Circuits & Schematics Measurement

Manufacturers of optocouplers characterize their devices for CTR (current-transfer ratio), and an optocoupler’s data sheet will list its CTR ranges. Unfortunately, the CTR range may be too wide for some applications, requiring you to screen ...

Few methods for analog to digital conversion are more “mature” than the classic combination of a voltage-to-frequency converter (VFC) with a counter. VFC digitization is naturally integrating, so good noise rejection is inherent, as is ...

It’s interesting, useful, and fun that basic electronic topologies often turn out to have utility in multiple and surprisingly different applications. Figure 1 shows an example of such a circuit. It’s a charge pump voltage inverter ...

Battery-operated instrument benefited from auto-power shutdown A handheld, battery-operated “fiber finder” measures the light escaping from an optical fiber when clamped in a V-shaped block under slight pressure. A pair of photodiodes ...

Figure 1 shows two large-signal- measurement methods. The first uses a two-resistor voltage divider and an output buffer, and the second comprises an attenuating inverter and a high-value input resistor. Both of these approaches introduce ...

All thermal anemometers work by inferring air speed from measurements of thermal impedance (Z) between a heated sensor and the surrounding air: (1) where P is the power dissipated by the sensor and T is the temperature difference between the sensor ...

Several years ago we were developing a clamp-on photometer, a hand-held instrument that could be clamped onto a communications optical fiber to indicate the presence of light, its direction of travel, and the presence of combinations of ...

Self-heated transistors used as thermal air flow sensors are a particular (obsessive?) interest of mine, and over the years I must have designed dozens of variations on this theme. Figure 1 illustrates one such topology seen here (Reference 1) ...

Anemometers are an important category of environmental sensor. Articles about their design, data capture, and linearization have comprised topics featured in EDN Design Ideas, several quite recently. Less well covered, however, has been the topic ...

An obstacle detection unit is an essential part of a variety of projects, such as robotics and security applications. The infrared sensors are widely used for these types of applications. The main drawback of some circuit designs is that the ...