Hi,
I'm hoping someone can help me understand how aperature/autozero affects the recorded values.
I would like to use a 34461A to measure average current consumption averaged over periods of 1s.
The device under test (DUT) is going to be quite spikey (say 1uA typically bursting to a 10mA for few us).
I'm happy to set/clamp the current range on the DMM (no auto range issues)
Q1. Am I correct in thinking that the Aperature will provide a true average / integration of the current?
Q2. Do I loose measuements during autozero? e.g. say the aperature is set to 1s with auto zero on. After 100s, I will have 100 readings. Does the sum of these readings / 100 = true average for the 100s period? Or is it possible that some current spikes from the DUT will have been lost while the DMM was doing an auto zero?
I'm hoping someone can help me understand how aperature/autozero affects the recorded values.
I would like to use a 34461A to measure average current consumption averaged over periods of 1s.
The device under test (DUT) is going to be quite spikey (say 1uA typically bursting to a 10mA for few us).
I'm happy to set/clamp the current range on the DMM (no auto range issues)
Q1. Am I correct in thinking that the Aperature will provide a true average / integration of the current?
Q2. Do I loose measuements during autozero? e.g. say the aperature is set to 1s with auto zero on. After 100s, I will have 100 readings. Does the sum of these readings / 100 = true average for the 100s period? Or is it possible that some current spikes from the DUT will have been lost while the DMM was doing an auto zero?
Posted the response here in case it is helpful to someone else.
Q1:
Keysight: "Yes this is correct. Each result is a true integral of current over the aperature window.".
Me: Great, it's what I thought. On to Question 2.
Q2:
Keysight: "No readings are 'lost' during the auto zero cycle."
Me: I'm still not sure about this. But didn't really want to hang around and discuss on an international call. I was more interested in Q1 anyway. Going to use Autozero-Once to be sure.