EEVblog #159 - Oscilloscope Trigger Holdoff Tutorial

One of the more obscure controls on an oscilloscope is the Trigger Holdoff control. A dedicated control on most high end analog oscilloscopes, and a main menu option in modern digital scopes, yet often poorly understood. What does it do and how does it work?
(the background noise is crickets!)

[arnotek]

You recorded this over 12 years ago and you helped me today (6/27/2023) to understand this capability. I was confused by the trigger offset setting but I understand it now. With your explanation and demonstration, it now makes perfect sense. I also gained experience with my waveform generator to properly set it to generate the burst pulses for the scope. THANK YOU!

[TheBdd]

I've been using scopes - analog and digital, for years and never understood how to use Holdoff. I'm doing a circuit design analysis right now and I think Holdoff will remove the analog signal confusion I am seeing. THANK YOU!

[EEVblog]

@neutron7 If one person learned something then I'm happy!

[theslawek]

A seasoned electronics tech (+15 years) I work with spend two days replacing IC's and parts to fix an "intermittent problem". It was just the holdoff a previous tech set. :) I learned what it does just by using scopes, especially when I needed to capture longer digital pulses. I'm one of those who refuse to use the auto-scale, unlike my classmates. I love your blog!

[EEVblog]

@Wizard4592 Yeah, sorry about that, really loud crickets. Didn't want to delay the shoot until they stopped chirping!

[MrDoneboy]

Thanks Dave...You are the only one that takes the time to explain the value of owning an older Analog scope, where you had to wrap your brain around!

[galgan]

I finally understood it. It's such a simple concept, thanks man. You made it really simple!

[BrisbaneSalsa]

Excellent explanation! I just posted a question to the eevblog forums and they pointed me here - your example is almost EXACTLY what I'm trying to achieve. Keep up the great work!

[mouritius]

Thank you very much for you clear, motivated, kind and didactic explanation, it helped me very much for my Electrical Mesurement's exam. Greetings from Argentina!

[Antiath]

Arghhh! It's exactly the kind of feature I needed for my project. Been searching for something like that in the bloody trigger menu for months without finding anything ( and it's in the horizontal menu of my scope actually). Thanks a lot.

[nicktumi]

Hi, I just wanted to say thanks for posting these informative videos. I first watched your videos when I bought a multimeter based on your multimeter comparison video 3 years ago and now I am 1 year away from my BA in EE. Thanks for helping me understand along the way!

[jackevans]

Never knew this. What an invaluable source of info EEVblog is. I will never forget this piece of info now.

[ManWrenching]

Loved this episode! Just got my Rigol scope last week, never really used a scope before, so educational videos like this go a long way. I had this exact problem scoping a signal already, so it was great to know how to deal with it, other than hitting the stop button. :)

[gaganchand]

hi David L. Jones, i really like the way u explain every thing so crisp clear, u rock and i will go through all your videos

[kahvac]

Excellent video ! Thanks for taking the time to make it.
On another note, an oscilloscope without triggering of some sort is extremely limited in what it can do.
Thanks again.

[shamin]

Thank you for this great tutorial, Dave! I did not know what and what for this function was in my oscilloscope but now I know.

[ronaldlijs]

Dave, ABSOLUTELY| FANTASTIC! The most useful thing I've learnt this month!

Rigol is on its way and already saving for that Agilent, that feels and looks incredible!
VERY valuable lesson here, been troubleshooting my I2S interface the other day with my analogue 30MHz Hameg scope and it "does" the job, but this is 10000 times better mate, thanks for this them

[seanmangan]

G'day "multimeter Jones". I've watched dozens of your videos - enjoyed them and learned a lot. Thank you!

[mysomervda]

Fantastic! I finally discovered my holdoff control when I was started playing with AM signals.

[sciguy]

Not only have a I never used that knob, but I never even noticed it was there! Very cool!