ok, so I hooked up an oscilloscope and a function generator set at 1 KHz and a Sin function to watch the graph. But I only get a graph on the positive side, never negative. Why is that? Should I expect it to happen everytime? Thanks.
(I'm a noob of course)
Name:
Anonymous2007-05-20 1:43 ID:a19b693L
okay the first thing I would do is make sure you're connected properly.
How do you have the generator connected to the scope? Are you injecting the signal into a circuit or are you going directly from the generator to the scope? Also, is the scope analog or digital? Are you not getting a full 360 degree sine wave OR are you getting a sine wave that has the full 360 degree phase shift but doesn't go below 0V? If it's the latter, your generator is probably set to produce a DC offset.
You should make sure that the time division on the -scope- is set to read at around 1kHz or you might not be seeing the signal properly. Same goes for the voltage reading, you need to know how much the generator is pushing out and what the scope is set to recieve, and if your scope probes are at x10, x100, or x1.
ALSO you might need to compensate your probes if this is your first time using the scope. It will tell you how to do this in the scope user-manual. It's a pretty straightforward capacitance adjustment.