Hi to all on EEV Blog, I'm fairly new to electronics but ive played and tinkered for many years gone, I know how to use a multimeter my math is good and my physics is good and I've finally decided to take the massive leap into electronics big time and hopefully take up a career in it in 5 years time after taking a degree course.
I've bought The Art of Electronics and the Student Manual and I'm starting to work through it but here lies my problem, I'm new to oscilloscopes and signal / waveform generators and no matter how many videos I watch I'm really just not getting it.
The book wants me to play around with making an RC differentiator circuit and analyse it on a scope with a square wave so I can see the charge and discharge curves and analyse the cycle.
So, I went online and got myself a Rigol MSO1104Z-S Oscilloscope with built in Waveform/Signal Generator, I lovely piece of kit and I must admit someone skilled will probably be drooling over it but to me it doesnt do much yet apart from show if something has a voltage or not, ive also looked at the Signal Generator by looping the output to the input with a BNC cable and switching it on so im familiar with zooming, panning etc... but not much more yet.
I have a Constant Variable Power Supply and lots of bit and bobs with a breadboard for testing.
So, I figured from the book and couple of other YouTube videos playing with capacitors () I get a 1k resistor and a 2.2uf capacitor connect the whole lot together as follows:
+5v ..... resistor ...(scope signal).(signal generator signal). capacitor ..(scope gnd).(signal generator gnd)... -
Now, I expected to see the oscilloscope as a nice square wave with a curve at the leading edge and to see this repeated over and over again.
However I dont see this, I just see the line go up to +5v then stay there still i switch off the power then it drops to 0v
I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong.
Do I need a voltage to drive the whole thing or will the signal generator charge the cap for me?
Why would the cap constantly charge and discharge as it says in my book?
Why can i see a square wave from the generator when i take out the capacitor but it disappears when i include the capacitor?
The book wants me to attach a 7.5k load to test later down the line, how on earth would I attach a 7.5k load to a circuit?
Am I out of my depth?
Should I be starting elsewhere with a different circuit to be familiarised with the oscilloscope better?
Sorry about all the questions, I'm a newbie so I assume its allowed?