TiePie engineering TP450 Handyscope USB Oscilloscopen User Manual

Q: Is it safe to measure directly on the line voltage?
A: No, measuring directly on the line voltage can be very dangerous. Always exercise caution and follow safety guidelines provided in the manual.

Handyscope TP450
User manual

ATTENTION!
Measuring directly on the line voltage can be very dangerous.

Copyright ©2024 TiePie engineering.
All rights reserved.
Revision 2.49, August 2024
This information is subject to change without notice. Despite the care taken for the compilation of this user manual, TiePie engineering can not be held responsible for any damage resulting from errors that may appear in this manual.

Safety

When working with electricity, no instrument can guarantee complete safety. It is the responsibility of the person who works with the instrument to op-erate it in a safe way. Maximum security is achieved by selecting the proper instruments and following safe working procedures. Safe working tips are given below:

Always work according (local) regulations.

Work on installations with voltages higher than 25 VAC or 60 VDC should only be performed by qualified personnel.
Avoid working alone.

Observe all indications on the Handyscope TP450 before connecting any wiring
Check the probes/test leads for damages. Do not use them if they are damaged

Take care when measuring at voltages higher than 25 VAC or 60 VDC.
Do not operate the equipment in an explosive atmosphere or in the presence of flammable gases or fumes.

Do not use the equipment if it does not operate properly. Have the equipment inspected by qualified service personal. If necessary, return the equipment to TiePie engineering for service and repair to ensure that safety features are maintained

Declaration of conformity

TiePie engineering Koperslagersstraat 37 8601 WL Sneek
The Netherlands

EC Declaration of conformity
We declare, on our own responsibility, that the product

Handyscope TP450-250(XM)
Handyscope TP450-50(XM)

for which this declaration is valid, is in compliance with

EC directive 2011/65/EU (the RoHS directive) including up to amendment 2021/1980,
EC regulation 1907/2006 (REACH) including up to amendment 2021/2045,

and with

EN 55011:2016/A1:2017 IEC 61000-6-1:2019 EN
EN 55022:2011/C1:2011 IEC 61000-6-3:2007/A1:2011/C11:2012 EN according the conditions of the EMC standard 2004/108/EC, also with
Canada: ICES-001:2004 Australia/New Zealand: AS/NZS CISPR 11:2011
and
IEC 61010-1:2010/A1:2019 USA: UL 61010-1, Edition 3 and is categorized as CAT II 600 VRMS, 800 Vpk, 800 VDC

Environmental considerations
This section provides information about the environmental impact of the Handy-scope TP450.

End-of-life handling
Production of the Handyscope TP450 required the extraction and use of natural resources. The equipment may contain substances that could be harmful to the environment or human health if improperly handled at the Handyscope TP450’s end of life.

In order to avoid release of such substances into the environment and to reduce the use of natural resources, recycle the Handyscope TP450 in an appropriate system that will ensure that most of the materials are reused or recycled appro-priately.
The shown symbol indicates that the Handyscope TP450 complies with the Euro-pean Union’s requirements according to Directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

Introduction

Before using the Handyscope TP450 ﬁrst read chapter 1 about safety.

Many technicians investigate electrical signals. Though the measurement may not be electrical, the physical variable is often converted to an electrical signal, with a special transducer. Common transducers are accelerometers, pressure probes, current clamps and temperature probes. The advantages of converting the phys-ical parameters to electrical signals are large, since many instruments for examin-ing electrical signals are available.
The Handyscope TP450 is a single channel, 16 bits measuring instrument with galvanically isolated diﬀerential input with high input range. It is available in two models with diﬀerent maximum sampling and streaming rates:

Maximum sampling rate	Model 250	Model 50
Block mode Streaming mode	250 kSa/s 250 kSa/s	50 kSa/s 50 kSa/s

Table 3.1: Maximum sampling rates

The Handyscope TP450 is available with two memory conﬁgurations, these are:

Memory	Model 250	Model 50
Standard model Option XM	16 KiSa 1 MiSa	16 KiSa 1 MiSa

Table 3.2: Maximum record length per channel
With the accompanying software the Handyscope TP450 can be used as an os-cilloscope, a spectrum analyzer, a true RMS voltmeter or a transient recorder. All instruments measure by sampling the input signals, digitizing the values, process them, save them and display them.

Diﬀerential input
Most oscilloscopes are equipped with standard, single ended inputs, which are referenced to ground. This means that one side of the input is always connected to ground and the other side to the point of interest in the circuit under test.

Therefore the voltage that is measured with an oscilloscope with standard, single ended inputs is always measured between that speciﬁc point and ground.
When the voltage is not referenced to ground, connecting a standard single ended oscilloscope input to the two points would create a short circuit between one of the points and ground, possibly damaging the circuit and the oscilloscope.
A safe way would be to measure the voltage at one of the two points, in reference to ground and at the other point, in reference to ground and then calculate the voltage diﬀerence between the two points. On most oscilloscopes this can be done by connecting one of the channels to one point and another channel to the other point and then use the math function CH1 – CH2 in the oscilloscope to display the actual voltage diﬀerence.
There are some disadvantages to this method:

a short circuit to ground can be created when an input is wrongly connected
to measure one signal, two channels are occupied

by using two channels, the measurement error is increased, the errors made on each channel will be combined, resulting in a larger total measurement error
The Common Mode Rejection Ratio (CMRR) of this method is relatively low. If both points have a relative high voltage, but the voltage diﬀerence between the two points is small, the voltage diﬀerence can only be measured in a high input range, resulting in a low resolution

A much better way is to use an oscilloscope with a diﬀerential input.

A diﬀerential input is not referenced to ground, but both sides of the input are ”ﬂoating”. It is therefore possible to connect one side of the input to one point in the circuit and the other side of the input to the other point in the circuit and measure the voltage diﬀerence directly.

Advantages of a diﬀerential input:

No risk of creating a short circuit to ground
Only one channel is required to measure the signal
More accurate measurements, since only one channel introduces a mea-surement error

The CMRR of a diﬀerential input is high. If both points have a relative high voltage, but the voltage diﬀerence between the two points is small, the volt-age diﬀerence can be measured in a low input range, resulting in a high resolution

The Handyscope TP450 is galvanically isolated. This means that there is no elec-trical connection between the inputs and the USB connection. It is therefore not possible to damage the connected computer when (accidentally) making a wrong connection.

Diﬀerential test lead
The Handyscope TP450 comes with a special diﬀerential test lead This test lead is specially designed to ensure a good CMRR and to be immune for noise from the surrounding environment.
The special diﬀerential test lead provided with the Handyscope TP450 is heat re-sistant and oil resistant.

Sampling
When sampling the input signal, samples are taken at ﬁxed intervals. At these in-tervals, the size of the input signal is converted to a number. The accuracy of this number depends on the resolution of the instrument. The higher the resolution, the smaller the voltage steps in which the input range of the instrument is divided. The acquired numbers can be used for various purposes, e.g. to create a graph.

The sine wave in ﬁgure 3.3 is sampled at the dot positions. By connecting the adjacent samples, the original signal can be reconstructed from the samples. You can see the result in ﬁgure 3.4.

Sampling rate
The rate at which the samples are taken is called the sampling rate, the number of samples per second. A higher sampling rate corresponds to a shorter interval between the samples. As is visible in ﬁgure 3.5, with a higher sampling rate, the original signal can be reconstructed much better from the measured samples.

The sampling rate must be higher than 2 times the highest frequency in the input signal. This is called the Nyquist frequency. Theoretically it is possible to recon-struct the input signal with more than 2 samples per period. In practice, 10 to 20 samples per period are recommended to be able to examine the signal thor-oughly.

Aliasing
When sampling an analog signal with a certain sampling rate, signals appear in the output with frequencies equal to the sum and diﬀerence of the signal frequency and multiples of the sampling rate. For example, when the sampling rate is 1000 Sa/s and the signal frequency is 1250 Hz, the following signal frequencies will be present in the output data:

Multiple of sampling rate	1250 Hz signal	-1250 Hz signal
…
-1000	-1000 + 1250 = 250	-1000 – 1250 = -2250
0	0 + 1250 = 1250	0 – 1250 = -1250
1000	1000 + 1250 = 2250	1000 – 1250 = -250
2000	2000 + 1250 = 3250	2000 – 1250 = 750
…

Table 3.3: Aliasing
As stated before, when sampling a signal, only frequencies lower than half the sampling rate can be reconstructed. In this case the sampling rate is 1000 Sa/s, so we can we only observe signals with a frequency ranging from 0 to 500 Hz. This means that from the resulting frequencies in the table, we can only see the 250 Hz signal in the sampled data. This signal is called an alias of the original signal.
If the sampling rate is lower than twice the frequency of the input signal, aliasing will occur. The following illustration shows what happens.

In ﬁgure 3.6, the green input signal (top) is a triangular signal with a frequency of 1.25 kHz. The signal is sampled with a rate of 1 kSa/s. The corresponding sam-pling interval is 1/1000Hz = 1ms. The positions at which the signal is sampled are depicted with the blue dots. The red dotted signal (bottom) is the result of the re-construction. The period time of this triangular signal appears to be 4 ms, which corresponds to an apparent frequency (alias) of 250 Hz (1.25 kHz – 1 kHz).

To avoid aliasing, always start measuring at the highest sampling rate and lower the sampling rate if required.

Digitizing
When digitizing the samples, the voltage at each sample time is converted to a number. This is done by comparing the voltage with a number of levels. The re-sulting number is the number corresponding to the level that is closest to the voltage. The number of levels is determined by the resolution, according to the following relation: LevelCount = 2Resolution.
The higher the resolution, the more levels are available and the more accurate the input signal can be reconstructed. In ﬁgure 3.7, the same signal is digitized, using two diﬀerent amounts of levels: 16 (4-bit) and 64 (6-bit).

The Handyscope TP450 measures at 16 bit resolution (216=65536 levels). The smallest detectable voltage step depends on the input range. This voltage can be calculated as:

V oltageStep = F ullInputRange/LevelCount
For example, the 80 V range ranges from -80 V to +80 V, therefore the full range is 160 V. This results in a smallest detectable voltage step of 160 V / 65536 = 2.44 mV.

Driver installation

Before connecting the Handyscope TP450 to the computer, the drivers need to be installed.

Introduction
To operate a Handyscope TP450, a driver is required to interface between the measurement software and the instrument. This driver takes care of the low level communication between the computer and the instrument, through USB. When the driver is not installed, or an old, no longer compatible version of the driver is installed, the software will not be able to operate the Handyscope TP450 properly or even detect it at all.
The installation of the USB driver is done in a few steps. Firstly, the driver has to be pre-installed by the driver setup program. This makes sure that all required ﬁles are located where Windows can ﬁnd them. When the instrument is plugged in, Windows will detect new hardware and install the required drivers.

Where to ﬁnd the driver setup
The driver setup program and measurement software can be found in the down-load section on TiePie engineering’s website. It is recommended to install the latest version of the software and USB driver from the website. This will guarantee the latest features are included.

Executing the installation utility
To start the driver installation, execute the downloaded driver setup program. The driver install utility can be used for a ﬁrst time installation of a driver on a system and also to update an existing driver.
The screen shots in this description may diﬀer from the ones displayed on your computer, depending on the Windows version.

When drivers were already installed, the install utility will remove them before in-stalling the new driver. To remove the old driver successfully, it is essential that the Handyscope TP450 is disconnected from the computer prior to starting the driver install utility.
Clicking ”Install” will remove existing drivers and install the new driver. A remove entry for the new driver is added to the software applet in the Windows control panel.

Hardware installation

Drivers have to be installed before the Handyscope TP450 is connected to the computer for the ﬁrst time. See chapter 4 for more information.

Power the instrument
The Handyscope TP450 is powered by the USB, no external power supply is re-quired. Only connect the Handyscope TP450 to a bus powered USB port, other-wise it may not get enough power to operate properly.

Connect the instrument to the computer
After the new driver has been pre-installed (see chapter 4), the Handyscope TP450 can be connected to the computer. When the Handyscope TP450 is connected to a USB port of the computer, Windows will detect new hardware.
Depending on the Windows version, a notiﬁcation can be shown that new hard-ware is found and that drivers will be installed. Once ready, Windows will report that the driver is installed.
When the driver is installed, the measurement software can be installed and the Handyscope TP450 can be used.

Plug into a diﬀerent USB port
When the Handyscope TP450 is plugged into a diﬀerent USB port, some Windows versions will treat the Handyscope TP450 as diﬀerent hardware and will install the drivers again for that port. This is controlled by Microsoft Windows and is not caused by TiePie engineering.

Input connnectors

The CH1 slide contact connectors are the inputs of the acquisition system. The Handyscope TP450 is delivered with four diﬀerent mains wall socket adapters, which can be placed on the instrument body. The Handyscope TP450 can then be plugged in a matching wall socket to measure the mains voltage directly.

Using the Measure lead TP-C812C
The Handyscope TP450 is delivered with a Measure lead TP-C812C. To connect the TP-C812C to the Handyscope TP450, ﬁrst place the European wall socket adapter on the Handyscope TP450. The dual 4 mm banana socket of the TP-C812C can then be connected to the two prongs of the wall socket adapter.

Test probes and clips with 4 mm banana sockets can then be connected to the 4 mm banana plugs at the other end of the TP-C812C.

Speciﬁcations

The accuracy of a channel is deﬁned as a percentage of the Full Scale range. The Full Scale range runs from -range to range and is eﬀectively 2 * range. When the input range is set to 4 V, the Full Scale range is -4 V to 4 V = 8 V. Additionally a number of Least Signiﬁcant Bits is incorporated. The acuracy is determined in the highest resolution.
When the accuracy is speciﬁed as ±0.5% of the Full Scale range ± 1 LSB, and the input range is 4 V, the maximum deviation the measured value can have is ±0.5%of 8 V = ±40 mV. ±1 LSB equals 8 V / 3327 (= number of LSB at 11.7 bit) = ± 2.4 mV. Therefore the measured value will be between 42.4 mV lower and 42.4 mV higher than the actual value. When e.g. applying a 3.75 V signal and measuring it in the 4 V range, the measured value will be between 3.7076 V and 3.7924 V.

Acquisition system

System digital, 2 levels

Source CH1
Trigger modes TP450-250 TP450-50
rising slope, falling slope, inside window,

outside window rising slope,
falling slope
Level adjustment 0 to 100% of full scale

Hysteresis adjustment 0 to 100% of full scale
Resolution 0.025% (16 bits)
Pre trigger 0 to selected record length (0 to 100%, one sample resolution)

Post trigger 0 to selected record length (0 to 100%, one sample resolution

Interface
Interface USB 2.0 High Speed (480 Mbit/s) (USB 1.1 Full Speed and USB 3.0 compatible)

Power
Power from USB port
Consumption 5 VDC, 100 mA max

Physical

Instrument height 70 mm / 2.75”
Instrument length 72 mm / 2.83”

Instrument width 42 mm / 1.65”
Weight 160 gram / 5.6 ounce
USB cord length 3 m / 118”

I/O connectors

CH1 slide contacts with exchangable adapters for EU, US,
AU and UK mains wall sockets

USB fixed cable with USB 2 type A plug

System requirements

PC I/O connection USB 2.0 High Speed (480 Mbit/s)

(USB 1.1 Full Speed and USB 3.0 compatible)
Operating System Windows 10 / 11, 64 bits

Environmental conditions

Certifications and Compliances

CE mark compliance Yes

RoHS Yes
REACH Yes
EN 55011:2016/A1:2017 Yes

EN 55022:2011/C1:2011 Yes
IEC 61000-6-1:2019 EN Yes
IEC 61000-6-3:2007/A1:2011/C11:2012 Yes

ICES-001:2004 Yes
AS/NZS CISPR 11:2011 Yes
IEC 61010-1:2010/A1:2019 Yes

UL 61010-1, Edition 3 Yes

Measure lead

Model TP-C812C

Type differential
Connectors
Instrument side dual 4 mm banana socket, 19 mm apart

Test point side red and black 4 mm shrouded banana plugs
Bandwidth 7 MHz
Safety CAT III, 1000 V, double isolated
Dimensions

Total length 2000 mm
Length to split 800 mm
Length individual ends 1200 mm

Weight 75 g
Color black
Heat resistant yes

Certification and compliances
CE conformity yes
RoHS yes

Accessories
Color coding rings 5 x 3 rings, various colors
Suitable instrument Handyscope TP450

Package contents

Instrument Handyscope TP450
Test lead low noise differential with 4 mm banana plugs
Accessories 2 test probes with 4 mm banana socket
2 crocodile clips with 4 mm banana socket
Color coding rings
Mains wall socket adapters for EU, US, AU and UK
Software Windows 10 / 11, 64 bits, via website
Drivers Windows 10 / 11, 64 bits, via website
Software Development Kit Windows 10 / 11 (64 bits) and Linux, via website
Manual Instrument manual and software manual

If you have any suggestions and/or remarks regarding this manual, please contact:

TiePie engineering
Koperslagersstraat 37
8601 WL SNEEK
The Netherlands

Tel.: +31 515 415 416
Fax: +31 515 418 819
E-mail: support@tiepie.nl
Site: www.tiepie.com

TiePie engineering Handyscope TP450 instrument manual revision 2.49, August 2024

Documents / Resources

TiePie engineering TP450 Handyscope USB Oscilloscopen [pdf] User Manual
TP450 Handyscope USB Oscilloscopen, TP450, Handyscope USB Oscilloscopen, USB Oscilloscopen, Oscilloscopen

References

User Manual

TiePie engineering TP450 Handyscope USB Oscilloscopen

Handyscope TP450 Product Information

Product Usage Instructions