New Oscilloscope Day! (Now what?)

Get a breadboard and a bunch of passive components. Start with simple tone circuits and explore how they work. This is the basis to all electronics: resistance, inductance, capacitance (RLC).

Next get some transistors and build some really simple amplifiers with them. You can build different class amplifiers, cascade stages, etc. using simple, cheap devices.

These two types of circuits are fundamental to electronics and have wide application in audio. If you get a good grasp of them you can take on more ambitious circuits.
I'm certain that there are lots of online resources that can help you learn.
Enjoy!

 

Why did you get it? What aspect of electronics are you interested in?

If you want to look at what pedals are doing to your signal, you could build break-out box, something like this:



Blue rectangles are FX boxes and the breakout box. Green boxes are 1/4" audio cable jacks. Arrows are cables. Orange circles are some kind of test point you can clip your scope probes onto. Black lines are wiring inside the box (also wire the ground probe to the cable shield). (There may be an easier way to break out cable signals but I didnt' find anything after a quick search.)

Put one scope probe on the "IN" signal and the other on the "OUT" signal. With this you can monitor how FX Pedal 2 changes the signal (waveform shape, magnitude, phase, etc.)

As mentioned above, do some breadboarding with basic FX circuits. You could start with filters and then transistor circuits described above. Also a very simple op-amp fuzz circuit can be built with only a few parts. Usually there a gain stage and clipping stage with a pair of diodes in the op-amp feedback. The Build Your Own Clone site has a lot of schematics to help get you started.

There is a free program made by Texas Instruments called TINA. It is a fairly easy to use circuit modeling program. I sketch my designs up in TINA, run a few simulations to confirm it is doing what it should, then implement with parts. Might be worth taking a look at that as well.

 

Skycruiser and abarson are great examples of why you gotta love TB! No matter what you need to know, or how broad or narrow your questions, someone who knows what they’re doing will take the time to school you, and the rest of us get to learn right along with you!
Thanks to all of you who are so generous about sharing your knowledge and advice.

That works for me! It’s actually my “go to” answer for at least half of the stuff I buy, if not more.

 

I bought that exact same scope when I was rebuilding some vintage tube amps. I don't use it often but when I do need it, it's great to have one around. There is a hack where you can turn it into the much more expensive one (higher bandwidth) since all the components are the same, you just need to trick it into accepting the firmware for the higher end model. But I'm only using it for audio so it has much higher bandwidth than I'll ever use already.

How much did you pay for it? Looks like it still has the protective plastic film over the screen.

Oh ... a heads up for you. The ground on the probe is a real ground - meaning it goes to earth ground if you have the scope plugged into a grounded 3 prong power cord. So be careful (i.e. don't put the probe ground clip on the output of bridged power amplifier)

 

@tlite ,
The warning about the ground is very important.

It's also important to learn about the voltage limits of the probes and what sort of probes you have. Basic probes are usually 1:1 or maybe 10:1. This sort of probe cannot handle the working voltages in big tubes amp.

The last shop I worked in had only one 100:1 probe, which was shared by several technicians. We had a pretty rough couple of weeks when someone had an accident that destroyed the probe.

So my advice is look for and read tutorials on using oscilloscopes and probes. It may seem like overkill, but this level of knowledge will reduce the chances that you do something stupid that may wind up damaging or destroying your equipment.

 

Tektronix used to have a publication called the XYZs of Oscilloscopes that explains just about everything you would want to know about using them.
A quick search found this:https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=...YZ-Scope.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3JeDbQ7ION8ogS_9Zx00US

 

Neat...I've been wanting one recently so I can wrap my head around things in the synth world better.

 

Just because....

 

Sounds like you're a bit past the beginner stage so the scope is probably a good fit for what you're doing. I feel totally blind working on circuits without an oscilloscope. Great for troubleshooting as well. If you review the manual referenced elsewhere in the thread, pay attention to instructions on triggering. Assuming you will be looking at some sort of regular waveforms (audio signal with some fundamental frequency), you will be using the triggering function all the time. It can be tricky to set the right trigger point sometimes. Often using the cleanest waveform to trigger is the best way to go.

 

Cool scope! It's awesome so many members on here are into this aspect of music (developing electronics)

I use mine for testing the power output of an amp (see photo below). Years ago before the big boutique pedal boom, I developed some mods fo a Fuzz Face that were fantastic. The scope really helped 'visualize' what was going on in the circuit.

Heres my setup. The analog BK tracks better when measuring the power amp. I also have a digital Tektronix that is great for small signal and is a lot easier to work around. Signal generator is a BK, I also have a Wavetek. The dummy load is a 4 Ohm 600W Vishay on a heatsink (and it really needs a fan on it....) I have a power meter (on top of the scope) but I cant get it to work properly.

 

Troubleshooting and measuring pretty much everything, and testing every new DIY build. A big part of that is looking at out-of-band performance, i.e. parasitic oscillation and general behavior at higher frequencies than we can hear. This often translates to stability, and not blowing stuff up is always a bonus.

I have a 90s vintage digital Tek 4 channel scope that I was given, which needs a substantial rebuild due to the infamous "bad caps" syndrome. I will probably never get around to that and would consider giving it away to someone with the requisite experience to replace 85 or so SMD parts, and the willingness to pay shipping cost or come pick it up. It's a big nasty job and it may easily still not work after that since it's been sitting for so long. If anyone feels brave enough to take this on they can PM me. I'd hate to take it to Staples for destructive recycling, but that's the other most likely outcome. My 35 year old analog Hitachi scope still does what I need it to do and I just have way too many other rabbit holes going on at the moment.