Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Function Generator Kickstarter?!?! Some specs and features... What do ya think?

Status
Not open for further replies.

edman222

Member
*Bump* Its now on kickstarter!

Hey guys I am about to put a home-made function generator on kickstarter!

I wanted some input (creative criticism only please :p )

Well before you think "A function generator, who needs that...?" I assure you its not typical, I designed it for myself but decided I would beautify it for kickstarter or for any other hobbyists who would need one. What makes it so special?

Well I needed something fast, low noise and easy to use, plus I wanted a nice interface. Since I am so tired of these ugly push buttons I put an LCD in. I designed a UI that I liked and here it is... Keep in mind this is an actual device I have sitting on my desk, NOT a rendering. It is also a PROTOTYPE so it is a work in progress!
Currently some specs are:
400Msps 14bit
Audio DAC
2 Chanel
12Vpp sine 50 MHZ
6Vdc Offset
Sin,Triangle,Square,PWM,Sweep,Audio
SD-Micro and USB

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1668656797/marlin-1



**broken link removed**




**broken link removed**
 
Last edited:
I don't think that coolness is a factor for most technical types (but important for Kickstarter funding). The specifications look pretty interesting, but what kind of interface will it have (knobs and dials)?
 
Last edited:
Hey Dick Cappels, thanks for your input. I actually decided to go with a capacitive touch screen, like you find on most phones now, so it has no buttons but just menus.
 
Last edited:
It looks like you use two separate sets of DACs to get the low frequency and high frequency signals. Interesting.
Do you have a USB connection to down load the ARBs.
Because you have "soft controls" you can down load new functions later. (I hope) Another use for USB or blue tooth.

With very old function generators, I often spin the frequency know from one end to the other and watch the scope. many will sweep 50:1 (looking for filter response or amplifier response) The new generators act very differently.
Example: 1khz, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14.......1501, 1502, 1503 1504, 1505 See how slow the know increments on the right side.
I would be thrilled to have a "log increment" option.
Example: 1khz,2,5,10,20,50,100,200,500,1000 (or increase 10% with each click)
I know you probably have a sweep function that will solve the problem.

I have designed pieces of several function generators. One of the uses is "testing". Where a PC controls many pieces of equipment. Example the PC directs the generator to output 10hz and the AC meter measures the out put voltage of the amplifier under test. Then the frequency if set to 20khz and tested again. (factory automation testing) But your generator will need a network or USB or serial connection.
 
Hey ronsimpson, thanks for your ideas and input! I actually have a 2 independent outputs, the high-speed one goes from 1hz to 50 Mhz sine ( triangle i have at 10Mhz and PWM at 10 Mhz)the other one is mainly used for audio because it has lower noise (around -70db compared to the main dac ( -60db in the same audio range). The main one is DDS so it is fixed in what it can do, the Audio one is flexible and can play tones or even music from WAV file or mp3 (still working on this)

It has a USB connection but I am not sure what you mean by ARB's, are you say the ability to load waveform sizes and frequency?

The log idea sounds like a good one, I think it is possible to implement that, I will have to take a look at coding it, I have also though about adding to the USB option the ability to program a test sequence for automating things.
 
I want to down load Arbitray wave forms by the USB.
Some companies have software to make wave forms for their generators on the PC.
 
Hey KeepItSimpleStupid, the units can honestly be anything you like since its all software and are changeable on the fly. but i have Vpp, mVpp, Vrms, mVrms, dBm. the output is 50 ohms, but you can set it so it shows highz value (50 ohms going into high resistance so the value are twice as large) i am not sure what you mean by %.
 
I want to down load Arbitray wave forms by the USB.
Some companies have software to make wave forms for their generators on the PC.

Hey Ron, I have not designed it to be fully arbitrary as the price point i am going for as $269 ish... but if there is enough interest I would do an FPGA and DAC for it to be arbitrary. But I would make it fully configurable through USB regardless.
 
edman:

One thing you have to fix. You didn't honor Heinrich Hertz.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Hertz

Sometime in the 70's nearly all the units of measurement got a revision. mhos was changed to Siemens. The general rule of, if it's a proper name it gets capitalized. So MHz is megahertz and mHz is millihertz.

So, the Watt, the Amp. The Volt, The Siemen got capital letters and so did lots of other constants. http://www.poynton.com/notes/units/

before Hertz, c.p.s. was common.

Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertz
 
edman:

One thing you have to fix. You didn't honor Heinrich Hertz.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Hertz

Sometime in the 70's nearly all the units of measurement got a revision. mhos was changed to Siemens. The general rule of, if it's a proper name it gets capitalized. So MHz is megahertz and mHz is millihertz.

So, the Watt, the Amp. The Volt, The Siemen got capital letters and so did lots of other constants. http://www.poynton.com/notes/units/

before Hertz, c.p.s. was common.

Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertz

Thank you! With so much work to do, the small details are sometimes forgotten. I will fix this :)
 
Unfortunately (hz to Hz), it turns out to be a lot of fixes. It seems very very cool and you did a nice presentation.

How would arbitrary waveform generation work? That's a real buy point for me. My use would be would be developing an IR remote.

I actually bought one of these a Phillips PM5139 **broken link removed** and I haven't even taken it out of the box. I got it for a very good price. Who knows how to do arb waveform generation,

As you said, I used a $80 USD generator for some audio work.

One option, you may not have thought of is a sweep/marker generator. Not sure how that would play out and it might be an entirely different unit. You have enough stuff on your plate.
 
Hey, yep it would basically be 160 MSPs, 4096 Point 14 Bit Arbitrary. Or the Audio one is 192 Ksps at 16/24/32 bits (audio range), for both you can just load points form excell or matlab to an SD micro card then just play it back :p
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top