Experiment no.

3
MEASUREMENT USING OSCILLOSCOP AND TRUE RMS VALUE MEASURMENTS

Objectives:

1- To understand the operation of the oscilloscope for voltage, time, and

frequency measurements.
2- To use the true R.M.S meter, and measure different wave forms.

Equipment Required:

1- Oscilloscope.
2- Function generator.
3- Power supply.
4- Digital voltmeter.
5- Frequency counter.
6- True RMS meter.

Theory:

The oscilloscope is basically a graph-displaying device it draws a graph of an electrical

signal. In most applications the graph shows how signals change over time: the
vertical (Y) axis (represents voltage and the horizontal (X) axis represents time. The
intensity or brightness of the display is sometimes called the (Z) axis. This simple
graph can tell you many things about a signal. Here are a few:

 You can determine the time and voltage values of a signal.

 You can calculate the frequency of an oscillating signal.
 You can find out how much of a signal is direct current (DC) or alternating
current (AC).
 You can tell how much of the signal is noise and whether the noise is changing
with time.
 You can measure the frequency of an unknown signal.

An oscilloscope looks a lot like a small television set, except that it has a grid drawn
on its screen and more controls than a television. The front panel of an oscilloscope
normally has control sections divided into Vertical, Horizontal, and Trigger sections.
There are also display controls and input connectors.

To use an analog oscilloscope, you need to adjust three basic settings to

accommodate an incoming signal:
  The attenuation or amplification of the signal Use the volts/div control to
adjust the amplitude of the signal before it is applied to the vertical deflection
plates.
 The time base. Use the sec/div control to set the amount of time per division
represented horizontally across the screen.
 The triggering of the oscilloscope. Use the trigger level to stabilize a repeating
signal, as well as triggering on a single event.
 Also, adjusting the focus and intensity controls enables you to create a sharp,
visible display.

Waveform Measurements

Frequency and Period

If a signal repeats it has a frequency, the frequency is measured in Hertz (Hz) and
equals the number of times the signal repeats itself in one second (the cycles per
second). A repeating signal also has a period this is the amount of time it takes the
signal to complete one cycle Period and frequency are reciprocals of each other, so
that 1/period equals the frequency and 1/frequency equals the period.

Voltage

Voltage is the amount of electric potential (a kind of signal strength) between two
points in a circuit. Usually one of these points is ground (zero volts) but not always-
you may want to measure the voltage from the maximum peak to the minimum peak
of a waveform, referred to at the peak-to-peak voltage. The word amplitude
commonly refers to the maximum voltage of a signal measured from ground or zero
volts.

Phase

Phase is explained by looking at a sine wave. Sine waves are based on circular motion
and a circle has 360 degrees. One cycle of a sine wave has 360 degrees, as shown in
Figure 3.2 Using degrees, as you can refer to the phase angle of a sine wave when
you want to describe how much of the period has elapsed.

Phase shift describes the difference in timing between two otherwise similar signals.
In Figure 3.3, the waveform labelled "current" is said to be 90° out of phase with the
waveform labelled "voltage", since the waves reach similar points in their cycles
exactly 1/4 of a cycle apart (360 degrees/4=90 degrees). Phase shifts are common in
electronics.
Input Coupling

Coupling means the method used to connect an electrical signal from one circuit to
another. In this case the input coupling is the connection from your test circuit to the
oscilloscope. The coupling can be set to DC, AC, or ground. DC coupling shows all of
an input signal, AC coupling blocks the DC component of a signal so that you see the
waveform centered at zero volts. Figure 3.4 illustrates this difference. The AC
coupling setting is handy when the entire signal (alternating plus constant
components) is too large for the volts/div setting.

The ground setting disconnects the input signal from the vertical system, which lets
you see where zero volts is on the screen With grounded input coupling and auto
trigger mode, you see a horizontal line on the screen that represents zero volts
Switching from DC to ground and back again is a handy way of measuring signal
voltage levels with respect to ground.

Phase Shift Measurements

Most oscilloscopes have the capability of displaying a second channel signal along
the X-axis (instead of time) this is called XY mode. That lets you display an input
signal rather than the time base on the horizontal axis. (On some digital oscilloscopes
this is a display mode setting) This mode of operation opens up a whole new area of
phase shift measurement techniques. The phase of a wave is the amount of time that
passes from the beginning of a cycle to the beginning of the next cycle, measured in
degrees. Phase shift describes the difference in timing between two otherwise
identical periodic signals. One method for measuring phase shift is to use XY mode.
This involves inputting one signal into the vertical system as usual and then another
signal into the horizontal system (This method only works if both signals are sine
waves.) This set up is called an XY measurement because both the X and Y axis are
tracing voltages The waveform resulting from this arrangement is called a Lissajous
pattern (named for French physicist Jules Antoine Lissajous and pronounced LEE-sa-
zhoo) From the shape of the Lissajous pattern, you can tell the phase difference
between the two signals You can also tell their frequency ratio. Figure 3.5 shows
Lissajous patterns for various frequency ratios and phase shifts.

The RMS value of an alternating current is also known as its heating value, as it is a
voltage which is equivalent to the direct current value that would be required to get
the same heating effect The RMS value of a set of values (or a continuous-time
waveform) is the square root of the arithmetic mean (average) of the squares of the
original values (or the square of the function that defines the continuous waveform)
In this case of a set of n values {X1, X2, …., Xn}, the RMS is:

1 2
X rms=
√ n
( X 1 + X 22+ …+ X 2n )

The corresponding formula for a continuous function (or waveform) f(t) defined over
the interval T 1 ≤ t ≤ T 2 is:
T2

√
f rms =
1
T 2−T 1 ∫
T
2
[f (t)] dt
1

And the RMS for a function over all time is:

T

f rms = lim
1
T→∞ T 0
∫√[f (t)]2 dt

The RMS over all time of a periodic function is equal the RMS of one period of the
function.

Waveform Equation RMS

DC, constant y=a a
a
Sine wave y=a sin ( 2 πft )
√2
y= a { ft } <0.5
Square wave {
−a {ft }> 0.5
a

y= a+ DC { ft } <0.5
DC shifted square wave {
−a+ DC {ft }>0.5 √ a2 + DC 2
0 { ft }< 0.25
Modified square wave
{
y= a 0.25< { ft }< 0.5
0 0.5<{ft }< 0.75
−a {ft }>0.75
a
√2

a
Triangle wave y=|2 a { ft }−a|
√3
a
Sawtooth wave y=2a { ft }−a
√3
y= a { ft } < D
Pulse train {
0 {ft }> D
a√D
2π 3
Phase-to-phase voltage y=a sin ( t )−a sin(t−
3
) a
√ 2
When measuring the value of an alternating current signal it is often necessary to
convert the signal into a direct current signal of equivalent value (known as the root
mean square, RMS value). This process can be quite complex most low-cost
instrumentation and signal converters (for example handheld multimeters of the sort
used by maintenance engineers) carry out this conversion by filtering the signal into
an average rectified value and applying a correction factor.

The value of the correction factor applied is only correct if the input signal is
sinusoidal.
The true RMS value is actually proportional to the square root of the average of the
square of the curve, and not to the average of the absolute value of the curve. For
any given waveform, the ratio of these two averages is constant and, as most
measurements are made on what are (nominally) sine waves, the correction factor
assumes this waveform; but any distortion or offsets will lead to errors. Although in
most cases this produces adequate results, a correct conversion or the measurement
of non-sinusoidal values requires a more complex and costly converter.
PROCEDURE:

PART TWO: TRUE RMS VALUE MEASURMENTS

1- Apply a 50 Hz, 4 Vp-p sine wave to both meters (True R.M.S. and Digital) and
record their readings, use the oscilloscope to record the pk-pk value, and fill in
table 1.
2- Change the frequency of the wave form as in the table and again record both
meters readings. Keep the signal display on the scope and record the pk-pk
value.
3- Repeat the presiding steps using square, triangle and sawtooth wave forms.
And fill in table 1.

Sine wave Square wave Triangle wave

Freq. Oscillo True Volt Oscillo True Volt Oscillo True Volt
scope RMS meter scope RMS meter scope RMS meter
100 4 1.377 1.36 4 1.863 2 4 1.159 1.09
600 4 1.368 1.27 4 1.863 1.96 4 1.168 1.04
2 KHz 4 1.38 1.11 4 1.864 1.84 4 1.18 0.87
5 KHz 4 1.381 0.77 4 1.866 1.57 4 1.18 0.52
8 KHz 4 1.383 0.48 4 1.869 1.31 4 1.182 0.32
20 KHz 4 1.389 0.18 4 1.869 1.306 4 1.19 0.24
50 KHz 4 1.391 0.04 4 1.867 0.51 4 1.192 0.06
80 KHz 4 1.392 0.01 4 1.865 0.05 4 1.193 0
200 KHz 4 1.394 0 4 1.854 0 4 1.211 0
500 KHz 4 1.393 0 4 1.831 0 4 1.203 0
800 KHz 4 1.382 0 4 1.806 0 4 1.192 0
RMS calculated values:

4
 Sine wave: Vrms= =1.414 v
2√ 2
4
 Square wave: Vrms= =2 v
2
4
 Triangle wave: Vrms= =1.155 v
2√ 3

Conclusion:

 The oscilloscope is the best device to measure V rms for AC signals, but it has
one drawback that it depends on the human eye to read it.
 The True RMS meter is good but the frequency affects its readings.
 Measuring the RMS values using the multimeter is not accurate especially in
high frequencies.