Oscilloscope. What is it?

[Professor Fudge]

What the heck is this Oscilloscope thingy?

So Its a piece of machinery that measures the wave forms created by a circuit right?

Why do you need wave forms coming out of a circuit? How do you know they are looking right?

If I had an oscilloscope how would I test some random circuit to see waves and stuff?

Yes I am a noob. I used google and wiki and stuff but I am still confused.

Why is this a must have tool for you electronic fellas?

[Kiriakos-GR]

The use of the Oscilloscope thingy, its part of the school training , of any electronics engineer.

So if you are not aware of it , it translates that you are not one of them.
Or not in the right age .
Or some one who just asking of curiosity.

Generally speaking , Oscilloscope its an device that you need to be trained so to use it.

With out this training , for the most people are just an box with an screen.   

[djsb]

All you need to do is buy one and teach yourself how to use it properly. There are books available to help and most of what you need to know can be picked up from experimentation. The idea that knowledge is restricted to the few and only available in Schools/colleges is distasteful to me. All you need is curiosity and the willingness to learn.

David.

[RayJones]

Put simply if you do anything more than DC switching in electronics you are dealing with some form of pulse or AC waveform.

The oscilloscope allows one to view the waveforms, ala signals throughout the equipment.
If these signals are incorrect, the equipment will usually malfunction, that is why it is invaluable as you can "see" where things go pear shaped.

As for knowing what to look for, that comes about by understanding what you'd expect to see, which in itself requires an understanding of how the circuit is meant to operate, and the usual signals applied/generated.

A dual trace oscilloscope allows you to view two waveforms simultaneously, which can provide valuable timing information / violations especially when dealing with digital circuitry.

As for going to school to learn how to use one, BAH, the best learning is done on your workbench at home, but always have due regard to safety and don't go probing things like the mains.

[Professor Fudge]

Hey thanks Ray. I'll just see if I can get my hands on a cheap one and mess around with it. So the design of the electronics is based around the wave form being proper? This is interesting. I have a lot to learn. Kiriakos-GR you typed a lot for not saying anything.  

[allanw]

I don't think you should be actively discouraging people from discovering more about electronics. We were all there at some point too. This is the beginners forum after all.

[DJPhil]

Welcome to the wonderful world of lights and dials!

The go-to document I've found most useful for beginning with a scope is Tektronix's Oscilloscope Tutorial. I've attached a copy, as it's faster than going to find a link.

The server's being wonky, found a link for the pdf here.

Keep exploring, and feel welcome to come back with questions!

[Professor Fudge]

DJPhil thanks!

After reading this primer, you will be able to:
Describe how oscilloscopes work
Describe the differences between various oscilloscopes
Describe electrical waveform types
Understand basic oscilloscope controls
Take simple measurements

Nice! This will help!

[Zad]

Shall I tell you the best way to learn how to use an oscilloscope? Make projects. Ones from magazines, ones you think up yourself, or ones you find on the internet. Preferably not projects that have most of the construction done for you. Then, you hope they go wrong and don't work first time.

Seems stupid doesn't it? Well you learn, and I mean REALLY learn how circuits work that way. You get a feeling of what voltages or signals to expect, and how things change when you play around. You don't need a 100MHz+ storage scope. If you are building stuff that works faster than 100kHz or so to begin with, then I suspect you have jumped in way too deep, and aren't going to learn much. Start simple, a single transistor amplifier, oscillator or perhaps a 555 IC based tone generator. Probe around the pins, compare them to the data sheet, change components. Just... Play!

[Professor Fudge]

Zad, that is my problem. I have purchased many kits from adafruit and sparkfun and so on. I put them all together with no problems and I really haven't learned much.

I think I need some parts to put together. I will be making a trip to Radio shack soon to see about getting a bread board and some resistors, caps and maybe a 555 chip.
 I don't know what a 555 chip does but if Dave puts one on a shirt it has to be good right??

I wish I had some friends that were into this. Good thing I found this forum!

[Simon]

if you want to learn then you need to start making your own things, buy a breadboard and some basic parts and start creating

[scorched]

I am new here but wanted to chime in, as someone who was deep into electronics, i can understand your need to move past soldering kits together.

So here is some reading material that us prior military electronics trained people have used to keep fresh.
This is the navy version which has a very comprehensive electronics training system.
http://www.tpub.com/neets/

Here is the module specific to test equipment, in here you will find out how to run all the equipment, and ch 6 covers oscopes specifically.
http://www.tpub.com/content/neets/14188/

you can read it all online or buy it in print or pdf.

cheers!

[Zad]

One thing you might like to consider is a school textbook. Here in the UK, our 16 year old school students take exams called GCSEs. Some are compulsory such as English, Mathematics etc, but others (such as electronics) are optional. GCSE electronics is a good starting place to learn about what components are, how they work, and how to connect them together to do useful things. I imagine the US has a similar exam, and it might be worth looking on Amazon (or local real bookshop) to see if they have any relevant books. The books are generally inexpensive and well written. There is probably something for 18 year old students too. Many project books don't have much theory (yeah I know it sounds boring) but it is something you need to understand before you can start really understanding electronics.

The 555 is a really useful chip, its main use is as an oscillator or timer. A handful of components allows you to flash an LED (or make 2 flash alternately). Change the component values, and add a loudspeaker and it makes a tone generator. Two things that get done quite a lot in electronics are making a beep and flashing lights, do the 555 is quite famous

[JohnS_AZ]

Can you still get the "555 Timer Cookbook"? It was by Don Lancaster, and published by Radio Shack back in the 70's. I think I built every circuit in the thing, and learned quite a bit in the process.

[Kiriakos-GR]

Kiriakos-GR you typed a lot for not saying anything.  

Thats Greek philosophy my friend ... at your culture translates to ... ask the right questions so to get an valuable answer.

Not to say that I disliked allot the " thingy " description,  used mostly from the ones who gets bored easily.
And the learning curve about this " thingy " , its truly large.


(Sorry for the delay to respond , the forum code technical issues , had cause to me an great deal of problems about finding the messages with new  reply's,  on time )

[Mechatrommer]

Kiriakos has some point through his "lots of typing". In my opinion, getting to know the basic knowledge first (ie Electrical and Electronics) then we will see a problem, and then a device will be needed to probe that, ie the Oscillloscope. If you are confused with something, you may be a little bit up there in the knowledge. try to move down a little bit, and that confusion may dissapear by itself. I mean learn the EE first, then it will automatically tells you whats the OSC is for.

same with multimeter (which my non EE frens stumbled with as well), we need to know whats the V=IR then we will have something to tinker with DMM.

IMHO.

[DJPhil]

Can you still get the "555 Timer Cookbook"? It was by Don Lancaster, and published by Radio Shack back in the 70's. I think I built every circuit in the thing, and learned quite a bit in the process.

Don Lancaster has a site where he's archived a huge amount of his old articles, and he still self-publishes a lot of his books that have gone out of print.

If you've never heard of Don Lancaster, I recommend starting with his bio and then checking the library. He's one of the greats!

He did a CMOS cookbook and a TTL cookbook (which has some 555 stuff in it I think), but nothing directly about the 555.
Are you sure you're not thinking of "The IC Timer Cookbook" by Walter Jung?

I also found the Forrest Mims mini-notebook series is still for sale. These are the ones I remember from Radio Shack, but they stopped selling them a while ago it seems.

[sonicj]

Zad, that is my problem. I have purchased many kits from adafruit and sparkfun and so on. I put them all together with no problems and I really haven't learned much.

chances are then, you already own a scope and just didn't know it!

Poorman's oscilloscope (with Arduino + Processing)

arduinoscope

Soundcard Oscilloscope

ladyada's simple scope probe

Cobracom - Waveguide

these all pretty much suck in comparison to the real thing, but there are plenty of applications where one of these scopes is adequate for the task at hand. you can learn most of the same functions of a real scope on one of these! plus, seeing the limits of a piece of test equipment first hand is likely valuable information as well.
-sj

[AvrFan65]

What the heck is this Oscilloscope thingy?

So Its a piece of machinery that measures the wave forms created by a circuit right?

Simple explanation: 
It shows you variations in a voltage over time, the time periode can be selected from microseconds to several seconds.
To give a more stable picture, it can be syncronized with the (repeating) variations of the voltage.

Jan

[scrat]

I'm struggled between saying Kiriakos is right and encouraging Prof. Fudge...

Knowledge curve sometimes follows strange ways...
I know an old man that learnt electronics mostly by practice. He worked in a dairy all of his life, but his passion for electronics (mainly tube radios) led him to work a lot on electronic stuff in his spare time, buy electronic kit magazines, etc. I must admit that he's very good at fixing many kinds of electronic devices (of course, especially old ones), and I can't figure out how he does this. He's far better than me (who studied electronics from school to university for about ten years, and work on it for a couple of years), demonstrating that there is at least another "layer" where knowledge can develop, far from school and near experience.
The very strange thing is that you can't ask him to make even a simple project on his own, and it seems to him complicated to use a pair of opamps or a Schmitt trigger...that's annoying and amazing to me at the same time!
I wonder if I could ever join a wide experience like this (with its capacity to practically solve problems) and my analytical approach to things and systems, supported by math and study. I know that a good formal knowledge opens mind to understand a lot of things, but I envy those who can fix problems and make things even without it.

So, ask questions, make your own experience, but also study the basis of electrics (V = R*I, as Shafri wrote)!

Can I give my definition of a scope, too? An oscilloscope is a device which allows to trace a two coordinates graph with time on the horizontal axis and voltage on the vertical, so that you can see how voltage varies during time (with some limitations). Something varying during time is called a signal.

P.S. Perhaps greek/latin culture make us rant a little too much, isn't it? 

[Mambo]

deleted - Tektronix XYZ of Oscillopscopes link already given

[jongs75]

You can play with this http://www.virtual-oscilloscope.com/.

It's fun !

[scrat]

Only to play with, or to make some experiments with waves at no cost (as long as you provide not to burn your soundcard) this page has a collection of software soundcard scopes (BTW, also into some distributions of Matlab there is one as an example).
http://www.tech-systems-labs.com/test-software.htm
Among other things it is possible to see how your music sound waves look like by picking up for example the line out signal or the microphone input. You could discover, for example, that a whistle coming out of your mouth is quite a good sine wave (and with the first of the softwares in the linked page you can do spectrum analysis, seeing how it seems to a single tone).

[Avionics_Guy]

In my opinion, the first thing to do as a real beginner is to learn about what is flowing through circuit components. Electricity.. Voltage and current.
Learn about AC/DC theory, learn about what voltage/current is, why it does what it does, etc. After you have a good basic understanding of AC/DC
then move up to components, learn about resistors, what it is, what it does, why it does it and so on, then Capacitors, diodes, transistors, inductors and so on. Then move up to Integrated circuits (IC's). Once you have an understanding of the components and how they work in
a circuit, then you can create something like what was suggested, a NE555 timer circuit. Build a LED flasher, use the scope to see what the current and voltage all be it Signals are doing in the circuit. Start simple and work your way up as you learn and understand the circuits you are building.
Get data sheets on the components your using and like what was said, compare the signals and voltages to the datasheet. Dont go too fast, study and experiment till you have a firm understanding of what the circuit is doing and why.

All the things and ideas i have mentioned here are easily found with Google, if you Google AC/DC theory you will get a number
of web sites that will walk you through it. Youtube is another means, people tape seminars and schools teaching electronics theory.
Look on the web for a good book on AC/DC theory, as was posted, the NAVY pubs have a wealth of info on them.

And don't forget, always ask questions, there are NO dumb questions.

Dave

[Professor Fudge]

Scrat, thats how I am right now. I am a problem solver. I can fix electronics, replacing components to make it work again. I just recently wanted to get more into and actually find out whats going on and find out how everything really works.

I bought a little digital storage oscilloscope kit and put it together and I am measuring all kinds of stuff. Its the one made by JYETECH.com. It is really interesting and the tektronix xyz helped out a lot in understanding this whole thing.