Articles

Managing PWM Waveforms, Part 1 - Data Reduction

Featured Article - Submitted by Mike Donnelly on Thu, 06/29/2017 - 12:24

This is the first part of a three-part series on special handling of PWM waveforms. The first two parts deal with the large amount of data involved. The last part deals with precise characterization in the presence of switching cycle “noise.” I am honored to post this article, which was created by one of our talented community members, a modeling and simulation expert and my friend, Norm Elias.

TDFS Part 3 – Impedance Measurement for Switching Converters and Power System Stability Analysis

Featured Article - Submitted by Mike Donnelly on Tue, 02/21/2017 - 20:55

In this final installment of my series on TDFS (Time Domain Frequency Sweep) analysis, I’ll focus on measuring impedance vs. frequency. I’ll first demonstrate the method by showing the measurement of input impedance for a switching power converter. Then I’ll extend that method to analyze the “impedance stability” of a distributed power system. Power systems may include many DC to DC converters, some acting as sources and other as loads.

The SystemVision® Cloud Import Tool Troubleshooting Guide

Featured Article - Submitted by Craig Beebe on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 16:13

What Is This Import Tool You Speak Of?

It’s a plugin for Mentor PADS PCB tools that allows you to import the designs and components that you create here. There’s a great blog about it here. If you're a registered PADS user, you can upgrade your SystemVision® Cloud subscription here.

Controlling Motors with the Talon SRX

Featured Article - Submitted by Darrell on Wed, 02/01/2017 - 18:01

Do you struggle to understand how to use the Talon SRX controller effectively?  What is PID and PIDF?  How does feedback control work?  What is feed-forward control? How are values of P, I, D, & F determined? How is the new Talon SRX "motion profile" feature supposed to be used?  

If these are your questions, this blog is for you.  

TDFS Part 2 – Closed Loop Stability Analysis for Switching and Sampled-Data Circuits and Systems

Featured Article - Submitted by Mike Donnelly on Fri, 01/20/2017 - 10:13

Stability is an essential quality of most practical circuits and systems. A traditional stability metric for closed-loop control systems is gain and phase margin, based-on the open-loop transfer function (OLTF) or frequency response. A special physical measurement technique for obtaining the OLTF of an operating closed-loop system, pioneered by Dean Venable* in the 1980s, involves injecting a small sinusoidal stimulus in series with the loop, and measuring the absolute signal levels at the injection site.

TDFS Part 1 - Gain and Phase Measurements for Switching and Mixed-Signal Circuits and Systems

Featured Article - Submitted by Mike Donnelly on Mon, 01/09/2017 - 21:40

SystemVision Cloud provides a family of measurement models that perform “Time Domain Frequency Sweep” (TDFS) analysis. They measure the frequency response of many circuits and systems for which traditional “AC” or frequency-domain simulation is not possible. This includes:

Import Your SystemVision Cloud Design Into the PADS PCB environment

Featured Article - Submitted by Darrell on Thu, 12/15/2016 - 16:27

SystemVision Cloud is designed to work with the Mentor PADS PCB tools.  If you have the PADS PCB tools, you can install an import tool into the schematic capture environment.  Using this import tool, you can login with your SystemVision Cloud account, from within the schematic environment, browse for your online designs, and import them into a PADS schematic.  

For an overview of this capability, visit the SystemVision PADS AMS Cloud page.

Breadboard Power Supply

Featured Article - Submitted by DanielPecora on Mon, 11/28/2016 - 11:55

 

While working from home, a PCB designer may not have access to expensive power supplies to test fairly simple boards. By using low-noise linear voltage regulators, you can create a customizable power supply using 9 different voltages, ranging from 2.5 to 15 V. The power supply is equipped with an AC to DC converter, making it transportable for the do-it-all engineer. With easy access to this adjustable power supply, you do not need gigantic power supplies to complete your testing. 

The simulation model of the Adjustable Power Supply is shown below:

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