User manual

PicoScope 3000 A and B Series PC Oscilloscopes and MSOs User's Guide 9

5 Product information

Standard oscilloscope connectors

The PicoScope 3000 Series PC Oscilloscopes have input channels with standard BNC

connectors and standard input impedance. They are therefore compatible with most

oscilloscope probes including x10 and switched x1/x10 types.

The probes supplied with the PicoScope 3000 A and B Series oscilloscopes and MSOs

have been trimmed specifically for use with the scopes they are supplied with. For

optimum performance, please use the probes supplied. Although other oscilloscope

probes can be used, the specified performance cannot be guaranteed. Replacement

probes matched to your PicoScope 3000 can be ordered from Pico Technology.

Signal generator (GEN) output

The GEN connector carries the output of the oscilloscope's built-in signal generator,

which can generate a number of built-in waveforms, as well as user-defined arbitrary

waveforms (B/MSO Models only).

If you are using the PicoScope 6 program, refer to the PicoScope 6 User's Guide for

information on how to configure the signal generator.

If you are writing your own software, refer to the PicoScope 3000 Series (A API)

Programmer's Guide.

External trigger (EXT) input (not MSOs)

The EXT input can be used as a trigger source. It is selected using the trigger drop-

down menu in the PicoScope software, or using a function call if you are writing your

own software.

The EXT input uses dedicated circuitry with a software-configurable threshold to

detect a trigger signal. This has the advantage of freeing the analog channels for

viewing signals. The input characteristics of the EXT input have been matched to a

scope channel so that a supplied probe can be trimmed on one of the channels and

then used with the EXT input to give best vertical accuracy. If trigger timing accuracy

is critical, we recommend using one of the main input channels as the trigger source.

These channels use accurate digital triggering (to one sample period) and have a

vertical resolution of 1 LSB.