Peak-to-peak

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An AC voltage (or other alternating signal) can be measured in a variety of ways. When measured by looking at the difference between the maximum positive and maximum negative swing, the measurement is said to be peak-to-peak. The signal may not be a pure sine wave, and therefore difficult to measure with a RMS instrument. An oscilloscope is good for looking at signals to find the exact peak-to-peak value.

For a clean sine wave, a RMS value can be converted into peak-to-peak like so:

\mbox{Peak-to-peak} = 2 \cdot \mbox{RMS} \cdot \sqrt{2}

When discussing the voltage of a signal, it is important to specify whether it is a peak-to-peak (P-P), peak (P), or RMS value. For example, in the United States, AC line power is said to be 120 volts; in reality the peak-to-peak voltage is approximately 340 V. Failure to account for this in a design may have serious consequences.

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