Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The button at the front panel control is referred as softkey. The softkey, knob and
connection terminal is then grouped under few controls such as General control,
Channel controls and others as shown in figure 1.2. When any of the softkey is
pressed it will display softkey menu at the bottom of the oscilloscope screen as shown
in figure 2.1. The list of softkey menu with respect to the softkey pressed is shown in
figure 1.3. To select an option from the softkey menu , press the button right
underneath the softkey menu.
Figure 1.3: Sofkey menu with respect to softkey pressed
2. Screen of Oscilloscope
Figure 2.1 below shows the information displayed on the Oscilloscope screen.
Ground\zero reference of
channel 1
0V reference of the
screen.
Ground\zero reference of
Source Voltage Measurement Clear Next channel 2
1 2 Vp-p Vavg Vrms Meas Menu
submenu
Softkey Menu
Volt/div – value of the boxes on the oscilloscope screen vertically. The value can be
change using the knob labelled as Volt/div (at Channel control group)
Time/div - value of the boxes on the oscilloscope screen horizontally The
value can be change using the knob labelled as Time/div (at Horizontal control group)
Volt/div
Time/div
3.0 Operating the Oscilloscope
3.1 Probe attenuation factor
The proper attenuation factor needs to be set to get correct measurement. The factor is
depends on type of probe use. For BNC to BNC and BNC to crocodile (Do not used
BNC to crocodile for Oscilloscope unless no other probe is available) the factor is
1:1. For Oscilloscope probe is 10:1. For other kind of probe, refer to manufacture
documentation to get the right attenuation setting. The step to set the attenuation
factor is as follows:
3.2 Measuring the Voltage peak to peak, Vp-p (and other voltage measurement)
of a signal
To get Vp-p or other voltage measurement, the full waveform of signal must be
displayed on the oscilloscope screen (as in figure 3.1(a)). If not, the Vp-p
measurement cannot be done (as in figure 3.1(b))
a) b)
Used Autoscale * softkey, to get the waveform right or adjust manually using
Volt/div knob or adjusting the position of waveform up or down (refer to section 3.4).
After that, follow the step as stated below:
To get frequency measurement, the full waveform must be displayed (as in voltage
measurement) and must be at least one complete cycle (as in figure 3.2(a)). If not,
the measurement can’t be done.
a) b)
Figure 3.2: a) Full waveform with more than one complete cycle b) waveform is not
one complete cycle
Used Autoscale * softkey, to get the waveform right or adjust manually using
Time/div knob. After that, follow step stated below:
To move the ground/zero reference of channel 1 or 2, use the knob label as Position
(under the Channel control group)
When, the knob is turned, there will be a display at the bottom left of the screen
showing the reading of Position ( ). To make the ground/zero reference centres to 0V
reference of the screen, make sure that the Position ( ) reading is 0.00V.
3.6 Save waveform and display the saved waveform
1 1 2
1 2
+ve peak of
channel 2
Figure 3.5: Identifying the two peaks
5. Follow the two peaks downward until it intersects the 0V reference of the
screen (Figure 3.6).
+ve peak of
Two
channel 2
intersection
points
6. Use cursor to measure the time (∆t) between these two intersection points.
Steps to use cursor as follow:
Y2
Y1
4. Press Cursor softkey. Set the Y2 cursor to the top of the signal, and set Y1 to the
bottom of the signal. ∆Y is the 2B (refer 2B in lab manual) value (refer to figure 3.8)
5. Then, place Y2 cursor to the top Y-axis intersection and Y1 cursor to the bottom Y-
axis intersection.(refer figure 3.9). ∆Y is the 2A value. Substitute both value (2B and
2A) in suitable formula to obtain the phase.
Y2
Y1
The screen of the oscilloscope has 10 boxes horizontally and 8 boxes vertically. In
order to display the waveform properly, the waveform should not be clipped and must
at least have one complete cycle. For that the following condition must be satisfied.
1. Time/Div x 10 > Period of waveform
2. Volt/Div x 8 > Vp-p of waveform
10 boxes horizontally
8 boxes vertically
There are instances where, for waveform that has frequency more that 50Hz,
Autoscale has been used to get the proper waveform display. After measuring the
frequency or Vp-p ( or both) , the measured value is not the desired value. For
example, a sine wave with 10 Vp-p and 10 kHz need to be displayed and measured
accurately using oscilloscope. But, let say the initial measurement indicate the
waveform has 3.55 Vp-p and 30.30 kHz frequency (Figure 4.2(a)). The waveform
need to adjust by increasing the Vp-p and reducing the frequency.
In the process of increasing the amplitude ( Vp-p), the waveform will increase in size
vertically. There is a possibility that the waveform increase in size until it has been
clipped even though it has not reach the desired 10 Vp-p value (Figure 4.2(b)). Vp-p
measurement indication will show Not found. To solve this problem, increase the
Volt/div to reduce the size of the waveform and avoiding it from getting clipped
(Figure 4.2(b)). Once the waveform is full (not clipped) the Vp-p measurement will
appear again. Now, the amplitude of the waveform can be increase to reach the
desired value.
Vp-p (1) = 3.55V Freq(1)=30.33kHz Vp-p (1) = 3.55V Freq(1)=Not found Vp-p (1) = 3.55V Freq(1)=18.18kHz
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 4.3: a) Freq. is bigger than desired b) Waveform is less then one complete
cycle c) Time/div adjusted