Oscilloscope Question

Thread Starter

vladtess

Joined Jan 5, 2011
43
Hi there. So today I got my cheap Rigol oscilloscope and decided to do some testing.

Now.. I'll get to the problem: I connected both probes with same setting (DC coupling, 1x, etc) to the machine and to the same wires that generate the waveform (meaning probes are connected to together and attached to the generator), and pressed auto button. Two waveforms came up at two different voltages. Is that what I'm supposed to be gettin?!!

Pic attached. thanks!!!
 

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Adjuster

Joined Dec 26, 2010
2,148
Since this appears to be a 10:1 discrepancy, my first guess would be a probe setting error. Both the probe and the oscilloscope probe setting (if provided) have to agree.

If the scope does have a probe attenuation setting, this may be manual, or automatic - the latter perhaps less probable on an inexpensive machine with simpler probes.
 

bountyhunter

Joined Sep 7, 2009
2,512
Sometimes a 10X probe fails to "tell" the scope it's set at 10X. See it all the time. Probe may be flaky or the scope may simply not be designed to work with that brand of probe.
 

Thread Starter

vladtess

Joined Jan 5, 2011
43
Thanks you guys, but it wasn't the problem. It seems that one of the probes is bad, since when I connected 30 watt supply to the probe it got warm drawing up 10 watts of power. So just gotta get a good pair of probes. Thanks much ya'll!
 
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