Manager’s guide to digital design article from EDN magazine is for all those hardworking engineering managers who just want a simple, one-page summary of everything they need to know about digital design. Here are some picks from article: GROUND: mythical electrical object that absorbs unlimited quantities of electrical current. Ground exists in Spice but nowhere →
Just about all professional equipment uses balanced audio lines, which, if properly executed, will eliminate the hum completely. They help especially with long interconnects where earth loops can be a real pain. Circuits driving balanced lines must themselves be balanced to maintain the benefits of balance. This may be achieved by differential signaling, transformer coupling →
Lightning Reveals Its Power in Slow Motion article on Wired has a series of videos that combines severe weather, electricity, and technology. The maker of those videos, Tom Warner, documents the powerful beauty of lightning with an array of optical and electromagnetic sensors. “Lightning is one of nature’s most spectacular phenomena,” says Warner. “I want →
Differential amplifier approach uses an operational Amplifier. Operational Amplifiers only amplify the difference between the two input lines. This method eliminates common mode noise between the incoming signals by making A-B=C, as only the difference between A & B are amplified. Operational amplifiers is maintain wide bandwidth signals throughout your system while eliminating ground loop →
Proper ground configuration is essential for a good data acquisition system. Most measurement systems such as data acquisition devices allow for many different types of ground configurations depending on the type of signal being acquired or measured. This flexibility is the source of confusion when deciding which configuration to use in each specific situation. National →
An instrumentation amplifier is a type of differential amplifier that has been outfitted with input buffers, which eliminate the need for input impedance matching and thus make the amplifier particularly suitable for use in measurement and test equipment. The ideal common-mode gain of an instrumentation amplifier is zero, which means that it is a very →
Ground loops affect video signals. Understand them, then deal with them. When designing or installing the cables for a video transmission system, one assumption that engineers commonly make is that the local earth grounds of both ends of the cable are the same. When circumstances don’t support this assumption, the video performance can exhibit gross →
Use right ground symbol in your electronics schematics and other drawings. Earth-ground symbol represents a real connection to earth. That connection could be for example 10-foot-high copper-clad steel bar driven into the earth (at your premises or nearby provided by power company) or metal water lines. That earth ground is wired to the neutral of →
Isolator for digital audio is needed in cases where coaxial S/PDIF digital audio link forms a ground loop in your audio system. Typically in coaxial S/PDIF connections the coaxial cable shield is connected to equipment cases. This arrangement easily creates ground loops which can cause noise problems in various places in audio system. A suitable →
Ground loops are a common problem in many experimental setups. A ground loop is an un- wanted closed loop of cables in the setup, most often through the ground system. Those ground loops are often hard to find and debug. A Ground Loop Detector document describes how to build and test a simple system to →