Difference between revisions of "Oscilloscope"

Latest revision as of 20:38, 7 June 2007

An oscilloscope is an instrument used to measure the oscillation of signal voltage. It outputs the measurement in the form of a sine wave measured on a graph, with the horizontal axis representing frequency within a unit of time, and the peaks of the vertical positions representing the amplitude.

construction

the basic oscilloscope or O'scope is made up of 4 components.

• power supply. the power supply supplies the various voltages needed to operate the oscope, it does not provide the power to the circuit under test.
• horizontal oscillator. in the basic oscope this is nothing more that a variable frequency ramp generator. this part of the oscope it very precise and sweeps the beam across the face of the oscope from left to right.
• vertical amplifier. this is where the signal to be measured is applied. it is a high gain, high bandwidth amplifier. it must be capable of amplifying microvolt signals to the 90 or so volts needed by the CRT. it also must be able to amplify from DC to greater than 6 megahertz.
• crt. this is the part that displays the waveform. by applying the swept signal from the horitontal oscillator to the horizontal deflection plates and the vertical signal to the vertical plates the waveform can be seen. the CRT used in oscopes are the plate variety as compared to the coil variety in television. the reason being the greater bandwidth requirements of the oscope.