My Scope is Here!
Jan. 12th, 2018 07:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogOn Thursdays, I get home from work around 4:30 or 5:00 and leave for the shelter around 5:30. But I was so excited that, since I usually get to work 15 minutes early anyway, I left at 3:15 instead of 3:30 so I had a little more time to look at my new toy.
Between eating, changing, and giving Piper a little walk, I unboxed my scope and set it up on the table. It's so pretty! Oh, I'm all excited even just talking about it!
I got it plugged in and, to cover my bases, made sure that the voltage selector was set to 110/60hz. It wasn't immediately obvious how to turn it on: the button says Line Off/On and I originally thought it meant the screen trace. But with some experimentation and referencing Michael Geier's book (which I've probably read cover-to-cover three times now, getting more out of it each time), I got the scope up and running. I was able to lock onto and view the 1 volt square wave from the calibration terminal. The terminal is a little dirty and oxidized and the connection wasn't great at first; I was worried there might be something wrong with the scope, and I'm a little doubtful about the wire in the probe itself too. Still, all seems well in the end!
The screen is so pretty when it's operating! I keep thinking of all the beautiful analog circuitry and mechanical linkages in there, older than me and doing their precise, exacting job. I'm really glad I'm starting with an analog scope instead of a digital one.
The next thing I'm going to do with it is open up my Sherwood S-8900A receiver and start scoping signals to see why one of the output channels is flaky. Well, maybe that's the second thing. The first thing is to find a worktable to put this thing on. Very soon now, we'll have confirmed the bugs are *all DEAD* and we can start unbagging and sterilizing the stuff that's all over the floor in the spare room to make some space for it.
Between eating, changing, and giving Piper a little walk, I unboxed my scope and set it up on the table. It's so pretty! Oh, I'm all excited even just talking about it!
I got it plugged in and, to cover my bases, made sure that the voltage selector was set to 110/60hz. It wasn't immediately obvious how to turn it on: the button says Line Off/On and I originally thought it meant the screen trace. But with some experimentation and referencing Michael Geier's book (which I've probably read cover-to-cover three times now, getting more out of it each time), I got the scope up and running. I was able to lock onto and view the 1 volt square wave from the calibration terminal. The terminal is a little dirty and oxidized and the connection wasn't great at first; I was worried there might be something wrong with the scope, and I'm a little doubtful about the wire in the probe itself too. Still, all seems well in the end!
The screen is so pretty when it's operating! I keep thinking of all the beautiful analog circuitry and mechanical linkages in there, older than me and doing their precise, exacting job. I'm really glad I'm starting with an analog scope instead of a digital one.
The next thing I'm going to do with it is open up my Sherwood S-8900A receiver and start scoping signals to see why one of the output channels is flaky. Well, maybe that's the second thing. The first thing is to find a worktable to put this thing on. Very soon now, we'll have confirmed the bugs are *all DEAD* and we can start unbagging and sterilizing the stuff that's all over the floor in the spare room to make some space for it.
