Oscilloscope Course

Lesson 1 • Types of Oscilloscopes

Surveys analog, digital storage, mixed-signal, and PC-based oscilloscopes. Helps students select the right instrument type for a given task.

Lesson 2 • Safety and Handling Basics

Covers electrical safety rules, grounding practices, and probe handling to prevent injury and instrument damage. Reinforces safe habits before lab work begins.

Lesson 3 • What an Oscilloscope Does

Defines the oscilloscope's role in visualizing electrical signals over time. Establishes the conceptual framework for all subsequent measurement techniques.

Lesson 4 • Front Panel Controls Overview

Maps every major control group on a typical oscilloscope front panel. Students gain confidence navigating the instrument before powering it on.

Lesson 1 • Grounding and Connection Best Practices

Details ground lead length effects, ground loops, and proper connection points. Poor grounding is the leading cause of noise and ringing artifacts.

Lesson 2 • Active and Differential Probes

Introduces active probes for high-frequency work and differential probes for floating measurements. Students match probe type to signal environment.

Lesson 3 • Probe Compensation Procedure

Teaches the step-by-step compensation process using the built-in calibration signal. Uncompensated probes cause waveform distortion that invalidates measurements.

Lesson 4 • Current Probes and Specialty Probes

Covers clamp-on current probes, high-voltage probes, and logic probes. Expands measurement capability beyond standard voltage sensing.

Lesson 1 • Vertical Scale and Position

Explains volts-per-division settings, vertical position offset, and channel inversion. Proper vertical scaling maximizes amplitude measurement accuracy.

Lesson 2 • Horizontal Time Base Settings

Teaches seconds-per-division selection, horizontal position, and zoom functions. Correct time-base settings reveal signal timing and period accurately.

Lesson 3 • Multi-Channel Display Techniques

Manages simultaneous display of two or more channels with independent scaling. Students compare signals and identify phase and timing relationships.

Lesson 4 • Input Coupling Modes

Covers DC, AC, and ground coupling and when to apply each mode. Coupling choice determines which signal components appear on screen.

Lesson 1 • Trigger Noise Rejection and Coupling

Uses trigger coupling filters and hysteresis to prevent false triggering on noisy signals. Stable triggering on noisy lines requires deliberate filter selection.

Lesson 2 • Edge and Pulse Width Triggering

Applies edge triggering for periodic signals and pulse-width triggering for specific pulse durations. These are the most common trigger types in practice.

Lesson 3 • Trigger Fundamentals

Defines trigger level, slope, source, and holdoff and their roles in waveform stability. A stable trigger is the prerequisite for all accurate measurements.

Lesson 4 • Video and Protocol Triggering

Covers triggering on video sync fields and serial protocol frames. Enables stable display of composite video and embedded communication signals.

Lesson 1 • Automated Time Measurements

Measures period, frequency, duty cycle, rise time, and fall time automatically. Timing measurements are essential for verifying digital signal integrity.

Lesson 2 • Statistical Measurement Tools

Applies min, max, mean, and standard deviation statistics over multiple waveform acquisitions. Statistical tools reveal signal variability and long-term drift.

Lesson 3 • Measurement Gating and Reference Levels

Restricts measurements to a defined time gate and sets custom threshold levels. Gating prevents adjacent signal regions from corrupting measurement results.

Lesson 4 • Automated Voltage Measurements

Activates built-in measurements for peak, RMS, mean, and amplitude values. Students verify automated readings against cursor measurements for confidence.

Lesson 1 • Interpreting FFT Spectra

Reads fundamental frequency, harmonics, noise floor, and spurious components from the FFT display. Spectrum interpretation drives root-cause analysis of signal problems.

Lesson 2 • Power and Phase Measurements

Calculates instantaneous power using voltage-times-current math and measures phase difference between channels. Power analysis supports energy-efficiency testing.

Lesson 3 • Integration and Differentiation

Uses integration to derive charge or energy and differentiation to find signal rate of change. These operations extend oscilloscope capability into physics-based analysis.

Lesson 4 • Basic Math Channel Operations

Performs addition, subtraction, multiplication, and inversion on live channel data. Math channels enable differential measurements and power calculations.

Lesson 1 • UART and CAN Bus Decoding

Decodes UART baud rate, data bits, parity, and stop bits, and CAN identifier and data fields. These buses are ubiquitous in embedded and automotive systems.

Lesson 2 • Protocol Search and Event Tables

Uses search functions and event tables to locate specific decoded values across long acquisitions. Rapid event location replaces manual scrolling through thousands of frames.

Lesson 3 • I2C and SPI Bus Decoding

Configures the oscilloscope to decode I2C addresses, data bytes, and ACK bits, and SPI frames. Decoded overlays accelerate firmware and hardware debugging.

Lesson 4 • Mixed-Signal Oscilloscope Channels

Uses digital channels alongside analog channels on a mixed-signal oscilloscope. Simultaneous analog and digital capture correlates physical signals with logic states.

Lesson 1 • Long-Duration Fault Capture

Combines deep memory, fast waveform update rate, and zone triggering to catch rare intermittent faults. Systematic capture strategy reduces debug time significantly.

Lesson 2 • Eye Diagram and Jitter Analysis

Constructs eye diagrams from serial data streams and measures jitter components. Eye opening and jitter margins predict bit-error rate in high-speed links.

Lesson 3 • Reflection and Transmission Line Effects

Identifies ringing, overshoot, and reflections caused by impedance mismatches. Signal integrity failures at high speed are dominated by transmission line effects.

Lesson 4 • Segmented Memory Acquisition

Uses segmented memory to capture many short bursts efficiently without wasting memory on idle time. Burst capture enables statistical analysis of repetitive events.