What did you do with or to your oscilloscope today? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: Unknown
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 23, 2020, 01:40:32 pm
content: Are you working on a project that required its use? Maybe troubleshooting a problem? Maybe making modifications to it? Post the detail and maybe some pictures/video's here.JohnnyG

author: newbrain
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2020, 03:59:50 pm
content: I pined for it...it's several thousand km away!

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2020, 04:35:56 pm
content: It's nothing really important, I was just using my Analog Discovery 1 to look at a stepper motor project on a Raspberry Pi. I had thought the AD1 was toast when I bought the AD2 but it turns out that it still works fine.What you see is 2 of the 4 phases of a 5 wire stepper. I could use my DS1054Z to see all 4 phases but there's no point. And then there is the 27" screen thing...

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2020, 05:13:13 pm
content: Not today, but recently...I am a huge fan of analog computing and Damped Harmonic Motion (same as RLC circuit) is a classic topic in second order differential equations.There are two different equations patched on that panel. The DHM problem is over on the left and uses just 2 of the 4 integrators.

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2020, 08:47:05 pm
content: I turned it on. It works!

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2020, 06:43:59 pm
content: Doesmeasuring a permanent magnetcounts if it was not today?

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2020, 07:02:54 pm
content: Turned the 7904A on to see if any signal was coming out of my new-to-me 5087A distribution amplifier. Discovered I had connected the 1PPS instead of the 10 MHz to the input while rearranging.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 24, 2020, 07:44:48 pm
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on April 24, 2020, 06:43:59 pmI like that one!

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 24, 2020, 08:46:02 pm
content: Quote from: DimitriP on April 23, 2020, 08:47:05 pmWish I could say the same. Turned on my Hantek DSO5102B and blank screen. Happened before and being lazy at the time, only replaced the bulging cap. Time to open it up again and order ALL the caps.

author: Dwaine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2020, 02:21:17 pm
content: Checked if my gpsdo Star4 10mhz square was still alive. Terminated into 50ohm.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2020, 03:01:19 pm
content: The overshoots looks very big for a properly terminated line, isn't it? Is that an artifact of the oscilloscope's probe, because of being overcompensated, or is it how the 10MHz signal for that particular GPSDO model really looks like?

author: Elasia
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2020, 03:06:14 pm
content: I will be unboxing a brand new Siglent SDS2000X Plus as soon as the mail truck gets here!

author: Old Printer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2020, 08:36:25 pm
content: And now for something a little differentFor the last forty years or so I have experienced "extra heartbeats" PVC's - premature ventricular contractions. It has been well diagnosed and monitored by cardiologists and is said to be harmless. I have been having an increased amount of them lately, and my wife, a RN (retired) said she would love to have a look at a ECG, she gets them as well. I ordered a small heart rate monitor board form Sparkfun for $20 based around the Analog Devices 8232 chip. It is pretty much some op amps and associated filtering which can output directly to a scope, or an Arduino. The day before it arrived the extra beats went away, as they often do, for several weeks, but showed up again yesterday. So I had a chance to hook it up and check it out. One look at the screen on my 1104X-E and she said, "yup, PVC's, you're fine" and went back to sewing face masks for family and friendsSo that's what I did with my scope yesterday.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2020, 08:46:36 pm
content: Blue Print button saves straight to a USB stick.

author: Old Printer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2020, 10:48:39 pm
content: Quote from: tautech on April 25, 2020, 08:46:36 pmAh, so no need to go through the save menu?

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2020, 10:51:36 pm
content: Quote from: Old Printer on April 25, 2020, 10:48:39 pmCorrect unless you need to save an inverted (white background) screenshot or in some other file type other than .png.

author: SilverSolder
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 12:29:40 am
content: I've been using my scope to find a way to determine the rotational position of the armature of a small electric motor while it is at speed. There is no way to mount an encoder anywhere... and the motor is sealed. What to do?On the scope, the top trace is the current drawn by the motor (monitored with a uCurrent Gold).The bottom trace is from a Hall sensor mounted on the motor to pick up internal currents in its windings as it commutates. It looks like a combination of the two waveforms can be used to determine the position reasonably well, so now I've got something to work with.

author: Old Printer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 12:35:31 am
content: SilverSolder, This looks interesting! Hope you will keep us posted or start a thread on your project.

author: Simon_RL
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 04:06:53 am
content: Used my Hantek DSO4254C (upgraded DOD4204C) to see if the upgrade of my Hantek HDG6082B had worked. Well the short answer is nope. Obviously I am going to need to do more than just edit the system.inf file. That worked with the DSO.After “upgrade” you can set the output to 200Mhz Sine wave, but that is not what is output, total crap actually. I found I could drive the bw as far as 89Mhz, then at 90Mhz the amplitude doubles but waveform is stable. Then after that everything turns to shit. Oh well, given I don’t currently need an FG/AWG further investigation of this hack will have to wait. Learning electronics is a far greater priority.On the upside I learnt a lot more about my scope and correct probing techniques. So it was not a total waste of time.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 05:09:54 am
content: Looked across the lab while I was letting the dogs out---------Yep, still there!Although the dogs sleep in the lab, neither of them is a "Lab".

author: keystone
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 07:50:07 am
content: Been trying to read the nvram contents of my TDS640A. So far, no luck. Also trying to get the service port connection to work with a cable. No luck.

author: wolfy007
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 08:37:10 am
content: Just powered everything on (everything works) and quick look at SigGen compared to GPSDO before I reconfigure the RF rack and equipment in it.

author: TomS_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 09:02:30 am
content: Quote from: newbrain on April 23, 2020, 03:59:50 pmMine too. Almost exactly the other side of the planet.

author: SL4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 26, 2020, 09:05:42 am
content: I moved house, the scope was one of the first to relocate.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 09:27:27 am
content: Pre delivery checked three different SDS1000X-E models, 2 of which required FW updates and the mandatory Self Cal's.Compensated probes for each too. Company stickers placed and back into their boxes.Booted the flagshipSDS5054XSDS5104X to check a menu for a post.

author: richnormand
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 06:09:34 pm
content: Seldom used: the X-Y mode of my Tek 7D20 plugin to frequency adjust and beat the 10 MHz output of a Morion double oven OCXO against a Trimble GPSO.Once the Lissajous pattern has stabilised it will stay put up with mHz... not bad at all.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 07:20:40 pm
content: For the XY mode, this Loch Ness monster!It's the I-U characteristic of a 45 years old photodetector from a former punched cards reader, when the photo detector in series with a 10kohm resistor is swept with a 18Vpp 1kHz triangle signal from a generator, while illuminated by a halogen light bulb.The tale of it is I was trying to find out if the photo detectors were photoresistors, photodiodes or phototransistors. Turned out to be NPN phototransistors with access only to EC, while all the E were tied together (E were the cases of each of those small glass dots lined up in that trace of solder), so one ground and 12 more wires from the C of each NPN phototransystor to optically read a full character at once, from a punched card, yes, with wholes, like this!(Note the line of characters typed on top of the card. Each column of punches encodes one character.)The picture of the punched card is fromhttps://vintageisthenewold.com/living-like-the-pioneers-code-fortran-in-a-punch-card/Their copyrights, if any, not mine.

author: richnormand
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 07:47:17 pm
content: Well that brings back memories!I spent lots of time with FORTRAN and assembly language on the IBM 1130 and 360s in the days.I still have the habit of having a small paperclip on my shirt pocket from spending hours at the keypunch and reader. Paperclip was used to unclog the card vacuum pickup arm...

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 08:29:50 pm
content: Quote from: richnormand on April 28, 2020, 07:47:17 pmMaybehttp://ibm1130.org/will bring back some memories!I built an 1130 in an FPGA about 12 years ago and I still use it from time to time for FORTRAN and the Plotter Library. I also have the IBM Circuit Analysis Program (ECAP) and the Continuous System Modeling Program (CSMP).I started using that system in 1970 and it remains a fond memory.

author: karamba
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 05:32:31 pm
content: Quote from: richnormand on April 28, 2020, 07:47:17 pmI also had a paper clip but for a different reason. I helped to fit punched out pieces back into the holes if we needed to fix something quickly. Yes that's how backspace worked back in the days. :-)

author: dxl
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 08:19:40 pm
content: Quote from: keystone on April 26, 2020, 07:50:07 amIs that on top of the scope your service port adapter cable? I think it's way to long. When i originally reverse engineered the console port, i used a 4" ribbon cable. Remember it's a processor bus running with several MHz on that cable.

author: blackdog
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 09:46:33 pm
content: Hi,These are the last measurements I took with my scope.It's the timing of one of the four pushbuttons that determine the range of a current transformer.The yellow trace is the switch pulse, this provides without delay all four reset coils of the bipolar relays with two coils.The blue trace is the pulse for the reset coils and is 20msec long, this is 3 times as long as needed and I find this a safe margin.Then there is a dead time of about 34mSec after which the green trace becomes low and the "set" coil of the selected range is energized.The timing is chosen in such a way that you can change range almost twice a second, but I don't see why I would want to do this so quickly..And this is the schematic, setup for using no power if no switch is used, it is for a battery powerd device.Kind regartds,Bram

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 30, 2020, 01:31:12 am
content: Quote from: karamba on April 29, 2020, 05:32:31 pmNot early computer oriented, but your comment reminded me of when we sent a daily report via Telex.To this end, we had a teleprinter & a tape reperforator.The normal method was to type up the report & produce a tape, then run the tape to send the message.There was a lot of stuff which didn't change day to day, so we would make up short tapes with such things on them, stop composing the day's message where they fitted, run the short tape & add the information to the daily tape (our setup could do that).We were pretty much doing "cut & paste" in an "old school" way.We were also required to keep each day's tape for several days, so along with the above mentioned "short tapes", it added up to a fairly messy pile of them on the desk.One of the guys became sick of this, & I came in to work one morning to find them all attached to the felt notice board with thumbtacks."Gee, that's neat", thought I, & didn't think anymore about it, until we tried to run one of the tapes, when we found a problem.Perforated paper tapes don't like having extra random holes added!For the tapes already removed from the board, it was a matter of taking them outside in the bright sunshine & looking for holes that didn't quite "look right", covering them with Sellotape, testing, then making a replacement.With the undisturbed ones, it was just a matter of marking them where the pin went through, then doing the "Sellotape" thing, & so on, but the whole process still wasted a couple of hours.

author: shakalnokturn
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2020, 02:16:39 am
content: Checking how much "bounce" there is on silicone/carbon keys makes me feel happy on a rainy night.

author: keystone
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2020, 07:50:55 am
content: Quote from: dxl on April 29, 2020, 08:19:40 pmYes, that's the console port cable I made. I got the cable that way from digikey. In the instructions for building that, nothing was ever said about length. I'll see if I can shorten it to about a foot and see what happens. Thanks for noticing that.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2020, 07:59:51 am
content: Quote from: shakalnokturn on May 01, 2020, 02:16:39 amWhat are "silicone/carbon keys" (for)?

author: shakalnokturn
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2020, 10:05:37 am
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on May 01, 2020, 07:59:51 amWhatever they're called... They are used as momentary push-to make switch contacts. Usually found on your TV remote control or Rigol DSO.Are they better known under other names?

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2020, 11:00:55 am
content: I misread silicone/carbon as being something aboutSilicon Carbidebased contacts, my bad, sorry.Sometimes I call them rubber cap keys, or flexible keyboard, no idea how they are really called.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2020, 03:29:10 pm
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on May 01, 2020, 11:00:55 amMembrane keypad.

author: Grandchuck
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2020, 03:34:59 pm
content: Took the recharging coil out of an old electric toothbrush and thought a look at the induced waveform might be interesting (and added an LED across the coil to see if it would light up). Obtained an interesting waveform! Yes it does light up as one can tell from the waveform.