Lab 4: Oscillators Bench #4 Carlos Rodriguez, Abel Beyene

Introduction
Lab four is an introduction to Oscillators; electronic circuit that produces an output signal of a specific frequency. Essential in nearly every analog and digital electronic circuit are the timing waveforms that are provided by monostable and bistable oscillator circuits. An oscillator generally consists of an amplifier having part of its output returned to the input by means of a feedback loop; the necessary and sufficient condition for oscillation is that the signal, in passing from input to output and back to input via the feedback loop, arrives at the input with no change in amplitude or phase. Inductance-capacitance oscillators operate at high frequencies but are difficult to tune. Crystal oscillators operate at a single frequency. Relaxation oscillators use resistance-capacitance circuits to set the timing intervals. In this lab we design and build a relaxation oscillator using a 741 op amp, a monostable 555 timer circuit, and a 555 relaxation oscillator.

Procedure
Relaxation Oscillator
In this part, we designed an Op-Amp relaxation oscillator by using an LM741. The voltage output of this circuit alternates for some voltage limited as the RC charging circuits brings the inverting voltage V to the non-inverting voltage +V. The main premise is to use an RC time constant, that is, relaxation time of the circuit, to control the frequency and period of the input wave. This will, in turn, control the frequency and period of the square wave output. In this lab we used a frequency of 1 kHz and Two RB=10 k resistors are used from the positive feedback. That means the maximum and minimum values of the output voltage VCLK is limited by the positive and negative supply rails of which are +5V and -5V respectively. When VCLK is +5V, V is 2.5V. At the same time, capacitor C is charged towards +5V. When the Vcc is charged to a little bit higher than +2.5V, the negative input of the op amp is higher than the positive input of the op amp. This will results the op amp to go to negative power supply. When VCLK is 5V, V is -2.5V and the capacitor discharges toward -5V. When Vcc is discharged to a little bit lower than -2.5V, the negative input of the op amp is lower than the positive input of the op amp, so the op amp goes to the positive power supply.

555 Timer - Monostable Circuit

In this part of the experiment we built the Monostable 555 circuit shown in the figure 2 below. C = 10nF and square wave frequency 5kHZ ,duty cycle =88% We used 0 V and 10 V supply rails.

555 Timer- Astable Circuit

The astable circuit realizes an astable square-wave. The output duty cycle is adjustable 60% and frequency 30KHz.By using the formula T=(RA+2RB)Cln(2) we calculated C to be 91nF.

Theoretical Results
Relaxation Oscillator
In a relaxation oscillator the system is in an unstable equilibrium when both inputs and outputs of the Op amp are zero. When any sort of noise brings the output of the Op amp above zero, the positive-feedback results in the output saturating at the value of Vcc. The inverting input and the output of the Op amp are linked by a RC circuit; this causes the inverting input to asymptotically approach the comparator output voltage. At the point where voltage at the inverting input is greater than the non-inverting input, the output of the comparator fall quickly due to positive feedback. A sample figure is shown in figure 1.

555 Timer-Monostable Circuits

In monostable mode, the 555 timer acts like a pulse generator. The pulse begins when the 55 timer receives a signal at the trigger input that falls below a third of the voltage supply. The width of the output pulse is determined by the constant of the RC network shown in figure 2. The output pulse ends when the voltage on the capacitor equals 2/3 of the supply voltage.

Figure 1: Relaxation Oscillator Circuit

555 Timer- Astable Circuit

In astable mode, the 555 timer puts out a continuous stream of rectangular pulses having a specified frequency. There is not stable voltage in this system, and this causes it to change back and forth. The circuit used for this lab is shown in figure 3.

Figure 2: Monostable 555 Timer

Figure 3: Astable 555 Timer

Measurement Results and Discussion

Relaxation Oscillator
In order for the Relaxation Oscillator to have a clock frequency of 1 kHz, given that C=10nF and RB=10k. The value of R must be design so that: ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )

The measure period of the clock signal, using the parameter above, is that is different than the expected design period for a 1 kHz clock. Figure 4, below compares the capacitor voltage and the clock voltage as a function of time.

Figure 4: Relaxation Oscillator Clock Voltage and Capacitor Voltage vs. Time

By replacing R, designed above, with a 2.2K resistor the sides of the square wave become slanted. The slope of the new wave is: When the 741 OP Amp is replaces by the 341 the sides of the square wave become less slanted. The new slope of the sides is: This shows that the slew rate is not the same for the two OP Amps, and that the 341 is better for high frequency functions.

555 Timer Monostable Circuit

Given that C=10nF and the voltage supply is 10 volts, the required resistance for this circuit to have a pulse width of 100s, R is:

( ) ( ) ( ) Using the resistance designed above, the measured pulse width is 86s. This is . Figure 5 shows the clock voltage and the capacitor voltage versus time.

( )

Figure 5: Monostable 555 timer Clock Voltage and Capacitor Voltage vs. Time

When the frequency of the trigger is increased to 9 kHz decreases slightly, however the separation between positive pulses decreases significantly. This is the result of the trigger triggering the capacitor more often. When the duty cycle is decrease the trigger pulse increase, figure 6 shows the print out of the result.

Figure 6: Monostable 555 timer Clock Voltage and Capacitor Voltage vs. Time with reduced duty cycle

The increase width is due to the fact that the reduce duty cycle causes the capacitors to have more time to saturate.

555 Timer-Astable Circuits

Given that C=10nF and the voltage supply is 10 volts, the resistance RA and RB must be 847 and 1.7k in order for the clock frequency with 30 kHz. The values of RA and RB are obtained by: ( ( (
( ( ) ( ( ) ) ) ( ( ( ( (

) ) )
) ( ) ) ( ) ) ) ) ( )

From the design r values the observed period and the observed duty cycle are 34.2s and .579 respectively. That means the period is 2.5% different and the duty cycle is 3.6% different. These are small changes and the resulting clock is close enough to the desire values. Figure 7 shows the capacitor and voltage of the circuit versus time.

Figure 7: Atable555 timer Clock Voltage and Capacitor Voltage vs. Time

Conclusion
The goal of this lab was to familiarize us with oscillators. We learned how to design oscillator circuits that provide timing waveforms that are essential in nearly analog and digital electronic circuit. Some of the oscillators that we created were; the op-amp relaxation oscillator, the astable 555 circuit and the monostable 555 circuit. The results from the three experiments came out the way they were supposed to function.