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Raw Time Series

Raw Time Series

Overview

A tool like a "chart recorder" that continuously monitors and records signal changes over long periods. While an oscilloscope captures and displays momentary waveforms, Raw Time Series keeps recording signal transitions over long spans (seconds to minutes), making it suitable for observing slow voltage fluctuations, DC offset drift, and the timing of sporadic noise occurrences.

Operations

Starting and Stopping Measurements

  • Start / Stop Button: Toggles monitoring between active and stopped states. Stopping does not clear the buffer; resuming continues drawing from where it left off.

Reading the Graph

  • X-axis (Time): Represents elapsed time. Current time is 0, and the display goes back into the past (e.g., -10s to 0s).
  • Y-axis (Amplitude): Represents the signal amplitude.
  • CH1 (Green) / CH2 (Red): Displays left and right channels arranged vertically. Time axes are synchronized.

Settings

General Settings

  • Time Span

    • Sets the length of time displayed on the screen.
    • 10s: Monitors the last 10 seconds of activity. Highly responsive.
    • 60s (1 minute): Displays transitions over a one-minute period.
    • 300s (5 minutes): Used for long-term trend monitoring.

  • Scale (Vertical Scale)

    • Changes the display magnification of the waveform.
    • 1.0x: Standard size (Full Scale or 1V reference).
    • Larger numbers (e.g., 10.0x): Magnifies the signal. Useful for viewing minute noise or offsets.
    • Smaller numbers (e.g., 0.1x): Shrinks the display. Effective for seeing the overall picture of loud signals that might otherwise clip.

  • Show Volts

    • OFF (Default): Displays relative to digital Full Scale (FS) (-1.0 to +1.0).
    • ON: Displays in voltage units (V). Reflects the input sensitivity setting (calibration) of the audio interface.

  • Pause

    • Pauses only the screen updates.
    • Important: Data recording continues in the background. When unpaused, the display updates all at once to include data recorded during the pause. This is useful for carefully reading values while viewing the graph.

  • Show DC Offset

    • ON: Displays the DC component (average value) contained in the signal in real-time.
    • Used for monitoring DC leakage in amplifiers or fluctuations in bias voltage.

Usage Examples

Monitoring DC Offset Drift

Check the operational stability of a DIY amplifier or circuit.

  1. Press the Start button to begin measurement.
  2. Set Time Span to 60s or 300s.
  3. Turn Show DC Offset ON.
  4. Power on the circuit and observe how the DC voltage value and graph line change over time (e.g., checking if voltage drifts due to thermal runaway).

Finding Intermittent Noise

Wait for and monitor noise that occurs sporadically, such as occasional "popping" sounds.

  1. Set a long Time Span (60s or more).
  2. Set the Scale to a high value (5.0x or 10.0x) to magnify the noise floor during silence.
  3. When noise occurs, it will be recorded as a spike on the graph.
  4. Quickly press Pause when you see noise to examine the waveform. This can be used as a "visual trigger" for irregular phenomena that are difficult to capture with standard oscilloscope trigger settings.