EEVblog #159 - Oscilloscope Trigger Holdoff Tutorial

[TheSatanicJews]

I reject your reality and substitute it for my own.

[Tamimorabi]

O Bingo! Here you go!

[ChrisMP1]

Thank you! I both had no clue what the holdoff dial does, and needed exactly this!

[slowertech]

Crickets!

[denimjeans2007]

@dave: thanks for all you efforts and videos. For advanced users this might be all boring, but for beginners it's really great to understand. Again: THANK YOU SO MUCH !!

If there is a wishlist for your videos, I'd like to ask you to add following topics on oscilloscope ( :-) )

- "missuse" Oscilloscope as an logic analyzer

- Triggering (video, pwm, etc)

- what else interessting stuff can be done with an oscilloscope. (I got one tekway dst1062b, so I am wondering what all can be done with this..)

[SigEpBlue]

Love hearing crickets while the snow's falling here.

[SquarishLink]

MAGIC

[sheeptrik]

Hi and thanks I finely find a verry good tutorial site ! It's hard to find sommething usefull on YouTube !

[BombriderKong]

Hi Dave,

with the help of you I now really understood the holdoff functionality. Recently I tried to measure some burst PWM on the high side of a half bridge of a RC 3-phase motor controller. I only have seen a lot of data garbage. With your tut now I was able to see the details at the the waveform of the p-channel MOSFET. Thanks!

Greetings from Germany, Joachim

[simonspiers]

Thank you again for answering a question most scope users don't know!

[pankeiko]

Great video, very illustrative!!

[Intosia]

I was wondering of my 1052 had the function, and then you showed it :D Nice vid! I had this same problem when i was probing my midi signals. Keep it up!

[maxsnts]

not about electronics... bu i see that you have a dremel. in case you dont know, remove the white support of the tool case,there are some dividers there.

[raguaviva]

awesome I learnt something new!

[rampike74]

Please don't exaggerate - we are analyzing your every word.

[raccoonnyc]

Very good - a five cricket video!

[BHR477]

now i understand triggering well ,, and i have the same rigol thanks to you :D

[ttk1opc]

What is that cricket like sound in the background?

[EEVblog]

@ttk1opc Actual crickets!

[judgenap]

Thanks  Dave. Good stuff .

[miro9406020601]

THAHKS FOR THE Tutorial .IT WAS REALLY HELPFUL FOR ME!

[bswain9999]

excellent!

[hugos31]

Thank you for spending your time and effort to educate

[daafies2]

great vid!

[kwakkwak123]

Thanks, good video. Learned a lot

[heroineworshipper]

We'd use the hoedoff instead of the capture function now, but is a hoedoff really better than a hoedown?

[38911bytefree]

Dave at his best. Nice vid.

[csc104]

I just taught a lab where students decoded IR remote control packets, would have been nice to have this tutorial to give the students - that looks like an IR packet in your example at 13:00.

[nilz23]

Makes me want to go back in to work after hours and fool around with my scopes. I've always wanted to know what hold off was for. I've been sitting around like an idiot all these year pushing single sweep over and over again.

[ncrdisabled]

I learned all this info in on O-scope usage in C school in the US NAVY i was a IC 2 e-5 electronic tech on board submarines I used the scope to repair all the electronics on board . The bad part about the subs is you must use a isolation transformer or a bad way a cheater cord with no ground . I leaned that the hard way first time I used one in a Gyro switch blew the hell out of the first scope had to replace it during offcrew man those were the days.

[colt4547]

Another great, useful video! Thank you for spending your time and effort to educate.

[linagee]

I love learning new things like this! Bravo Dave.

[IildeviI]

wow great video, i learned a lot from this video

it explains a lot when i see multiple waves on the scope and how i can fix it!

i've been taking electronics since gr9 of high school, and no one have ever taught what that knob does! definitely something that should be taught tho

Thanks!

[sirsideways]

I learnt something new today! Cheers Dave.

[unaclocker]

Loved this episode! Just got my Rigol scope last week, never really used a scope before, so educational videos like this go a long way. I had this exact problem scoping a signal already, so it was great to know how to deal with it, other than hitting the stop button. :)

[nemoDaedalus]

Interesting and informative. Great video!

[orbiter8]

Very informative and helpful. Thanks Dave.

[truhlikfredy]

I think you choose very bad example to showing this feature. But at least bad example than none :) BTW: I think not bad practice is to take the scope and just poke with it, feature by feature learn and look up theory and then try to practice (because when you just read it and didn't try it out, then you can forget about it much easier). For example if somebody gave me new camera before holidays, I would experiment with it for while before taking any shots on holiday to have minimum experience.

[EEVblog]

@truhlikfredy What example should I have used then?

[truhlikfredy]

@EEVblog Any kind data that they continue after sampling and the hold off time is during data transfers so it won't trigger. Showing the case where after sampling are none data and the hold off time is long precisely enough before the next data stars will I think behave the same, with, or without hold off. So showing on that case were it behaves exactly the same in both cases is not good. (I mean the drawn timeline, where you explain the theory)

[0LoneTech]

@truhlikfredy Holdoff time still matters on a signal like that. If you use time/div to enlarge the signal, for instance, you may get the end of the packet outside the first sweep, triggering a second sweep. Hold off can remove that second sweep properly, and then you can use a trigger delay to closely inspect any part of the signal you like. Of course, techniques like this matter more when you don't have a deep sample buffer.. and my scope is fully analog.

[truhlikfredy]

@0LoneTech Exactly, for instance the packet can be outside the sweep, and therefor drawing example where the packet is inside the sweep and after the sweep it won't trigger anyway is for me very bad example for hold off.. Is almost misleading.

[BarsMOnster]

@truhlikfredy I believe this is an excellent example.

[deathcow]

Thanks for this video.

[Verm1n]

Excellent! Previously I have always used to use the start/stop or single sweep method. Thanks.

[errold32]

Sweet!! I learned something. 

[Gameboygenius]

Actually, I'll proudly say that I learnt how to use holdoff all by myself. I was probing a digital signal and got that typical jumble all over the screen and I thought "wouldn't it be good if there was a function that delayed the triggering" and then I loked at the panel. :)

[EEVblog]

@Gameboygenius Nice!

[Zed1967]

Great tutorial :) My Phillips PM3217 has a delayed timebase with variable delay time and hold off as well as a main timebase, I'm assuming it's a similar thing but I've never got around to using it. I'll have to have a practice with a gated signal.

[ubuntututorials]

I'd love to see something on eye diagrams. Great video.

[anthonycroberts]

Thanks. Much better explanation than my Tek manual!

[Nermash]

Great video, always great to learn new stuff! Holdoff trigger was always a bit in the dark side for me:) BTW, that Agilent looks better and better every time I see it. Too bad that grey dealer Niatel in my country asks 4x regular US price.... Regarding the crickets, it instantly reminded me of warm summer nights, keep them on for every video:)))

[EEVblog]

@Nermash x4 the US price really sucks :-( Can you import?

[paco0184]

Cool........i didn't knew that my cheap rigol DS1052E was able to do that...thanks Mr. Dave J. I hope you can make more videos explaining tricks like that, they are very useful.

[ronaldlijs]

Dave, ABSOLUTELY| FANTASTIC! The most useful thing I've learnt this month!

MAGIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rigol is on its way and already saving for that Agilent, that feels and looks incredible!

VERY valuable lesson here, been troubleshooting my I2S interface the other day with my analogue 30MHz Hameg scope and it "does" the job, but this is 10000 times better mate, thanks for this keeeeeep them comingggggggggggg!

[RussellTuan]

got to give thum up for this one!!

It IS THERE A LONG TIME i did not knowing what it going to do

I thought HOLD off MIGTH be Somthing scope hold for himself and doing nothing

like lazy or son of bi*ch!!

[zenomp5]

Thank you Dave! Great video!  I really didn't understand the hold off on my Rigol until this video.

[sciguy14]

Not only have a I never used that knob, but I never even noticed it was there! Very cool!

[broccabronson]

Great class, Dave! Thank you

[xXdenhartXx]

I guess the crickets is just a part of the "australian experience"... None the less, very nice.

[electrodacus]

I used this a lot at work on the LeCroy WaveRunner not sure it was called holdoff but it had a more complex trigger one of the option was the minimum number of pulses in order to trigger or the time between two consecutive pulse.

I can not afford or need such a powerful oscilloscope as the LeCroy at home.

Great video as always.

[emactan]

Review of test gear + tutorials on using them. Three thumbs up! 

[jeriellsworth]

I wish they would dump the auto button and give me a free coffee button.

[EEVblog]

@jeriellsworth Could be hacked to operate the coffee machine :->

[jeriellsworth]

@EEVblog It's usually a big button that can be bumped easily too.  Maybe it should be labeled "Nuke Settings"

[EEVblog]

@jeriellsworth The Agilent one is nicely and safely recessed. It can even be disabled in software to stop students cheating.

[jeriellsworth]

@EEVblog Too many of them are by the run/stop button. WTF?

[SkaOfCA]

Thanks for the awesome info!

[neutron7]

awesome, you taught me something, I have the same rigol thanks to you :)

[EEVblog]

@neutron7 If one person learned something then I'm happy!

[goldenrebel1st]

@neutron7 So did I, and I have the same rigol for the same reason.

[Wizard4592]

Hmm, suspect background noise....

[EEVblog]

@Wizard4592 Yeah, sorry about that, really loud crickets. Didn't want to delay the shoot until they stopped chirping!

[silverfire56]

@EEVblog microphone on other side of room close to crickets and then amplify and invert the signal then added to the mic signal in order to cancel the sound out?

[ak1m0t0]

lol, why on earth i never use this knob.

very informative, thanks

[RicardoATBarbosa]

Thank you Dave, I really didn't know about this feature! You explained very well. Good job. Hugs from Brazil ;)

[detectiveinspekta]

Wow, this could of really helped me in my project. I usually just stopped the trace to get a waveform :p

[theslawek]

A seasoned electronics tech (+15 years) I work with spend two days replacing IC's and parts to fix an "intermittent problem". It was just the holdoff a previous tech set. :) I learned what it does just by using scopes, especially when I needed to capture longer digital pulses. I'm one of those who refuse to use the auto-scale, unlike my classmates. I love your blog!