What is the difference between "Normal" and "Precision" acquisition modes?
Written by Paul Cracknell
Updated at December 22nd, 2020
Moku:Lab records samples from the analog inputs at a rate of 500 MSa/s. When looking at long time spans, the data’s sample rate is reduced to display the trace on the screen. In “Normal” acquisition mode, the input is simply downsampled; that is, only every Nth sample is taken. This can cause aliasing of high frequency signals: for example, a high frequency sine wave may appear as a lower frequency sine wave when the oscilloscope timebase is zoomed out. In “Precision” mode, the input is lowpass filtered (averaged) before downsampling. This reduces aliasing artifacts and increases the resolution of the trace. Note that in this mode, high frequency signals can be filtered out, so the oscilloscope trace may appear to be zero even if a high frequency signal is present at the input.