Hello,
I am more or less a complete beginner with electronics and I am getting started with learning the basics. So to understand my context I am not necessarily designing anything right now, rather I am reading The Art of Electronics and I want to go through examples, build basic circuits on my breadboard, and investigate and study them with my oscilloscope.
I have watched Dave's video (Dave if you are reading, thank you so much for this great video!), here about
How to Not Blow Up Your Oscilloscope here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1136&v=xaELqAo4kkQ&feature=emb_logoI want to make sure I am taking the best safety precautions I possibly can before I begin my studies. The power supply I have is this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Tekpower-TP3005T-Variable-Linear-Alligator/dp/B00ZBCLJSYIn order to avoid blowing up my oscilloscope and getting hurt (in the context of what Dave's video was mentioning about not causing a dead short to ground), I believe that for my purposes and for the tools I have, I need to make sure to
not connect my circuit-under-test to the green ground (Earth) pin on my power supply, but rather only utilize the black and red pins. This way, my CUT is isolated and floating, and the dead short to ground phenomenon will not occur and I will be safe to use my oscilloscope probes anywhere on the circuit and not necessarily be concerned with the placing of my ground lead of my scope probe.
However, I believe I also need to make sure that when I use multiple scope probes to investigate my CUT, I need to make sure they are all in reference to the same point.
I am so grateful you for your time inaddressing my following concerns:
- Am I understanding this correctly?
- Is there anything else I should do?
- For my purposes, do I need to purchase an Active Differential Probe? or Isolation Transformers? Based on my purposes and if I always make sure my CUT is not connection to Earth, I believe from the video I am understanding that no, I do not need these things but I would like to be absolutely sure.
- Also, am I safe to assume that my power supply will not somehow be connected to earth ground even when not using that green ground pin? I tried my best to purchase a highly rated power supply so I am thinking that concern about that would be paranoia. But I like to inquire to professionals about that, as always.
I really appreciate all of your responses and look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time and for your experienced insight. I learn a lot from this great forum!