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why sawtooth instead of square wave for class D amplifier?

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mik3ca

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I ended up playing around with a couple mosfets, a LM393 comparator, NE555 timer, and other stuff and I made myself a decent amplifier, but the inputs I used for the comparator were a square wave running at about 1Mhz and the audio source itself via a capacitor. I also connected a resistor voltage divider to the same input and this divider made things work well. (example: I made the input at ultra low volume and can hear the same thing very loud at the output)

Now I'm curious. In my design, I used a square wave as an input to the comparator. On the web, the majority of the designs use a sawtooth or triangular wave input. I'm curious. Why is the triangular wave input preferred? What is the disadvantage with a square wave input?
 
With a triangular wave connected to one input of the comparator and the audio connected to the other input the output of the comparator will be a PWM signal whose duty cycle represents the instantanious level of the audio signal. I don't see how it could work with a square wave input.

Les.
 
I don't see how it could work with a square wave input.
Perhaps parasitics / bandwidth-limitation caused some low-pass filtering whereby the edges got knocked off the square-wave so that it became an approximation of a triangular wave. That would result in crude PWM.
 
AN LM393 probably is slow enough internally to triangle-ize, or at least trapezoid-ize a 1 MHz input.

ak
 
In my opinion Les Jones is closest to the actual point being asked, but let´s see what mik3ca has to say about it.
 
Hi,

I agree that Les provided the answer, but the other suggestions that the LM393 device is too slow are also good. I would definitely look at that because the slew rate could actually be defeating the purpose of creating a class D amp in the first place because the output can not be a clean PWM and thus the efficiency of the amp will not approach a true class D amp so all is for nothing.
A quick rough efficiency measurement would show some problems.
 
I agree that Les provided the answer, but the other suggestions that the LM393 device is too slow are also good.
I think Les and I said the same thing. Due to a non-refreshed page, I did not see his post before I wrote mine.

ak
 
Correction to your correction :D
All designs use a triangle wave - a saw tooth would mean massive distortion - not the 100% of a square wave, but at least 50%.
Disagreement with your correction to his correction.

The only difference between saw and triangle waves is a faster leading edge. There still is a linear relationship between elapsed time into a wave cycle and the percentage of the total wave area under the curve. With a positive-going saw wave (narrow peak at the top) of 2 V p-p and incoming audio of 2 V p-p, both into a fast comparator, the range of output rectangular wave pulse widths still is 0% to 100% of the saw wave period (note - theoretically perfect comparator).

For low-distortion PWM, the pulse frequency should be much greater than the highest audio freq. In terms of instantaneous values, the comparator sees a fast periodic waveform (saw or tri) on one input, and a slowly varying DC level on the other. For an instantaneous audio waveform value of 1.5 V, the comparator output will be a 25/75 rectangular wave (or 75/25 depending on how the inverting and non-inverting inputs are assigned), for *either* carrier wave.

ak
 
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All designs use a triangle wave - a saw tooth would mean massive distortion
LTspice thinks there is very little difference in distortion for the two wave shapes.
 

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The only difference between saw and triangle waves is a faster leading edge. There still is a linear relationship between elapsed time into a wave cycle and the percentage of the total wave area under the curve.

I would disagree, a sawtooth has near instantaneous transition in one direction, and a slow ramp in the other.

But regardless, all class-D amps (of this type) use triangle waves - why would you want to use something that would be inferior?.
 
Sure about that? A lot of them look like triangle-wave-based to me.

ak
Yes, I meant sawtooth or triangle. :oops:

And, just to be clear, we are talking about the internal modulator waveform, not the waveform out of the modulator (which is a PWM square-wave).
I think there may be some confusion on that point.
 
But regardless, all class-D amps (of this type) use triangle waves - why would you want to use something that would be inferior?.
How is a sawtooth inferior?
A critical factor in the distortion generated by the PWM modulator is the linearity of the ramp of either the sawtooth or the triangle-wave.
If they both are equally linear, then they will produce equal output distortion.
 
I would disagree, a sawtooth has near instantaneous transition in one direction, and a slow ramp in the other.
Which is what I said
The only difference between saw and triangle waves is a faster leading edge.
To clarify, for waves of the same amplitude and frequency, a saw wave has a much faster leading edge. Mucho incredibly zoomy faster. But the area under both curves is the same, which is why the modulation noise is the same.
ak
 
A critical factor in the distortion generated by the PWM modulator is the linearity of the ramp of either the sawtooth or the triangle-wave.
Agree that a nice linear ramp is better but, I enclose the PWM in a feedback loop, (error amp) so this distortion should be removed.
 
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