An osciloscope allows me to measure scalars that vary with time , such as frequency ,period

,amplitude , etc. they can help for example, analyze why my 555 timer circuit isn't working.
Oscilloscope is just a measurement device.

Basics of Osciloscopes: the main purpose of an osciloscope is to graph electrical signals that
vary with time. Most scopes produces a two dimensional graph with the x-axis as time and
the y-axis as voltage.

Example of digital oscilloscope display: the graph below shows an electric signal which
describes voltage versus time graph.

The controls around the scope help me resize the graph, adjust it , focus it , stabilize it and
also set triggers( a specific time when to start measuring ) and other small things.

The be more specific , besides adjusting the graph, oscilloscopes can measure both time
based scalars/characteristics and voltage scalars/characteristics:

Timing based characteristics:

* Frequency and period – frequency is defined as the number of time something repeats
itself in a second ( for example, the number of times a graph repeats itself in a second) ,and
period is defined as the time it takes a thing to repeat itself ( for example , the time it takes
a graph to repeat itself ). ( the time is the reciprocal of the frequency ) , most scopes can
measure frequency in the scope of Mhz.( 1E6 Hz)

*Duty cycle – duty cycle is a percentage of the period , which tells me ( the percentage ) how
long a signal is on or off ( positive or negative , there are both negative and positive duty
cycles – 'on' means positive , 'off' means negative) . For example , a lamp that turns on for
1/2 sec and turns off for 1/2 sec has a duty cycle of 50% , the equation of duty cycle is :

, where T is the total period of the system and 't' is the amount of time which some
signal is on/off ( for example , the total period of the lamp is 1 sec , and the amount of time
it's on is 1/2 , so the duty cycle is 1/2 , this means , the lamp is on 50% of the time.
Duty cycle helps me know how long something is 'on' versus how long it's 'off' in each period
*Rise and fall time – Signals can't instantly go from 0V to 5V , they have to smoothly rise. So ,
the duration of a wave going from a low point to a high points is called ' Rise time ' . And 'fall
time ' measures the time it takes a signal to fall from a high point to low point . ( so both
measure the opposite ) . these characteristics are important to know how fast a circuit can
respond to signals.

Voltage based Characteristics:

*Amplitude – Amplitude is the magnitude of the signals , peak to peak amplitude is the
absolute difference between the highest peak in the signal and the lowest peak in the signal
, while peak amplitude is the difference between the highest peak in the signal and the
horizontal line ' v = 0 ' ( in the case where 'y' axis is 'v' ). Root mean square amplitude is just
amplitude/√2 ( peak amplitude , not peak to peak ). by this characteristic I can
know the highest and lowest voltage of the input signal.

Bandwidth – bandwidth specifies a range of frequencies , the bandwidth of

oscilloscope specifies the range of frequencies the oscilloscope can measure.

Channel Amount – Osciloscopes can read different frequencies and feed them into
different views on the display ( each different view is called a channel ) , 2 to 4
channels on a scope are common.

Sampling rate – this value is unique for digital oscilloscopes , this says how many
times per second a signal is read. For scopes that have multiple channels , this value
may decrease if multiple channels are in use.

Maximum input voltage – scopes have maximum input voltages ( obviously )

Rise time – the oscilloscope can measure the fastest rise time of a pulse/signal it can
measure , this can be measured by 'rise time = 0.35/bandwidth '

Vertical sensitivity – this value expresses the maximum and minimum value of the
vertical voltage scale on a piece of block at the scope.
Trace- graph plot , example:

Example : here, the trace is starting at 3V , 3V is the peak voltage ,

Time base – time base indicates the sensitivity of time on a square on the
oscilloscope. Example:

Here the peak voltage is 3V , ( the trace starts at 0 v) , each vertical square means
1V ( in this case , the vertical sensitivity is 1v ) , each horizontal square is the time
base, in this case , let's say each horizontal square means 0.002 sec , so , since the
function repeats itself every 8 horizontal blocks, the period of the function is T = 8 *
0.02sec = 0.016 sec

On the scope , where the keypads are located , the vertical section controls the
voltage scale on the display. ( remember, the vertical crossing means voltage and
the horizontal crossing means seconds , on the oscilloscope display ) , there are
traditionally 2 buttons on this section – a button that allows me to control the vertical
position and another button that controls the value of volts/div ( I.E. volts per division)
The volts/div knob , allows me to control the voltage scale of each square. A smaller
scale , means that the each vertical section represents less voltage , and this will
make me " zoom in " into the function.
The position knob controls the offset of the graph of the function on the 'v' axis.
 Using these two buttons , I can easily "dive " more into the graph and
"zoom in/out" , for example to look at cusps of the graph.

The horizontal section of the scope controls the time scale. , like the vertical section ,
traditionally , there are two buttons in the horizontal sections – vertical position (
offset ) and seconds/div ( I.E. seconds per divison ).
The seconds/div knob rotates to increase decrease the value of seconds per division
( square ) , I'll be " zooming in/out " on the time scale.

Using the position knob , I can offset the graph on the 't' axis.

Using these horizontal system , I choose how many periods of the function I want to
see.

Trigger system:

The trigger system is used to stabilizing/focusing/starting the graph displayed in the

oscilloscope . The trigger tells the oscilloscope , what parts to "trigger" on of the
signal and to start measuring. For example , if the graph is periodic, I can 'trigger' the
signal to make the graph static and not moving.

The trigger section of the scope is composed of … .

the 'level trigger' can be used to trigger on the specific voltage point at which I'll start
measuring.

There are variety of trigger types which tell the scope how the signal is triggered:

- An edge trigger – this is the most basic and common form of trigger. It will tell the
oscilloscope to start measuring when the signal passes through a certain voltage
level.

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The probes:

Using the oscilloscope:

When I boot the oscilloscope, I should put the osciliscope into standard mode:

-Turn channel 1 on and all the other channels off.

-Set channel 1 to DC coupling

-Set the trigger source to channel 1.

-Set the trigger type to rising edge

-Make sure the scope probe attenuation is isomorphic to the real probe.

When probing the circuit, If the scope displays a jumpy signal , try to attenuate the
trigger knob. Just make sure that the trigger isn’t higher than my max waveform's
voltage level.