**Using an Oscilloscope: A Beginner's Guide**

As a beginner in electronics, working with an oscilloscope can seem intimidating, but it's actually quite simple once you understand the basics. In this article, we'll take you through the steps to use an oscilloscope effectively.

**Understanding the Vertical Voltage Division**

When using an oscilloscope, you may encounter a situation where you're seeing around 500mV despite working with a logic voltage of 5V. This is usually due to a beginners' mistake and can be solved by simply choosing the correct scaling factor. The vertical voltage division on an oscilloscope allows you to adjust the scale to match your signal, ensuring accurate measurements.

**Horizontal Time Division**

In addition to vertical voltage division, understanding horizontal time division is crucial when working with an oscilloscope. By changing the time division, you can present your waveform in the best possible way. With a known time division, you can also calculate the frequency of your signal, which should be around 33kHz.

**Measuring Frequency and Rise Time**

Using a digital scope, measuring frequency is no longer necessary since they come with tons of measuring features, including frequency measurement. To measure the rise time of a MOSFET gate, simply hit the stop button, zoom in, and activate the cursor function. With it, you can select track waveform and get two cursors which you can move to the desired voltage value positions to determine the time difference between them.

**Voltage Ripple Measurement**

When measuring voltage ripple on a small boost converter, adjusting the offset of the signal and then zooming in can be a hassle. Instead, change the input coupling to AC, which adds a small capacitor in series to the input of the scope that only lets AC pass. This removes the offset voltage, and you can simply zoom in and use a measure function to find out that the boost converter comes with a ripple of 4.2V peak-to-peak.

**Capturing Charging Curves**

When trying to capture the charging curve of a capacitor, selecting single mode capturing will allow the scope to trigger as soon as the capacitor reaches the trigger threshold voltage, resulting in a lovely waveform which can be analyzed.

**Measuring Current**

Since an oscilloscope can only directly measure a voltage signal, measuring current requires either a current shunt or a current clamp. Using a current clamp is recommended since it's super simple to set up and easy to use.

**Working with Mains Voltage**

When working with mains voltage, it's essential to remember that it can lead to major injuries if not handled correctly. The RMS voltage value of our mains voltage is around 230V, which according to the datasheet of the oscilloscope is above the maximum rated input voltage. Using a scaling factor of 10:1 would decrease the voltage to 23V and because the probe can handle 300V RMS, we should be just fine.

**Using Differential Probes**

When working with mains voltage, using differential probes is recommended since their input and output are isolated from one another. This eliminates the risk of tripping a circuit breaker or damaging the scope.

With these basics under your belt, you're now ready to play around with your first oscilloscope and discover all its benefits without blowing anything up. As always, thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this video, consider supporting me on Patreon. Don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and hit the notification bell. Stay creative, and I will see you next time.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enSo I finally did it!I just built a crude but functional prototypeof a Switched Mode Power Supply that converts230V AC mains voltage into 5V DC.So let's hook it up and.Thank god.And as you can see nothing blows up and weshould be getting around 5V on the output,yes.But let me show you some interesting waveformson the oscilloscope......Hold it.....what I was about to do there isone of the biggest mistakes when working withan osilloscope which can lead to a lot ofdamage.So to make sure that you don't make such stupidmistakes I will tell you in this video everythingyou need to know when using an osilloscope.This includes all the basics like how to choosea scope and how to do simple voltage and currentmeasurements but also more advanced stufflike safe mains voltage measurements and FFT.Let's get startedThis video is sponsored by Brilliant!If you ever wanted to learn how to do Arduinoprogramming or computer programming in general,but were put off by the opaque coding language,then Brilliant is for you.By learning with the Algorithms Fundamentalscourse in which you shift around “pseudocode”,you will grasp a good understanding on howcomputer algorithms work without having todig through the weeds of coding syntax.If you want to try it out then go to Brilliantdot org /GreatScott and sign up for free.And the first 200 people that sign up foran annual subscription through this link willalso get a 20% discount.First off, let me tell you in one sentencewhy you would even need an oscilloscope.It visualizes a voltage and or current valueover time and since not only power electronicsnowadays get switched on and off repeatedlybut also data communication protocols withtheir ones and zeros, it is pretty essentialto see those waveforms when building or repairingelectronics.And with that being said let's get rid ofmy overkill oscilloscope that due to its price,pretty much none of my viewers own and insteadlet's focus on this more budget friendly optionwhich still costs quite a bit of money.Of course you can go even cheaper when buyingan oscilloscope but you should always considerthe amount of channels, the available bandwidthand the sampling rate when choosing one.The amount of channels is pretty straightforwardand determines how many voltage and or currentsignals you can have a look at simultaneously.I would always prefer a 4 channel scope becausethere are plenty of situations in which youwant to have a look at more than 2 signalsat the same time.Next the bandwidth describes the frequencyat which the input signal gets damped by -3dBmeaning its amplitude value goes down to 70.7%of its original value.As an example my function generator here producesa sine wave with variable frequency and asyou can see on the oscilloscope at the higherfrequencies of 80MHz the amplitude gets abit lowered.The reason is that the oscilloscope acts kindof like a low pass filter which not only dampsthe amplitude but also distorts for examplethe rise time which we want to avoid.So a rule of thumb is that my 200MHz scopecan handle one fifth of its bandwidth withease, so a signal with a frequency of 40MHzwhich is plenty for lots of applications.And while the bandwidth is more like an analogvalue, the sampling rate is a purely digitalone.It describes how many measurements the scopecan take in a second and let me tell you that2GSa/s is plenty.I also worked with lower sampling rate modelsand never got any problems even when we considerthat by using more channels the sampling ratesplits up.And with this knowledge so far you were ableto choose an oscilloscope that suits yourproject needs and you just unpacked it anddiscovered 4 of those probes.Those are passives probes and they are supereasy to work with; but let's not talk aboutwhy I only got 3 of them along with wrongprobe heads.To use them; simply hook up the BNC connector,select a scaling factor which is either x1or x10, attach your alligator clip to GNDand use the tip of the probe to touch thepoint of your circuit you are interested in.And just like that you see something on thescreen which we will trigger correctly ina minute but before that let me tell you thatthe scaling factor either decreases the voltagesignal by a factor of 10 or does not changeit at all with x1.But that means it comes with a lower resistanceand higher capacitance so the bandwidth wetalked about earlier is lower.That is why I always use x10 which guaranteesthe highest bandwidth.Of course we could talk hours about the impedanceinput of the scope and probes here but tokeep it simple let's skip that part and insteadlet's focus on our scope display.This is a classic example of wrong triggering.The trigger is used in order to create a stationaryimage of our periodic signal by capturingthe waveform at always the same point whichcan be for example a rising or falling edge.But by pressing the trigger button on thescope and selecting trigger type, we can seethat it can also be a certain pulse width,a pattern or a specific rise or fall time.But most of the time the edge option worksjust fine and by lowering the trigger thresholdvalue into the voltage region of our signalwe can see that we got a beautiful PWM signal......whosevoltage amplitude is way too low.As you can see my vertical voltage divisionis 200mV per division which you can by theway change by using the vertical knob.But anyway, my project works with a logicvoltage of 5V so why am I seeing around 500mV.This is also a beginners mistake and can besolved by simply choosing the correct scalingfactor.And since we talked about the vertical voltagedivision, we might as well also talk aboutthe horizontal time division which is rightnow 10us per division.But we can change it down and up as well inorder to present our waveform in the bestway.With the known time division we can also calculatethe frequency of our signal which should bearound 33kHz.But to be honest no one does this anymorewith digital scopes since they come with tonsof measuring features which of course includesmeasuring the frequency.And if you want to for example measure therise time of a MOSFET gate which describeshow long it takes the voltage to go from 10%to 90% of its intended value than simply hitthe stop button, zoom in and activate thecursor function.With it you can select track waveform andyou get two cursors which you can now moveto the desired voltage value positions inorder to determine the time difference betweenthem and thus get the rise time.OK, moving on to a different example in whichI now want to see how much voltage ripplethis small boost converter comes with on itsoutput while powering a load.Of course we could adjust the offset of thesignal and then zoom in but that can be ahassle.Instead we can change the input coupling toAC which simplified speaking adds a smallcapacitor in series to input of the scopethat only lets AC pass.This way we remove the offset voltage andall we have to do is zoom in and use a measurefunction in order to find out that the boostconverter comes with a ripple of 4.2V peakto peak which means the boost converter isdefinitely not suitable for this job.Now for my last voltage measuring exampleI want to see how this capacitor charges upbut as you can see with the current settingswe can not really capture that charging curve.Thankfully all we have to do is to selectsingle mode capturing.Now the scope will trigger as soon as thecapacitor reaches the trigger threshold voltageand just like that we got a lovely waveformwhich we can now analyze.At this point you probably already noticedthat a scope can only directly measure a voltagesignal.So in order to measure a current, we wouldeither need a current shunt or a current clamp.I actually talked about both of these methodsin my recent video about creating a DIY currentclamp so definitely check that out if youare interested.But in a nutshell I would always recommendsuch a current clamp since it is super simpleto set up and easy to use.And with that being said you should now befamiliar with all the basics when it comesto using an oscilloscope.So let's move on to the advanced section witha mains voltage example and like always Ihave to warn you that mains voltage can leadto major injuries if not handled correctly.But anyway the RMS voltage value of our mainsvoltage is around 230V which according tothe datasheet of the oscilloscope is abovethe maximum rated input voltage.But since we are using a scaling factor of10:1 which would decrease the voltage to 23Vand because the probe can handle 300V RMS,we should be just fine.And as you can see by touching a mains voltagepoint with the probe nothing explodes andall that is left to do is to hook up the alligatorGND reference to the reference point whichis the mistake you should definitely not do.You see this alligator clip is connected directlyto the PE wire of our electrical system throughthe BNC connectors.And by connecting the PE wire directly orpartly to the L or N phase of our electricalsystem we either trip the RCD in the bestcase or trip our circuit breaker in the worstcase which could potentially destroy somethinginside our scope due to a high current flow.To solve this problem we can use such differentialprobes whose input and output is isolatedfrom one another.This way we can hook up mains voltage withouthaving to worry about that something willget destroyed.Now of course when it comes to power electronicswhich is my specialty then the math functionalong with the FFT function is also prettyimportant but to learn more about that I wouldrecommend you to watch my video about allthe different kinds of powers forms that exist.With that being said you should now be readyto play around with your first oscilloscopeand discover all of its benefits without blowinganything up.As always thanks for watching.If you enjoyed this video then consider supportingme on Patreon.Don't forget to like, share,subscribe andhit the notification bell.Stay creative and I will see you next time.