invaluable source of info EEVblog is. I will never forget this piece of info now.
Thanks Dave...You are the only one that takes the time to explain the value of owning an older Analog scope, where you had to wrap your brain around!
I finally understood it. It's such a simple concept, thanks man. You made it really simple!
G'day "multimeter Jones". I've watched dozens of your videos - enjoyed them and learned a lot. Thank you!
Dave, ABSOLUTELY| FANTASTIC! The most useful thing I've learnt this month!
MAGIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rigol is on its way and already saving for that Agilent, that feels and looks incredible!
VERY valuable lesson here, been troubleshooting my I2S interface the other day with my analogue 30MHz Hameg scope and it "does" the job, but this is 10000 times better mate, thanks for this keeeeeep them comingggggggggggg!
Excellent explanation! I just posted a question to the eevblog forums and they pointed me here - your example is almost EXACTLY what I'm trying to achieve. Keep up the great work!
Arghhh! It's exactly the kind of feature I needed for my project. Been searching for something like that in the bloody trigger menu for months without finding anything ( and it's in the horizontal menu of my scope actually). Thanks a lot.
hi David L. Jones, i really like the way u explain every thing so crisp clear, u rock and i will go through all your videos
Loved this episode! Just got my Rigol scope last week, never really used a scope before, so educational videos like this go a long way. I had this exact problem scoping a signal already, so it was great to know how to deal with it, other than hitting the stop button. :)
@Wizard4592 Yeah, sorry about that, really loud crickets. Didn't want to delay the shoot until they stopped chirping!
Hi, I just wanted to say thanks for posting these informative videos. I first watched your videos when I bought a multimeter based on your multimeter comparison video 3 years ago and now I am 1 year away from my BA in EE. Thanks for helping me understand along the way!
Thank you for this great tutorial, Dave! I did not know what and what for this function was in my oscilloscope but now I know.
Thank you very much for you clear, motivated, kind and didactic explanation , it helped me very much for my Electrical Mesurement's exam. Greetings from Argentina!
Not only have a I never used that knob, but I never even noticed it was there! Very cool!
Excellent video ! Thanks for taking the time to make it.
On another note, an oscilloscope without triggering of some sort is extremely limited in what it can do.
Thanks again.
Hi and thanks I finely find a verry good tutorial site ! It's hard to find sommething usefull on UA-cam !
many thanks for the simple and practical hands-on tutorial !!
Fantastic! I finally discovered my holdoff control when I was started playing with AM signals.
Cool........i didn't knew that my cheap rigol DS1052E was able to do that...thanks Mr. Dave J. I hope you can make more videos explaining tricks like that, they are very useful.
Excellent! Previously I have always used to use the start/stop or single sweep method. Thanks.
Oh wow, I learned about a function on an oscilloscope I never knew existed. Thank you Dave!☺️👍
@jeriellsworth The Agilent one is nicely and safely recessed. It can even be disabled in software to stop students cheating.
wow great video, i learned a lot from this video
it explains a lot when i see multiple waves on the scope and how i can fix it!
i've been taking electronics since gr9 of high school, and no one have ever taught what that knob does! definitely something that should be taught tho
Thanks!
Lovely. Thanks, Dave! An interesting feature, wonderfully explained. :)
Thank you EEVblog. I just got a scope and I was wondering how to see data packets. Now I understand how to use 'trigger holdoff'.
March 2011 :( Why no more? I would love a whole beginners series! :) Love this guy, so much passion and a breath and depth of knowledge. Also as a American every saying he uses is the first I have ever heard it, just love it! :) Current favorite is "young players".
N.B.-I know "young players" is not necessarily an Australian phrase, it just happens to be my favorite one at the moment.
+victormgv Check out Fundamental Friday playlist. Tutorial is another search term.
You need to fossick around a bit to get all the lecture stuff.
It's a trap for young players.
:-)
Thank you Dave! Great video! I really didn't understand the hold off on my Rigol until this video.
Used it to catch a responses from an I2C chip and was able to verify protocol between Master and Slave. Works great!
Another great, useful video! Thank you for spending your time and effort to educate.
Dave at his best. Nice vid.
Great video, always great to learn new stuff! Holdoff trigger was always a bit in the dark side for me:) BTW, that Agilent looks better and better every time I see it. Too bad that grey dealer Niatel in my country asks 4x regular US price.... Regarding the crickets, it instantly reminded me of warm summer nights, keep them on for every video:)))
Great class, Dave! Thank you
Love hearing crickets while the snow's falling here.
"I think you choose very bad example to showing this feature"
Give us the link to your uploads so that everyone will learn more effectively from your superior videos .
This really helps observing periodical I2C transmission!
Awesome video. Thank you ... I learned something new today.
I learnt something new today! Cheers Dave.
13 years old. Still relevant. Thanks!
That was a great example! I only use a small subset of the controls on equipment like scopes. One more knob I know how to usefully twiddle! :)
@ttk1opc Actual crickets!
Review of test gear + tutorials on using them. Three thumbs up!
I learned all this info in on O-scope usage in C school in the US NAVY i was a IC 2 e-5 electronic tech on board submarines I used the scope to repair all the electronics on board . The bad part about the subs is you must use a isolation transformer or a bad way a cheater cord with no ground . I leaned that the hard way first time I used one in a Gyro switch blew the hell out of the first scope had to replace it during offcrew man those were the days.
@EEVblog It's usually a big button that can be bumped easily too. Maybe it should be labeled "Nuke Settings"
So, basically each trigger is a horizontal scan line! The horizontal retrace is non-drawing time, which can be used to do computation.
All the triggering (pre and post) are good for notifications via interrupts. This is just like software.
@truhlikfredy Holdoff time still matters on a signal like that. If you use time/div to enlarge the signal, for instance, you may get the end of the packet outside the first sweep, triggering a second sweep. Hold off can remove that second sweep properly, and then you can use a trigger delay to closely inspect any part of the signal you like. Of course, techniques like this matter more when you don't have a deep sample buffer.. and my scope is fully analog.
Thanks. Much better explanation than my Tek manual!
Wow. Ive seen that jumbled mess fairly recently. Good video.
I find this feature usefull if a waveform has a lot of harmonics and I need to see it more clearly, it's allmost like I can ''tune in'' to the waveform.
Thanks Dave - You tought me something new
I liked this video. Another cool thing is external trigger.
Very good explanation. 👍👍👍
good vid Dave, u explained it well, more pls :D
Thank you Dave!
Thanks Dave. Good stuff .
Make one about External Trigger!
Wow, this could of really helped me in my project. I usually just stopped the trace to get a waveform :p
I just taught a lab where students decoded IR remote control packets, would have been nice to have this tutorial to give the students - that looks like an IR packet in your example at 13:00.
Interesting and informative. Great video!
I am a beginner. Could you do a video on what a beginner can do with a scope that would justify buying one. Maybe using Remote control transmitter or an old radio or something to show how or what you can do to trouble shoot small electronics with a scope. Maybe using a 100mhz or less (cheap to buy used). Thanks and I enjoy your videos even though some of it I don't understand as of yet.
Great video. thank you!
Useful for looking at RC ppm signals.
Thanks! I learned something today!
Run your trigger in Single mode, instead of Normal or Auto. This should "capture" that pulse and let you move around it. (it only works with storage oscilloscope though)
awesome, you taught me something, I have the same rigol thanks to you :)
Actually, I'll proudly say that I learnt how to use holdoff all by myself. I was probing a digital signal and got that typical jumble all over the screen and I thought "wouldn't it be good if there was a function that delayed the triggering" and then I loked at the panel. :)
@EEVblog Any kind data that they continue after sampling and the hold off time is during data transfers so it won't trigger. Showing the case where after sampling are none data and the hold off time is long precisely enough before the next data stars will I think behave the same, with, or without hold off. So showing on that case were it behaves exactly the same in both cases is not good. (I mean the drawn timeline, where you explain the theory)
Yep, always something new to learn or review. Let’s keep it going ......
I noticed that one of your playlist says Electronics Beginners guides although i only see one video in it and its pretty old considering the date.
nice video i learn something i did not now.
now i understand triggering well ,, and i have the same rigol thanks to you :D
I'd love to see something on eye diagrams. Great video.
hey dave I am a novice electronics junkie and new subscriber. I wonder if you would make a video discussing analog sinthisizers from the late 70s up to today and talk about how they work. I am a big fan of electronic music that is sometimes made with modular sinth components and think it would make a facinating episode. perhaps some gear such as moog sinths and such??
Hi Dave, very nice basic introduction to holdoff time. Yet, I have one question:
If there's only 1 occurance of "digital pulses sequence", instead of repetitive sequences with a "modulation period" equaling the "holdoff time", how shall I capture the single sequence? Thank you!
awesome I learnt something new!
Thanks 👍
From Nick Ayivor from London England UK 🇬🇧
@Gameboygenius Nice!
Thanks! Very helpful.
@dave: thanks for all you efforts and videos. For advanced users this might be all boring, but for beginners it's really great to understand. Again: THANK YOU SO MUCH !!
If there is a wishlist for your videos, I'd like to ask you to add following topics on oscilloscope ( :-) )
- "missuse" Oscilloscope as an logic analyzer
- Triggering (video, pwm, etc)
- what else interessting stuff can be done with an oscilloscope. (I got one tekway dst1062b, so I am wondering what all can be done with this..)
@truhlikfredy What example should I have used then?
Awesome , thank you .
From what I understand, the trigger holdoff disables the trigger for a given period of time after the first trigger occurs. So the drawing and theory presented here are wrong. The holdoff time should be set to equal or slightly longer period of time than the packet length and not slightly shorter than the packet gap (no signal period) length as was shown and told in the video. Of course this would work best in normal trigger mode.
What he presented was right for analog scopes (maybe?), but not so relevant to digital scopes indeed. He got it right towards the end of the video, though.
Yes tzok83 is 100% right. The first part of the video, he specifically said to set to length of the idle period. But that isn't right.
Dave does get it right at the end, as mentioned, but he should've gone back and reshot it or something.
From the video, it looks like ideal range for the holdoff time would be between the length of time for a single packet up to and including the idle time before the next packet.
Overall I found this a useful discussion, but you've got to make it to the end of the video to get the full story.
Thanks, good video. Learned a lot
how can I measure only one pulse coming out , having only 10 microsecond width.... signal is not periodic only one pulse is coming
What is that cricket like sound in the background?
Sweet!! I learned something.
what is blind time of analog scope....
so it's almost like digital debouncing of the trigger?
Love you man
I find it difficult to get my triggering to hold on my scope :o9
lol, why on earth i never use this knob.
very informative, thanks
@0LoneTech Exactly, for instance the packet can be outside the sweep, and therefor drawing example where the packet is inside the sweep and after the sweep it won't trigger anyway is for me very bad example for hold off.. Is almost misleading.
@EEVblog Too many of them are by the run/stop button. WTF?
crickets?
@Nermash x4 the US price really sucks :-( Can you import?
Thank you.
@truhlikfredy I believe this is an excellent example.