what does an Oscilicscope do for an electronist?
I dont see alot of benefit out of using it, but it is yet still being used alot by electronics experiments, especially, with workshop stuff?

Muhammad89

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To an electronic technician or an engineer, an o-scope is the most vital tool. They give you the ability to measure voltages, frequencies, duty cycles, viewing waveforms(s) in relation to another and visually seeing the waveform, or "picture" of the waveform so noise and other anamolies can be addressed. A technician could not effectively troubleshoot a digitally based board without it. Engineers, likewise would not be able to do their jobs without one. The list goes on for the uses of this very important tool!

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If you don't even understand what use an oscilloscope is, how did you get accepted at University? - I'm presuming it's an electronics course?.

It's the sort of thing you should cover at school, about 13 years old, in Physics if nothing else.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscilloscope
https://www.cs.tcd.ie/courses/baict/bac/jf/labs/scope/
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c...torial&spell=1

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perhaps not yet, but soon - very soon!

 

Ask yourself, "what is the benefit of measuring voltage?". This is what an oscilloscope does, measure voltage. It shows the result of the measurement in an extremely easy to understand form, that is, a graph of voltage vs time. This is so easy to understand and so useful to see that the oscilloscope is probably the most essential tool in the electronics laboratory, second only to one's brain.

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RadioRon

 

Between an oscilloscope and a spectrum analyzer, all your questions will be answered before you ask them.

A DVM makes a lot of assumptions to come up with a single number that represents what may be a complicated waveforrm; with the instruments above, there are no assumptions.

The less computing power between you and the circuit node, the better.

 

For me troubleshooting a circuit problem, an oscilloscope is akin to the windscreen in a car or driving at night with the lights off.

just one example of how a scope can be useful, we have some vicor dcdc converters that have a sync signal(PR pulse) to enable current sharing in parallel arrays. Problem was they would not start if the load was high & the input volts was low(within spec). Turns out the amplitude of the PR pulse was too high (thats what we were told) so the initial fix was to load the RX end of the transformer coupled signal to dampen things out a bit.
My point here is looking at a signal with an oscilloscope we can see what is going on.

examples below TX pin, RX pin before & after resistor addition.

Attached Images

	PR-1tx.gif (7.1 KB, 7 views)
	Pr-3.gif (7.9 KB, 5 views)
	Pr180r-2.gif (7.3 KB, 4 views)

 

Perhaps the learning/teaching methodologies are country dependent. Icam now 62+, having worked for many years in electronic and electrical servicing in Indian telecom scenario ever since 1966.
Incfact the oscilloscope was introduced to us as a principle in 1963-54 in B.Sc final year, that too without actually allowing us to operate it--those days. we could only see an operational demo. luckily for me most learning happened due to facilities in telecom.
Having worked for telecom Training centres for few years, i had my superiors, who openly stated that the trainees should be allowed to handle any equipment and testers, even if they are likely to spoil them. He commented , it is good he spoils it at training point, rather than in field and trobles the public services.
Of late , my feeling ofcourse, with due respect to student community, is taking life easy and passing out engineering degrees. Vast expansion of educational institutions, i only wonder whether the Lab facilities ate upto the mark?and whether the Lab technical support is as expected to be.

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I work with a lot of digital circuits. The oscilloscope shows me the waveforms being generated. A fast scope (say 100Mhz) will show you the rise and fall times and ringing, which can sometimes be the cause of woes. You can see several waveforms at once on dual/quad/multiple input scopes, and see how waveforms relate to eachother. This is vital for troubleshooting and design work.

I wanted one since I was 12 but had to wait quite a while longer before getting one. There are some very good PC based products on teh market now with excellent specs and lowish price. You need a scope like you need oxygen.