We’re about to look at three quick oscilloscope hacks you can start using on your scope today.
Stay tuned.
Hi, I’m Daniel Bogdanoff and I thought I’d take a quick minute to cover three oscilloscope
hacks that I use on a regular basis.
I feel obligated to point out that these are hacks in the sense that “life hacks” are
hacks – they’re tips & tricks, not replacing appendages or something like that.
Try this life hack, replace your left hand with a cyborg arm attachment!
Anyways, here are three of my favorite scope hacks:
Number 1, keyboard shortcuts!
With benchtop scopes, most people use the front panel to control scope.
Some of you probably use a remote interface – graphical or programmatic, but you’re
in the minority.
For those of you who physically sit in front of the scope, or at least nearby, you’ve
almost certainly had a moment where you couldn’t quite reach the Run or Stop button.
That’s where a keyboard comes in handy.
For this scope, you can use F5 for Run, F6 for stop, and F10 for single!
If you want to go to the next level, you can even get a little USB or Arduino board and
create a footswitch or custom keyboard.
If you want to play around with that, there’s code in the comments.
Many higher end oscilloscopes have a full suite of keyboard commands built in.
If there are keyboard shortcuts you’d like to see, let us know in the comments!
Number 2, custom profiles You can save custom profiles using setup files.
Setup files are easy to create, you just set up the scope the way you want it, and save
off the profile.
This is super useful if you’re sharing a scope and don’t like how your cube-mate
leaves the scope.
Or, if you have a couple of main tasks you use the scope for, you can save a profile
for each task.
For example, you could have a setup for protocol decoding, a setup for power testing, a setup
for mask testing.
This is especially useful if you want to name channels, are using probes or cables with
custom attenuation settings, or have an annoying cubemate.
If you have a community scope, you can also save your setup profile to a flash drive and
keep it from getting deleted or overwritten.
Number 3, pushable encoder knobs This is a big one that a lot of people don’t
know about.
If your scope has pushable encoders behind your front-panel knobs, there’s a good chance
you can do this.
Pushing a knob automatically zeros out or centers that control.
For example, pushing the Ch 1 offset knob centers that channel around 0.
Pushing the horizontal offset knob centers your trigger point on screen.
My favorite is the trigger level knob – a push will automatically sense the peak-to-peak
voltage of the signal and set the trigger point to 50%.
It’s a quick, easy way to get a preliminary trigger setup.
For some of the knobs wouldn’t make sense to zero them out or center them, like the
Volts-per-division knob and the time-per-division knob.
Pushing these will toggle the knob sensitivity between course and fine adjustments.
So there you have it, three quick oscilloscope hacks that will hopefully save you some time
in the lab!
If you like this video and want more like it, hit the like button and let us know in
the comments.
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We generally have a new video each Tuesday and 10 AM mountain time.
I’m Daniel Bogdanoff, thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time!