Using a scope

[Gregory Chan]

> Being a mechanical engineer, I have a natural fear of electrons or in
> other words a little knowledge is dangerous.
> 
> If you hook up a scope to something like a injector circuit are you
> suppposed to use isolator transformers or somekind of isolation circuit
> to protect the scope?  Are these built into the scope?
> 
You don't have to in this case because the car is isolated from the 
AC mains, however, if you were working on a TV, you would have to 
use an isolation transformer.

> In Dallas on the first Saturday of each month, there is a swap meet for
> electronic stuff.  It started out decades ago as a ham radio meet, but
> as evolved to a computer orientation.  There is a lot of test equipment
> there including HP stuff.  Can I tell if a scope works properly as long
> as the guy can turn it on?
> 
Scopes normally have a connector built on them which says calibration
and generates a 1khz square wave at 0.5V. You basically turn the scope 
on and put the probe tip to the connector then check to see that you 
get a square wave with the correct volts/div.

gchan at compserv.senecac.on.ca