English Reading

Introduction:

In this lab we learned how to familiarize the vibrations and signals that are basically can be found everywhere in life like The vibrations of the string of a guitar for example produces sound, pressure waves in the air. This lab was mainly about learning how to use the oscilloscope step-by-step and learning how it functions. Throughout this experiment we investigated two types of signals, which are the periodic signals and the transient signals.

The periodic signal is the sound of a vibrating string produces a periodic voltage in the microphone. If the time period of the signal is T then the waveform repeats every period T. The periodic signal is characterized by its time period T or frequency. Moreover, the transient signal is the signal when there may be long periods of time when nothing happens and then suddenly you get activity for a moment and then nothing again. An example for a transient signal can be a heart beat pulse, or it can be an earthquake monitor. The equipment used for this lab are the oscilloscope and the signal generator.

The first part of this lab was about the XY mode of operation, and measuring DC static voltage. The first step was to turn on the scope and wait for it to boot up, then, without attaching any wires, we set the scope to XY mode and set both CH1 and CH2 to 1 Volt/Div. After that, we connect the battery to CH1 input, and we set the battery to 1.5 Volts. We noticed that the yellow dot on the screen would jump 1.5 Volt to the right along the x-axis. We then do the same thing but with CH2, and we notice that the yellow dot jumps up 1.5 Volt on the y-axis. If we connect it to both CH1 and CH2, we will notice that the yellow dot would jump up 1.5 Volt and go to the right 1.5 Volt also.

For the second part of this lab, we dealt with signal generator and using it as an input for CH 2 of our oscilloscope. After following the instructions provided in the manual we first can notice a sine wave on the scope. We then change the Time/Div on the scope to 1 second. We then moved on to change the waves into triangular and square waveforms. After we finished this experiment we became more familiar with the most important settings of the oscilloscope and signal generator.

Conclusion:

This lab taught us how to use the oscilloscope and learn how it functions. The scope mainly shows two types of signals, which are periodic signals and transient signals, which were discussed in the introduction. The oscilloscope is considered as the most useful instrument available or testing circuits because it allows you to see the signals at different points in the circuit as a function of time. The best way of investigating an electronic system is to monitor signals at the input and output of each system block.