Oscilloscope Essay

665 Words2 Pages

An oscilloscope is an electronic test instrument that is used to observe an electronic signal, typically voltage, as a function of time. In other words, it is a voltage versus time plotter. Oscilloscopes come in two basic types, analogue or digital, and support various features and functions useful for measuring and testing electronic circuits. An oscilloscope is a key piece of test equipment for any electronics designer.
To read a signal in an oscilloscope it includes the following steps: voltage measurements, time and frequency measurements, pulse and rise measurements and phase shifts.
Voltage is the amount of electric potential, expressed in volts, between two points in a circuit. Usually one of these points is ground (zero volts) but not always. Voltages can also be measured from peak-to-peak - from the maximum point of a signal to its minimum point. You must be careful to specify which voltage you mean. The oscilloscope is primarily a voltage-measuring device. Once you have measured the voltage, other quantities are just a calculation away.
You take voltage measurements by counting the number of divisions a waveform spans on the oscilloscope's vertical scale. Adjusting the signal to cover most of the screen vertically, then taking the measurement along the centre vertical graticule line having the smaller divisions makes for the best voltage measurements. The more screen area you use, the more accurately you can read from the screen.
Many oscilloscopes have on-screen cursors that let you take waveform measurements automatically on-screen, without having to count graticule marks. Basically, cursors are two horizontal lines for voltage measurements and two vertical lines for time measurements that you can move around the scree...

... middle of paper ...

...the amount of time that passes from the beginning of a cycle to the beginning of the next cycle, measured in degrees. Phase shift describes the difference in timing between two otherwise identical periodic signals.
One method for measuring phase shift is to use XY mode. This involves inputting one signal into the vertical system as usual and then another signal into the horizontal system. (This method only works if both signals are sine waves.) This set up is called an XY measurement because both the X and Y axis are tracing voltages.
An oscilloscope is an electronic measuring instrument that creates a visible two-dimensional graph, on a screen, of one or more continuously varying voltages or currents. To read a signal in an oscilloscope the following steps are taken: voltage measurements, time and frequency measurements, pulse and rise measurements and phase shifts

More about Oscilloscope Essay

Open Document