The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning
Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Electrical & Electronic gadgets
The second incandescent bulb over the kitchen sink popped and a replacement LED bulb arrived with the by-now-familiar homeopathic Amazon padding:
Turns out the new bulb is slightly brighter than the old one:
Oh, and it’s three bucks cheaper, too.
Eyeballometrically, 5% makes no difference whatsoever, even in a side-by-side comparison.
Life is good.
Histogramming all 50-ish resonator frequencies shows reasonably good distributions:
Notably, there’s no obvious suckout in the middle, as with those eBay Hall-effect sensors.
I don’t know what to make of the difference between the parallel series-capacitor and basic serial resonant frequencies for each tuning fork:
Perhaps each resonator’s frequency depends on its (laser-trimmed) tine mass and follows a more-or-less normal distribution, but the parallel-serial difference series capacitor changes the frequency based on (well-controlled) etched dimensions producing quantized results from three different masks / wafers / lots, with the motional inductance and capacitance incompletely modeling the physics?
For reference, the resonators look like this:
Producing the histograms uses the LibreOffice frequency() array function, which requires remembering to whack Ctrl-Shift Enter to activate the function’s array-ness.
[Update: Faceplant about “parallel” resonance, which is actually the shifted resonant peak due to the 24 pF series cap. Apparently I typo-ed the second histogram subheading and ran with the error; the figures are now correct.]
The usual model for a quartz resonator apportions half the measured both-leads-to-case capacitance to each lead:
These AT26 / TF26 cases run around 0.6 pF, so each parasitic capacitor is 300 fF:
For ordinary quartz crystals, you solder the case to the ground plane to get rid of the sneak path around the central capacitor (normally C0, but labeling it properly in LTSpice just isn’t happening), but those little aluminum cans aren’t solderable. One could blob some Wire Glue over them, but …
So I just wrapped a wire around the case and soldered it to a convenient ground point under the board:
Aaaand ran the obvious measurements:
Solid lines = case ungrounded. Dotties = case grounded.
Grounding the case knocks the off-peak response down by less than 1 dB. The on-peak response remains about the same, so eliminating the series capacitance does reduce the blowthrough.
With the case grounded and CX = 6 pF in the circuit, the peaks over on the right seem ever so slightly lower in frequency, which suggests a slightly higher motional capacitance. There’s not much to write home about, though, so I’d say there’s very little effect, even on this scale.
Adjusting the series capacitor produces pretty much the expected results, with the parallel resonance still tracking the series peak.
CX = 19.3 pF
Fs peak: 59996.18 Hz 80.4 dbV
Fc peak: 59998.19 Hz 78.2 dbV
Delta frequency: 2.01
CX = 9.9pF
Fs peak: 59996.19 Hz 79.4 dbV
Fc peak: 59999.97 Hz 75.8 dbV
Delta frequency: 3.78
CX = 6.8 pF
Fs peak: 59996.10 Hz 80.3 dbV
Fc peak: 60001.48 Hz 74.6 dbV
Delta frequency: 5.38
At the frequency resolution of these graphs, none of the standard equations are helpful; this is definitely a “tune for best picture” situation.
So, assuming the same general conditions apply in a filter, a series capacitance around 10 pF should pull the resonant peak to 60.000 kHz. Unfortunately, the cheery 76 dB level is relative to the AD8310‘s nominal -108 dBV intercept at 4 μV: the log amp sees 25 mV after the MAX4255 op amp applies 40 dB (×100) of gain to the 250 μV coming from the resonator. The resonator drive is 1 μW = 150 mV, so the resonator produces a 55 dB loss for a signal dead on frequency.
The off-peak attenuation looks like a mere 7 dB, although I hope plenty of noise masks the true result in this circuit.
Phew & similar remarks.
The Pixel’s camera shows a black stripe across both the live preview and the final image:
That’s under the high-intensity LED lamp on my desk, which must have a high-frequency flicker. I’m amazed the camera remains in absolutely stable sync with the flicker for as long as I’m willing to aim it.
The stripe covers only the moth and greenery, not the LCD monitor in the background, so it’s caused by the overhead lamp, not something internal to the Pixel or its camera.
A closer look shows shading on either side of the deepest black (clicky for more dots):
The stripe location and width differ based on the image zoom level, although in no predictable way:
The Pixel camera definitely doesn’t have optical zoom, so it’s surely related to the scaling applied to convert the physical sensor array into the final image. Even though all images have 4048×3036 pixels (or the other way around, at least for these portrait-layout pix), zoomed images get made-up (pronounced “interpolated”) data in their pixels.
Not a problem under any other illumination I’ve encountered so far, so it’s likely something to do with this specific and relatively old LED lamp.
Replacing the 22 pF series capacitor with a variable cap went smoothly after I got over having to rip-and-replace the adjacent socket and header, too:
The circuit remains the same, plus a test point to simplify measuring the actual capacitance:
I didn’t add a jumper to disconnect the crystal fixture, because (I think) it would add too much uncontrolled stray capacitance: removing the header would disconnect the socket / header wires.
The little red cap adjusts from (nominally) 3 pF to 28 pF over half a turn, without a stop. The rotor does have a marked side, but basically you’re supposed to tune for best picture and leave it at that.
The AADE L/C meter works fine, but in the low pF range everything affects the reading. The only way to measure the actual capacitance seems to be:
The as-installed range spans 6.5 pF to 28 pF. I think I can measure it to within ±0.05 pF, with a considerable dependence on maintaining the same pressure on the clip lead.
I suppose if you were doing this for real, you’d throw another Teledyne relay at the problem.
The first batch of 25 resonators:
The second batch from the same eBay source arrived a few months later and I finally got around to measuring them:
A dot of green Sharpie on the AT26 cans identifies the second batch:
The alert reader will notice an un-measured 25th resonator at the bottom of the first batch. I dropped one from the second batch under the Electronics Workbench, found it, then also found its long-missing brother; now I have a genuine it’s-never-been-used resonator, just in case the need arises.
A quick-and-dirty simulation shows the series and parallel resonant peaks come out close, but not dead on, the actual measurements:
The model obviously doesn’t exactly match reality, which isn’t too surprising. However, I don’t understand something about tuning fork resonators, because the parallel resonance shouldn’t shift upward with the series resonant peak when the circuit gains a 24 pF series capacitance:
Suffice it to say that doesn’t happen with the simulation.
More study is needed, as the saying goes.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 