Bin Contents: Inductor & Capacitor Set 1 (Green Label), Inductor & Capacitor Set 2 (Orange Label), two dongles for the Oscilloscope, a pack of Wires, and a decade resistance box.

NOTE: Be careful with the wires! Never pull by from the cord! Always pull from the plug!

Also – re-tie the wires as indicated! 

Obtain an Oscilloscope and Power Cord – return when finished.

Note: The Oscilloscope’s Power Cord requires a Gray AC Prong Adapter!

Obtain an AC / Function Generator and Power Cord – return when finished.

Note: If your table doesn’t have an LCR Meter, take it from the cart’s middle shelf.

Turn on the AC / Function Generator; set its voltage to 2.00 Volts; for Part A, set its frequency to 1,200 Hz; for Part B, set its frequency to 12,000 Hz.

Attach the dongles to Channel X/1 and Channel Y/2.

Note: Ensure that the Oscilloscope’s Power Cord uses the Gray AC Prong Adapter!

Setup an LCR Meter for measurement; for this experiment, the LCR Meter measures Resistance, Capacitance, and Inductance.

An example of how to place the various components; the circuit is simple but the wiring is messy.

Attach a long black wire from the AC / Function Generator’s black terminal to the -/Negative terminal of the Capacitor.

Note: All Capacitors’ -/+ sides are labeled!

Attach a short red from the +/Positive terminal of the Capacitor to the assumed negative terminal of the decade resistance box.

Note: All Capacitors’ -/+ sides are labeled!

Ensure that he decade resistance box is properly set; for Part A its value should be only 3K-Ohm; for Part B its value should be only 100-Ohm.

Attach a long red from the assumed positive terminal of the decade resistance box to the AC / Function Generator’s red terminal.

From the Channel 1/X dongle: Attach a blue wire to the capacitor’s +/Positive terminal.

From the Channel 1/X dongle: Attach a yellow wire to the decade resistance box’s assumed positive terminal.

From the Channel 2/Y dongle: Attach a blue wire to the capacitor’s +/Positive terminal.

A detail-image to show how the blue wires are supposed to stack onto the red wire.

From the Channel 2/Y dongle: Attach a yellow wire to the capacitor’s -/Negative terminal.

A detail-image to show how the yellow wire is supposed to stack onto the black wire.

Initially you may see junk on the Oscilloscope – press the blue AUTO button.

Our building’s power supply is not well-conditioned; we see this explicitly by the fact that there is a constant low-frequency oscillation imposed upon our signals.

Note: if at this point you see a clean sinusoidal plot AND a noisy plot, this means that the Gray AC Prong Adaptor is not attached; attach it, you cannot do this experiment without it.

To clean-up the signal a little, we need to activate the ACQUIRE settings; press the ACQUIRE button.

Press the menu button next to the “Acquisition” option until “Average” is selected. The other default settings displayed above are usually correct.

Press the smaller knobs under the illuminated ‘1’ and ‘2’ buttons – they center the signals as shown.

Adjust the ‘Horizontal’ knob (the large knob at the extreme right in this image) until you can see the two signals more clearly.

We need to know the peak-to-peak voltages for both signals; press the MEASURE button; then press the menu button next to the ‘Voltage’ option.

Via the menu buttons, select CH1 as the source and Vpp as the type; then press the menu button next to the ‘Add’ button.

This adds Vpp= (in yellow, for Channel 1/X).

Again, via the menu buttons, select CH2 as the source and Vpp as the type; then press the menu button next to the ‘Add’ button.

This adds Vpp= (in violet, for Channel 2/Y).

In order to measure the phase difference between the signals we need to use the cursors; press the CURSORS button; then select the ‘Manual’ mode…

… then select the ‘Time’ type, the ‘CH1’ source.

These values as well as the cursors are displayed; the value we need for the phase difference calculation is the delta-T value.

Simply select the cursors, A & B, and shift them to corresponding points; the equation in the manual converts the delta-T into the phase shift angle in degrees.

At this point, adjust the large vertical knobs for Channels 1 & 2 until the CH1= and CH2= values are the same value as is the case for this image; when these two values (CH1= and CH2=) are the same, the signals are drawn to scale with respect to each other.

Note: just because CH1 and CH2 are the same and thus the scale is the same does not mean Vpp’s will be the same. Again, as is the case for this image, the Vpp’s are not the same.

Adjust the frequency of the AC / Function Generator until the Vpp’s ARE the same. 

Replace the capacitor with the inductor and repeat all of these steps again to complete Part A.

The inductor is not polar, it doesn’t have designated Positive/Negative terminals.

To do Part B, replace all components by the set 2 components; change the frequency to 12,000Hz and the resistance to 100-Ohms; then repeat all of Part A again.