The Control Functions of Oscilloscope

Objectives
At the end of this chapter, the students should be able to:

describe the basic control functions of an oscilloscope. practice their knowledge in using an oscilloscope to display various electrical signals.

Introduction
The Oscilloscope is nothing more than just an instrument for displaying electrical signals in the TIME domain. Meaning that, you can view waveforms on it.
Some of the uses of the scope may not be obvious but if you already possessed one, then you will most probably regard it as the most useful tool on your workbench. So, what is actually an oscilloscope?
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Basic Oscilloscope
A basic Oscilloscope is as shown below.

Basic Oscilloscope
The basic controls are:
Bright To adjust the intensity of display. Focus To adjust the focusing of display. Grat (Graticule) To illuminate a scale used to measure a trace. Trigger To select a trigger source. Trace To select which trace is to be displayed.

Basic Oscilloscope

Timebase To select the speed which the trace moves across the tube face. Input Level- To adjust the input level. Pos (Position) To set the position of the trace on the display.

Brightness
This is self-explanatory, it controls the intensity of the display. It is well worth remembering that one cannot execute screen-saver programs on an oscilloscope, so leaving the scope with a high brilliance will certainly burn the trace into the tube face. If you must leave your scope switched ON for any length of time then turn the brilliance control down.
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Focus
The focus control is also quite selfexplanatory but most "scopes" seem to adjust a single spot from a short horizontal to a vertical line. A single horizontal line is therefore not the best waveform to adjust the focusing, this is best done whilst viewing a waveform.

Trace
Selects which trace is to be displayed. There are usually two or more selections possible: A - Selects trace A only (single channel).
B - Selects trace B only (single channel). A+B - Selects both trace A and trace B (dual channel). ADD - Both channel inputs are added and displayed as a single trace.

Timebase
The speed the spot travels across the screen of the tube may be varied by means of the Timebase selector switch. This is calibrated in Seconds (S), MilliSeconds (mS = 0.001 seconds) or MicroSeconds (uS = 0.000001 seconds).

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Conclusion
We have learned at brief about the control functions of a basic oscilloscope.

Various control buttons on the oscilloscope serve their own purpose in control.

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