bloki said:
Or you are just too lazy.
If you weren't so busy bullying walters, you'd know that he is new to electronics and is just looking to get started on the basics here. The disrespect and cynicism on this board is getting out of hand again, and personally, that's why I quit coming here a few months back. Next time you need walters to convince yourself you're
not a loser, kindly "get off his nuts" as we say in America and keep it to yourself.
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To answer the question: yes a digital oscilloscope
can provide those measurements and in fact, there are virtual instrumentation programs that can export those parameters directly to a PC. Generally though, you don't need them because they are extremely easy to calculate using only your eyes and maybe a 4-function calculator. The scope I use most often is the HP 54600B with an IEEE 488 bus for virtual instrumentation, and it's loaded with all the features. They also give a pair of horizontal and vertical lines (cursors) that essentially act as yardsticks for more accurate time & voltage measurements. To summarize the parameters you mentioned:
period - Zoom in/out until you can see 1 full wave cycle. The period is: end time - start time.
duty cycle - You usually only see this associated with rectangle waves. The duty cycle is the percentage of the time the wave is high. If you're rectangle wave is imperfect and has a noticebe rise/fall time, you measure from the points where the wave is at 50% peak voltage. Otherwise, you measure from rising edge to falling edge, and so on.
pulse width - Same as duty cycle except it's expressed in seconds instead of a percentage.
time constant - The meaning of this varies. Generally, you see this term associated with a source-free RC or RL systems, which implies you're watching an exponential decay. My scope does not measure this explicitly but you can measure it like I did in the "Discharging Effects" thread.
rise times and fall times - For pulse trains, the rise time is the time it takes for the signal to go from 10% to 90%. Likewise, "fall time" is the time to get from 90% to 10%.