dumb triangle oscillator

Wheeeee! Anything to avoid a 555. But he does hold a commanding lead in the Lame Circuits Competition and doesn't want to sacrifice any part of it >:-}

With _snap_ (as in a 555) Barkhausen's criterion has no meaning.

Have you seen my postings...

There are easy ways to add symmetry and amplitude control... if need be. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142     Skype: skypeanalog  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson
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Yeah, like wanting precise control of the min and max voltages.

And using modern parts that we have in stock.

But he does hold a commanding lead

Sure, just keep adding parts.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
Reply to
John Larkin

But ideally, don't you want to dynamically change the RC value of the integrator when you change the frequency a lot, when it's variable ?

How do the modern function generators make triangle waves ? Not the old ICL8038 method I don't suppose ?

I used to use the old two op-amp integrator and comparator method a lot. Always worked.

boB

Reply to
boB

The problem at hand wasn't variable frequency, but you'd probably make variable current sources/sinks.

YEARS ago I did just that, but added components to clean up the distortion, etc. If I can find the drawing, I'll post it.

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142     Skype: skypeanalog  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

[snip] ...Jim Thompson

Already posted (designed 1986), see...

Function_Generator_OmniComp-GenRad.pdf

on the S.E.D/Schematics Page of my website.

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142     Skype: skypeanalog  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

It should be possible to match against any distribution.

--
  \_(?)_
Reply to
Jasen Betts

That's obviously not true but even if it were, why work around a goofy sorta-triangle wave when a good one is easy to make?

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
Reply to
John Larkin

It might not be obviously true, but it certainly isn't obviously not true. The 'goofy' isn't obvious to me, at all; that 'jump' only occurs at the triangle apices, and it's 30 mV on a 3.3V triangle wave. The reason to use a triangle wave is the long straight sweep, not the pointy-top shape. Similarly, the reason to use a square wave is the abrupt rise/fall not the kinda-flat top. I think we all agree on that, because we all used a flip-flop for the square (faster risetime than an op amp used as Schmitt trigger).

Because it works. And the work-around is a no-op (to exercise an ADC, the sweep should exceed the input range, or it doesn't hit all codes - the excess just needs to be greater than 30 mV-before-offset-and-scaling).

It's more useful to improve the triangle by symmetry control (because that allows for a high duty cycle of the upsweep, with short 'reset' delay). I've also done jobs where different measurements on a slow upsweep and faster downsweep improved my throughput.

You can, of course, eliminate the 'jumps' without adding a third chip, by using a (CMOS) '555 and dual op amp, integrating with the first section and inverting-with-attenuation with the second section (and take feedback from that inverted second section). Oddly, though, that would be slightly limiting, because the second section has to be a compensated op amp. That can get you a +/- 5V square and +/- 4V triangle, and benefits from the triangle being amplitude-regulated (to the '555 power rails).

Reply to
whit3rd

With a small change (triangle wave was +/- 1.33, now +/- 4V) here's some component values.

And, a valid LTspice netlist, enough to do a simulation; note the triangle wave crest 'anomaly', and there's also some opamp-induced ripple after each peak.

  • XU1 N004 N003 Square N001 NC_01 N003 NC_02 N001 NE555 XU2 N005 N002 N001 N004 Tri LT1007 C2 Tri N002 1.2n C1 Square N006 0.12p R1 N005 0 400 R2 N005 Square 68k R3 N002 0 400 R4 N003 Tri 5.2k R5 0 N003 4k R8 N006 N002 400 V1 N001 0 5 V3 0 N004 5 .tran 1u 3m 2m .lib LTC.lib .lib NE555.sub .backanno .end
Reply to
whit3rd

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