Measurements with an Oscilloscope

Goal: To learn how to make basic measurements of voltage and period using an
oscilloscope.

Lab Preparation

This lab is an introduction to the use of the oscilloscope to measure time-

dependent electrical signals. The oscilloscope is a widely used laboratory
instrument for observing time-dependent electrical signals. It is, in essence,
electronic “graph paper.” While some may regard it as the domain of the
electrical engineer or mad physicist, it finds wide use in a variety of engineering
and laboratory settings wherever events occur too rapidly for the human hand to
record or the eye to follow without some assistance.

The first encounter with an oscilloscope is often an intimidating event.

Oscilloscopes first seem to have an infinite number of controls. In most
circumstances the controls you need to use are few in number. Most people who
use oscilloscopes regularly become familiar with the details of the equipment
only with extensive use and practice. Be patient and carefully watch the effects
of each control as you adjust the various knobs and switches. Remember, even
experienced oscilloscope users encounter difficulties when faced with a new
model. Just finding the power switch can be a challenge.

Equipment

Modern digital oscilloscopes measure the input signals at regular time intervals
(the sampling rate) and pass those values on to the display electronics, so what
one sees on the display is a snapshot of the signal. Important controls are
grouped by function. The two most important groups are the horizontal controls
and the vertical controls (Figure 1). The horizontal controls, or timebase settings,
specify what total time interval the snapshot of the signal represents, or how
much time one horizontal division on the screen represents. The vertical controls
set the voltage scale for measured signals - how many volts one vertical division
represents. The most common adjustments are made using the control knobs in
the respective sections of the front panel. More options are provided through on-
screen menus. A two-channel oscilloscope is also capable of displaying two
different input signals simultaneously.

While the scope has some fancy built-in measurement capabilities, all
measurements must be done by examining the displayed waveform and
applying the horizontal and vertical scale settings to find amplitudes, periods,
etc. For this lab we use just the basic features and build up the ability to interpret
the waveforms in terms of the horizontal and vertical scales factors.

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 Horizontal (time)
scale control
MENU and display Freeze a single sweep
SELECTION
BUTTONS Access timebase menu Recall
(X-Y mode or Y-T mode) preconfigured
TURN OFF MENU setup

DISPLAY HORIZONTAL
MAIN
RUN/STOP

AUTO
ON
SCREEN SAVE
VERTICAL RECALL
MENU
1
AREA TRIGGER
1 2
MODE
COUPLING

HORIZONTAL LEVEL
CH 1 SCALE CH 2 SCALE
TIMEBASE BNC
INPUTS

Ground/Zero
Reference point Vertical Probe Adjust
Enables/disables position CH 1 SIGNAL output signal
(adjust with vertical Vertical scale
display of CH 1, INPUT
position knob) control and brings up on-screen
display for
menu for CH 1
channel 1

Figure 1: Main features on front panel of a digital oscilloscope

Important settings of the oscilloscope are presented at the bottom of the display
area. In particular there will be the vertical scales or sensitivities (volts per
division of the grid) for each channel and the horizontal or time base scale (in
seconds per division). Other settings are changed by pressing one of the keys
and working through on-screen menus.

Display of signals applied to channel 1 or channel 2 can be enabled and disabled

by pressing the corresponding numbered keys in the vertical controls section.
The vertical sensitivity or scale factor (volts/division) can be adjusted by the
knob above the numbered key. The horizontal scale or timebase setting
(seconds/division) is adjusted using the knob on the left of horizontal controls
section.

The RUN/STOP button provides a way to freeze the display with the most
recently collected data. This is useful if the signal is noisy or the display seems
‘jumpy’ and hard to see a good reproducible result.

On-screen menus can be closed and the full signal display restored using the
small round button above the menu selection keys at the immediate right of the
display.

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Pressing the AUTO key causes the scope to adjust its horizontal and vertical
settings to ‘optimal’ values for the input signals. Sometimes this works nicely;
often it leads to settings that are completely inappropriate for the signals you are
studying. If you use this button, you must always look at the vertical and
horizontal settings at the bottom of the display area to see what the scope has
selected, and then ask yourself if they are reasonable for what you are doing. If
you use the AUTO key and don’t see anything that makes sense, try returning to
a known set of reasonable choices by recalling a pre-set configuration. To do this
press SAVE/RECALL !and select STORAGE SETUPS on the on-screen menu!.
Make sure that Setup no. 1 is selected and press the LOAD menu key followed
by menu off button. This restores settings appropriate to the start of the
experiment. Make adjustments manually from this point.

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Procedure

I. Basic controls.
The first step in becoming familiar with the oscilloscope is to use it to
observe a known signal and observe the effects of various controls. The
oscilloscope provides an internally generated signal. This is normally used
to calibrate special adapters used with the scope. For our purposes it
provides a convenient signal with known frequency and amplitude.

Frequency is defined to be the number of cycles completed in 1 second and

is routinely given the unit of hertz (Hz). A frequency of 60 Hz means 60
complete cycles are executed in one second. With oscilloscopes one
measures the period of a signal: the time required to complete one full cycle,
and then uses the relation between frequency f and period T to find the
frequency of the signal: f = 1/T.

Use a coaxial cable with a BNC connector on one end to connect to the
scope’s channel 1 input and an alligator clip to connect to the upper PROBE
ADJUST contact (see Figure 1). The convention with BNC cables is that the
red lead is the inner conductor of the coaxial cable and BNC connector, while
the black lead is the outer conductor, which is to be connected to the
electrical ground. The outer conductor of the BNC input of the scope is tied
to the scope’s ground internally. The alligator-clip end of the ground wire
(black) can be left floating (unconnected) for this part. Turn on the
oscilloscope and hook up the signal from the PROBE ADJ to channel 1.

A. Observe the pattern displayed on the scope. Try adjusting the vertical
scale control and the vertical position for channel 1 and note the results.
Try adjusting the time-base (horizontal) scale control and the horizontal
position as well.
B. For a time base (horizontal) setting of 500"s/div and a vertical setting of
2.0V/div carefully sketch the waveform displayed.
C. Determine the amplitude of the wave. To determine the amplitude of the
wave, first measure the amplitude of the wave in divisions by using the
waveform on your screen (measuring the total vertical height and
dividing by 2 is best way to do this). After the amplitude is found in
divisions, calculate the amplitude in volts by using the vertical setting on
the oscilloscope.
D. Determine the frequency of the wave. To determine the frequency of the
wave you will first need to find the period of the wave. Recall the period
of a wave is the time for one complete cycle. Similar to finding
amplitude, you can find the period in divisions and then convert to
seconds using the time base setting. Once the period is found determine
the frequency.
E. Repeat parts B through D for a time base setting of 500"s/div and a
vertical setting of 1.0V/div.
F. Repeat parts B through D for a time base setting of 200"s/div and a
vertical setting of 1.0V/div.

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II. Determination of an “unknown” frequency.
Sound is a periodic variation in the pressure and density of air (or other
gases or liquids). A tuning fork produces a fairly pure sinusoidal pressure
variation (if not struck overly hard) at a well-defined frequency. A
microphone or speaker can be used to convert the pressure variations of the
sound wave into a varying voltage that can be measured with an
oscilloscope. Devices such as the speaker or microphone that convert
mechanical variations into electrical variations are called transducers.

A. Connect the scope, the microphone, and the microphone amplifier box to
observe a sound wave. Plug the microphone in to the amplifier box and
run a coaxial cable from the amplifier box into channel 1 on the
oscilloscope. Make sure the microphone amplifier box is plugged in.

Hit a tuning fork with a rubber mallet and put it next to the microphone.
You will most likely have to adjust the vertical and horizontal
sensitivities to get a wave on the screen. By hitting the RUN/STOP
button you can capture a waveform on the screen for closer inspection.

B. Determining the frequency of the tuning fork. Before determining the

frequency of the tuning fork. Answer the following questions with your
lab partners.

1. To achieve the greatest precision in finding the frequency

f = 1/T, does it make any difference to set the scope to display
approximately one complete cycle across the screen and measure
the period directly for one cycle, or set the scope to display several
complete cycles and measure the time for N cycles, dividing the
measured time by N to find the period of one cycle?

2. Is it better to choose as a reference point for your measurements the

top (or bottom) of the waveform or the point where the waveform
crosses zero?

Once you've answered these questions, calculate the frequency of your

tuning fork (show all of your work). Make a sketch to scale of the
observed waveform for your tuning fork.

Compare the frequency you have measured with the one stamped on the
tuning fork.

C. Measure the frequency of a different tuning fork and compare to the

frequency stamped on the tuning fork. You do not need to make a
sketch.

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III. Phase measurements.
Two signals may have the same frequency, but reach their maxima (or
minima) at different times. Such signals are said to differ in phase. Figure 2
shows a typical display of two signals out of phase. The period of the
waveforms is T and signal 2 reaches its maximum by an amount of time ∆t
after signal 1.

t T
1
2A2
2A1

Figure 2

A. Hooking up the Circuit. You have an AC voltage source in the form of a

small transformer that plugs into a standard wall socket and a phase shifter
“black box” (a box that contains unknown components and labeled "Low
Pass RC Filter") that will cause the waves to differ in phase. Use the
provided connectors (BNC tees, coaxial cables, etc.) to connect the voltage
source to both the small metal box’s input BNC connector and channel 1 of
the scope. Use channel 2 of the scope to observe the output of the box (you
will need to turn on channel 2). See Figure 3 to help set this circuit up.

TRANSFORMER
AC SOURCE
1 2

TEE
IN
PHASE COAX
SHIFTER CABLES
OUT

Figure 3

B. Use the Oscilloscope to help determine the amplitudes and frequency of

the two signals.

C. Make a careful sketch of the display from which you made your
measurements.

D. Use the Oscilloscope to carefully determine ∆t. Clearly display your

calculations.
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IV. X-Y mode and Lissajous figures.
No introduction to the oscilloscope would be complete without some exotic
(and often confusing) displays in the form of Lissajous figures. For this part,
the horizontal axis of the scope is controlled by the voltage applied to
channel 1 (X) and the vertical axis is controlled by the input to channel 2 (Y).

Getting into X-Y mode (CH1 determines X and CH2 determines Y) requires
accessing an on-screen menu. Press the MAIN/DELAYED key in the
Horizontal section of the controls to bring up the on-screen menu for time-
base settings. Then press the Time Base menu key until it displays Time
Base X-Y. Follow the same procedure to restore normal operation via Time
Base Y-T. NOTE: You will need to adjust the timebase setting (seconds/div)
whenever coming back to Y-T mode from X-Y.

A. Hook-up the output of the function generator to channel 2 (use the

output 50 Ω) and connect the transformer to channel 1. The function
generator provides a signal of variable frequency and amplitude while
the transformer provides a steady 60 Hz signal.

Switch the scope out of X-Y mode and adjust the amplitude and
frequency controls of the generator to produce a signal of about 60 Hz
(put the function generator scale on 100), with approximately the same
amplitude as the AC signal attached to channel 1. Once this is done, hop
back to X-Y mode. Slight adjustments of the frequency of the function
generator should produce a pattern that seems to “rotate” slowly. Adjust
the function generator to make the pattern change as slowly as possible
and sketch the pattern. (RUN/STOP is helpful in freezing the display,
again.)

B. Try frequencies of 30 Hz, 90 Hz, 120 Hz and 180 Hz on the function

generator. Again adjust the frequency control to achieve a (nearly)
stationary display and sketch for each case.

C. Try find one additional Lissajous figure by adjusting the function

generator. Make a sketch and record what frequency was used. How
does this frequency relate to the other frequencies that were used?

Before you leave: Restore your scope to a reasonable set of default settings
for the next lab:! press SAVE/RECALL, then select STORAGE SETUPS on
the on-screen menu. Make sure that Setup no. 1 is selected, and press the
LOAD menu key, followed by menu off button.! This restores settings
appropriate to the start of the experiment.

*When finished with your lab clean up your lab station. Make sure you put all
of your wires away.

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