Electronic – How to use an oscilloscope to measure voltages that are referenced to nodes several hundred volts apart

isolationmeasurementoscilloscopeprobevoltage

In my organization, we often use four-channel oscilloscopes to check out products. Each probe reference might be several hundred volts away from the others, which makes using standard scopes problematic. As best I can tell, there are only a few 'scopes on the market with the required level of channel-to-channel isolation, all from Tektronix, all costing at least $4,000. I would like to reduce this cost.

Another option would be to use differential voltage probes with a cheaper scope, but those are also very expensive, and we run the risk of someone forgetting and connecting a non-differential probe to the cheaper scope and blowing it up.

A third possibility would be to build my own isolators or differential mode probes for use with a cheaper scope. But I suspect that gets complex very fast, especially when one does not typically build such precise things.

A fourth possibility would be to use several PC-based USB oscilloscopes, each connected to a USB isolator. But I've never seen a system that allows multiple USB scopes in the same software, and I suspect there would be serious synchronization issues.

edit:

I have very low bandwidth, sample rate, and accuracy requirements; this is part of a test stand for a 360 Hz inverter, so if I can see an 20 mS window with 10 uS granularity, a 600 VAC RMS sine wave with 10V granularity, and a 5V feedback pulse with 100 mV granularity, I'm done.

What is the cheapest way to achieve my goals reliably?

Best Answer

Since it is AC consider using a small transformer for each phase. They can be quite small and the turns ratio will determine what you will get on the secondaries. The quality of the transformer will determine the accuracy of the measurement. The nice part is the voltages to the scope can be as low as you want and the transformers can have one side of the secondaries connected to ground and your scope's common terminal.