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Other Basic Electronics, Multimeters, & Oscilloscopes

This thread is about basic electrical, electronics, Multimeters, and Oscilloscopes. It is an outcome of interest that various members have expressed about these subjects.

@Janger , @Johnwa , and @kevin.decelles have all recently obtained a starter Oscilloscope so I think the timing is good for a thread like this.

The primary resource will be a book (available on Amazon in paper or kindle) called Electronics for Dummies by Kathleen Shamieh. The book isn't a requirement, but it always helps to have a reference of some kind to facilitate discussion. Other references might get added as the thread progresses.

I'm not picturing this thread as a course, just a good place to ask questions, find answers, and share knowledge and experience about basic electrical knowledge and testing.

As always, a good time and lots of great jokes are expected!
 
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terry_g said:
I bet there is a very interesting story as to how that happened.
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All I can tell you is that the guy I got it from was selling bicycles after studying electronics at a community college. Looks to me like he had taken a soldering iron to the plastic parts on the front panel! I actually replaced a number of the knobs to make it look better. It was a long time ago. I was desperate for a scope and it was almost free ....
 
slow-poke said:
Small comment about scopes and ground for novice scope users.

Almost all mains powered scopes use a EARTH grounded plug and that ground extends to the BNC connectors for the scope probes and ultimately to the small alligator clips that attach to the probes. For safety sake the ground should NOT be defeated!

All this to say that when connecting your probes to a circuit you need to be aware that anywhere you decide to connect those alligator clips to will be grounded via the scope. In some cases introducing a ground is okay and other times this could cause problems. If you don't understand the circuit, it would be unwise to simply connect and see what happens.

There is a trick when you really need to scope a point, and don't have a known safe ground point for. Use differential mode on the scope; connect one probe to the point of interest, and the other to a suitable reference point for that point and connect the two alligator clips to each other. In differential mode the scope will display the difference between the two probes and you don't introduce an inadvertent ground into the circuit.

There is a better way to probe circuits that are either high voltage or can't be grounded and that is to use a isolated differential probe (very handy, I use them all the time).

These use to be expensive years ago, but not anymore. Here is an example:

https://www.amazon.ca/Micsig-DP1001...locphy=9000664&hvtargid=pla-584521275992&th=1
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With some of the electronic test gear I got there were two isolation transformers. One is what looks like a regular transformer. 1:1 ratio. The other is a fancy looking "medical grade isolation transformer". Are either of them of any use when using an oscilloscope?
 
Upnorth said:
With some of the electronic test gear I got there were two isolation transformers. One is what looks like a regular transformer. 1:1 ratio. The other is a fancy looking "medical grade isolation transformer". Are either of them of any use when using an oscilloscope?
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Isolating a scope with an isolation transformer is not a good idea. Beyond the safety issue introduced, the oscilloscopes power transformer can be damaged by fast and high voltage spikes. It's just a bad idea to run a mains powered scope ungrounded.
 
Ok, an educational scope question:

If you apply a 1Vp-p, 100MHz square wave to both your 2465B and 1014D how do they compare?

That's a picture I would like to see;-)
 
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slow-poke said:
Ok, an educational scope question:

If you apply a 1Vp-p, 100MHz square wave to both your 2465B and 1014D how do they compare?

That's a picture I would like to see;-)
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I don't have a 100MHz signal generator so I'd have to make something to do that. Which I'm not gunna do.

But I'm guessing that you already know what's gunna happen.... We would see it on the Tek, and it would be non-existent on the 1014.

I don't think anybody buying a 1014 cares. I bet they wouldn't care at 50MHz. 1MHz would be of interest.
 
slow-poke said:
Isolating a scope with an isolation transformer is not a good idea. Beyond the safety issue introduced, the oscilloscopes power transformer can be damaged by fast and high voltage spikes. It's just a bad idea to run a mains powered scope ungrounded.
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Hoe Boy. Here we go.

I can agree with that in the specific case of mains scopes with a grounded plug. Don't defeat it. Understand the issues and learn to deal with them.

But lots of Scopes today are designed to run without the ground pin. I can't provide a link, but I recall a technical paper that focussed on the fact that groundless Scopes have become more and more popular as the years go by. Perhaps deliberately so for all the reasons you outlined earlier.

The 1014 and 1013 are groundless dual trace Scopes. Bonus!

No offense intended, but I think it's better to focus on the pluses of using a scope than the negatives in this thread. Some basic cautions are obviously appropriate but not if they scare everyone. It's my opinion that those with an interest in learning to use some test equipment and doing some basic electronics already have a reasonable sense of electrical safety. We can reinforce that going forward but I'd suggest we do that within reason and with a primary focus on the positives.
 
Borrowed the third ed. of the Dummies book from my local library this morning. I see next to nothing here about using scopes? Are newer editions that much different?
 
Canadium said:
Borrowed the third ed. of the Dummies book from my local library this morning. I see next to nothing here about using scopes? Are newer editions that much different?
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I confess I never did anything beyond looking at the index.

But even if there is nothing there, we need the electronics as a foundation for using a scope and can refer to the circuits with help from the scope pros on here.

I'll look at my copy shortly.
 
slow-poke said:
Ok, an educational scope question:

If you apply a 1Vp-p, 100MHz square wave to both your 2465B and 1014D how do they compare?

That's a picture I would like to see;-)
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I went out into my north field and spent a chunk of the morning pulling mature curly dock. Then I did a quick dunk in the hose to cool off.

SWMBO is gone for the day so I felt a strong urge to play and my curiosity got the better of me. I didn't know what frequency the signal generator supported. I assumed it might be 100KHz and perhaps 1MHz. So I hooked it up. It is 10MHz clean as a whistle with no voltage loss! Shockerooo!

20230717_101730.jpg


Clearly, this also demonstrates that the scope is good to at least 10 MHz too!

I also tried the other wave forms, which all looked good but with reduced frequency limit of 2MHz - I'm not shocked. Square waves showed some corner rounding but totally usable. I'm not even sure it's the Signal Generator. The output lead for the signal generator is plain unshielded wires, so sorta worst case too. Plenty good enough for Arduino projects
Sensor circuits, and basic problem investigation.

YUP NICE SCOPE! VERY IMPRESSED! I don't care what others say, this thing is a great first scope for new users!

Somebody better tell the hairy scope collector guy not to buy one for himself!
 
Canadium said:
Borrowed the third ed. of the Dummies book from my local library this morning. I see next to nothing here about using scopes? Are newer editions that much different?
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I checked out my Kindle Version just now. You are right, they are only mentioned here and there. However, they are covered about as well as I hoped in the online resources section for the book.

Such is the world we live in! Even when you get a book, they drag you back to the internet! LMFAO!

No worries either way. There are more than a few folks on here that are more than willing and quite able to walk you though almost anything you encounter.

Here are a few of the links to articles in the on-line resources.

Displaying Electrical Signals on an Oscilloscope - dummies

An oscilloscope lets you look at an electrical signal by displaying how a voltage varies with time as a trace across a display. The vertical axis voltage indica
www.dummies.com www.dummies.com

<b>Measure Electronic Waves: How to Calibrate an Oscilloscope</b> - dummies

An oscilloscope is an incredibly useful tool to have on your electronics workbench. Unfortunately, oscilloscopes are also expensive, costing at least a few hund
www.dummies.com www.dummies.com

Measure Electronic Waves: How to Use an Oscilloscope - dummies

The basic procedure for testing an electronic circuit with an oscilloscope is to attach the ground connector of the scope's test lead to a ground point in the c
www.dummies.com www.dummies.com

<b>Measure Electronic Waves: Waveforms Seen on an Oscilloscope</b> - dummies

There are four basic types of waveforms that you'll run into over and over again as you work with electronic circuits. Waveforms are the characteristic patterns
www.dummies.com www.dummies.com
 
Chicken lights said:
These worth scooping? It's amazing how the universe works some days
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Back in the day, I'd have arm wrestled for those.

Today, not so much. There are really good ones available for a song today. Eg the one that comes built into the 1014D. But many others.

If he only wants a song for them, they are prolly worth it just for the parts or the basic functionality. But I wouldn't pay more than about $10 each.
 
Chicken lights said:
These worth scooping? It's amazing how the universe works some days
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Actually, I take that back. The bottom two will modulate the frequency output with an audio frequency. That easy to do with a small circuit but it's nice to have it built in. They would be fun to play with but still not worth big bucks. I'd give $20 for each of the bottom two.
 
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