Just got an oscilloscope. settings to test piezos or guitar pickups?

[iandy4]

Just got my hands on a free tektronix 465 dm40 oscilloscope!!  The problem is I don't have a signal generator so I've been trying to figure out what I can measure just to get a reading.  I've been staring at that flat line for a few hours  

I figured I could see a piezo pickups signal if I hooked it up and tapped on it but couldn't get a reading.  The problem is that I have so many variables right now:
1) I'm not sure if it works although I got it from a guy that is a friend of my moms and he didn't mention it.  
2) I never measured signals so I don't know what a piezo should look like or what setting to use to get a reading

I'd appreciate if anybody can give me some general tips to help get started with using this thing.

Right now the only things I have on hand to test are guitar pickups and piezos.  That being the case:
1) what volts/div should be a good starting point?  
2) It should be set to AC, right?
3) the range should be set to 200mV or 2v, right?

Thanks guys!

[iccaros]

Ipod? computer audio out.. A power supply (low voltage if you don't have 10X probes)

A Piezo should be a really low AC signal


I always test a new oscope with  a low DC voltage, as it is clear when you see a good signal.

[iandy4]

Ipod? computer audio out.. A power supply (low voltage if you don't have 10X probes)

A Piezo should be a really low AC signal


I always test a new oscope with  a low DC voltage, as it is clear when you see a good signal.

hadn't even considered those!  Haha, still learning.  I'm warming up the scope right now!

[iccaros]

http://www.doctronics.co.uk/scope.htm

This should be helpful also ..

[wavley]

How about hooking your probe to the calibrator, that should give you a nice and clean square wave so you can calibrate your probes.

[iandy4]

ahh, yes, the calibrator finally shows me a wave form.  I just tried it with my computers headphone jack and I got a very small signal (or 2m. on the display set to 5m volts/div and 1m time/div.  I couldn't manage to get the signal any larger on the display. 

I noticed that the probe says 10:1 Atten.  Could this explain why I can't seem to get a signal to get bigger on the display?  It seems that the probe doesn't have a switch to 1:1

[urchin]

Congrats, I just got My First Oscilloscope today too  a Rigol DS1052E, so not old skool like yours. I played around with analogue ones loads as a kid, but never had a clue what I was doing.

After getting bored playing with the calibration point this afternoon, I hooked it up to my laptop and found a free tone generator. It was cool looking at sine, sawtooth, (almost) square waves and noise of different frequencies. Not got around to hooking it up to my bass yet though.

[Brymus]

Go to GEOFEX and build RG's quick and dirty sine wave generator.
Very helpful,congrats on the new toy,er uhm test equipment.
There is a bunch of links stickied in the FAQ on scopes too.

[Seven64]

i just got a tektronix 454 last week!

i ordered this:

http://www.electronickits.com/kit/complete/meas/ck102.htm

amd it works great!  i cant get my probe to pick up the calibration clip on my scope tho.

[blueduck577]

I noticed that the probe says 10:1 Atten.  Could this explain why I can't seem to get a signal to get bigger on the display?  It seems that the probe doesn't have a switch to 1:1

Yeah there is your problem

[iccaros]

if you go through that tutorial, you will be on a good road to successes..

[iandy4]

I just went over everything with someone who has a lot of experience with scopes.  I was having trouble because I didn't have the clip extension on the probe head and I fashioned an alligator clip to clip on to the probe but it wasn't touching the inner metal tip.  Once that was sorted out it was really a pleasure to start using and worked as expected. The 10:1 atten. thing seems to be a normal probe setting and as I understood it, it means that the .1v setting in "time/div" could actually be thought of as 1v.

[merlinb]

Another DIY signal generator: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=83930.20

[iandy4]

I ended up downloading audacity which has some great signal generating capabilities