The probes

Your ADALM2000 should come with a BNC breakout board. This board allows you to properly connect up to four BNC probes to the ADALM2000.

Picture of a probe

The probe has three things to pay attention to: a hook attachment, a x1/x10 switch and a trim capacitor. The first two are quite simple to explain:

The hook attachment

Removing the hook attachment provides you with a sharp probe instead of a hook.

The switch:

The x1/x10 attenuates the measured signal depending on the switch position. When measuring for example a 5V signal with the switch on the x1 position, the signal at the BNC plug will be 5V. With the switch on the x10 position, the same signal will be 10 times smaller at the BNC plug, namely 0.5V. This allows you to measure signals that are greater than the maximum input voltage of the ADALM2000 scope inputs. Just make sure to select x10 in the probe settings of the software to make sure your measurements are correct.

The trim capacitor

At the BNC connector, a small hole is found with a Philips style setscrew. Turning this actually changes the capacitance of an internal capacitor in the probe. This is an essential feature of the probe. Setting this capacitor incorrectly will result in skewed measurements at low frequencies and attenuated signals at high frequencies. To correctly set this capacitor, connect your probe to the ADALM2000 and start the oscilloscope software. Then attach the probe to a 5Vpp, 2kHz square wave. Use a proper signal generator to generate that signal.

Now measure the square wave with the probe you want to set. Is the square wave perfectly straight with nice 90 degree angles? Perfect! You are all set. If the square wave looks off, use the provided Philips head screwdriver to adjust the capacitor until satisfied. The image below illustrates (f.l.t.r.) overcompensation, undercompensation and good compensation.

Graphs showing the effect of the trim capacitor on a square wave

Please note that in general, the ground clips of oscilloscope probes are directly connected to mains ground. You WILL damage equipment, trip a breaker, start a fire, hurt yourself or worse if you try to do differential measurements without taking this into account!