10
MORDAX : DATA
User Guide
SYS V. 01.00.00
BOOT V. 01.00.00
Updated: 161229
An oscilloscope is to an electrical engineer as a telescope is to an astronomer; it allows the investigator to see, with thier own
eyes, a representation of what they are studying. And as a eurorack user, you’re going to become an electrical engineer on
some level, like it or not! (Why? Because, you’re powering and wiring together different circuits [modules] to build a complex
system [your rack] for signal generation, and so EE concepts like voltage, resistance, PCBs, oscillloscopes, etc. will seep into
your vocabulary eventually).
The primary function of an oscilloscope, the DATA’s or any other, is to display a 2D graph of voltage amplitude over time,
with amplitude on the Y-axis and time on the X-axis. With this simple display a multitude of information can be extracted
and questions answered – from getting a basic understanding of a module’s behavior (what shape is my envelope really?), to
exploring interesting topics like frequency modulation and phase cancellation.
Scopes can be deceptively simple though, especially digital storage oscilloscopes (DSOs); in fact, when I got my first DSO and
started messing around with it, I thought it was broken! In reality, the scope was fine; I just needed to take some time to properly
learn how the DSO works. Just like positioning and focusing a telescope, you have to adjust the settings of an oscilloscope to
get the clear and accurate image you’re after.
We’ll be covering the operation of the DATA’s scope in the following pages, and we’ll visit a few specific oscilloscope “gotchas”
like triggering and aliasing. If you’re brand new to using scopes, I highly recommend checking out the excellent primer guide
from Tektronix “XYZs of Oscilloscopes” (Google it) as well as watching some YouTube videos (AdaFruit and EEVBlog have some
good ones) on general scope concepts. And of course, don’t forget to check out the Mordax YouTube channel for video tutorials
on the DATA’s scope and other programs!
Program : Oscilloscope
Channel buttons:
Shows channel
input jack number and the channel’s
current verticle resolution - volts per
division, the Y-axis. Push to access
the channel’s pop-up menu.
Cursor button:
Shows
current cursor scale
channel reference. Push
to access the cursor pop-
up menu.
Trigger button:
Shows current trigger
mode - automatic or normal. Push to
access the trigger pop-up menu.
Time Scale button:
Shows the scope’s current
horizontal resolution - microseconds, milliseconds,
or seconds per division, the X-axis. Push the
button and turn the encoder to change the time
scale.
RUN/STOP button:
Push to switch
between RUN and STOP.
Trigger Line:
Indicates the
trigger level for the associated
trigger source channel (for use
in trigger mode “NORM”).
Oscilloscope - Display Overview