This instrument is designed to characterize IV curves on transistors and hence is set up for three terminal devices. Most of this functionality isn't used for two terminal IV measurements. The controls which aren't used for three terminal operation should already be set for two terminal use and won't be discussed. If you have difficulties which you can't explain, and think one of the other settings needs to be changed, contact your instructor.
1. Set the left/off/right switch to off, the variable collector supply to zero,
and turn on the power.
2. When the instrument warms up, a bright spot will appear in the center of
the CRT. Adjust the intensity so you can see the spot, but so it is not too
bright. Leaving a bright spot on a CRT screen for any extended period of time
will burn the screen and leave a permanent image of the spot.
3. Set the Horizontal volts/div to 0.5V, and the Vertical current/div to 1 microamp.
These will be adjusted later. On the current scale setting use the black collector
numbers, instead of the tan numbers.
4. Set the Max peak volts at 15V (It should be there already, anything higher
will not work without a special cover over the device connections for safety
reasons). Set the series resistance at a fairly high value to start with, like
14K ohms. Note, you pull the knob out to adjust this.
5. Connect your device to the instrument if it isn't already connected. You
should be using the collector (C) and emitter (E) bananna plug inputs. The instrument
can be connected to two devices so there is a left and right set of plugs. You
can use either set.
6. Set the left/off/right switch to either left or right depending upon which
set of plugs you used in the last step.
7. Slowly turn up the variable collector supply. Anything more than a few volts
may damage your device.
8. Adjust the horizontal and vertical scales as needed to see the device characteristics.
9. You may need to reduce the series resistance if the current is too low to
observe the characteristics. You may also need to turn up the CRT intensity
a little once you are looking at an actual device.
10. For reference, there is also a graticle intensity that can be used to illuminate
the current and voltage grid on the CRT screen. This can be useful for taking
polaroid images of the trace.
11. When you are done looking at your device, set the variable collector supply
to zero, left/off/right switch to off and power off the curve tracer.