User Manual

Probing Principles

The following inf ormation is provided to help you use the full potential of your curren t probe.

Degaussing a Probe with an Unpowered Conductor in the Jaws

You can degauss your current probe while a conductor of an unpowered circuit is clamped in the jaws. The advantage of

degaussing with an unpowered circuit is tha t any offset from stray DC ma gnetic ﬁelds is compensated. Degaussing with the

conductor in the probe jaws eliminates the need to ma nually remove the probe.

NOTE. Be certain that the conductor in the probe jaws is completely unpowered. Any current ﬂowing throu gh the conductor will

cause a residual offset in the current probe and may ca use an inaccurate measurement or an error condition.

The impedance of your circuit must be higher than 10 mΩ for the degauss procedure to work. (The probe core will not saturate with

a circuit impedan ce of less than 10 mΩ). While d egauss occurs, the probe will induce a 60 mV, 200 Hz signal in the unpowered

circuit. Your circuit m u st be able to absorb this induced voltage. With low impedance circuits, several amperes may be induced in

the circu it being measured. This may be of concern when you are using very small conductors.

30 TCP0150 Current Probe Instruction Manual