GBS Elektronik MCA-527 - Manual (Page 50)

MCA527
5 Other and Auxiliary Measurements
5.1 Oscilloscope Mode
Oscilloscope mode is in WinSPEC-A a sub-menu of the amplifier settings menu. Its main
purpose is troubleshooting; so without the necessity of an extra oscilloscope it can easily
be seen, if there is a preamplifier signal present, and if it fits correctly to the MCA signal
input. Compared to a regular oscilloscope, the bandwidth is with 3MHz and 10MSps
rather limited, but the noise level is extremely low and measurements down to the µV level
are possible.
5.2 Auxiliary Measurements
5.2.1 Supply Currents
The diagnostics menu of each program shows the primary currents of the preamplifier
power supply (±12V and ±24V). This are the primary currents of the internal
DC/DC-converters and not the currents that draws the detector. However, this currents
can be easily calculated using the following formula:
The accuracy of this calculation is however limited, as 80% is just a good estimate for the
efficiency of the internal DC/DC-converters.
50
Figure 26: Typical preamplifier signal how it is seen by the MCA. Here the signal is from a
planar HPGe detector.
I
Out
≈ 0.8⋅I
Batt
⋅
V
Batt
V
Out