YACT - Yet Another Curve Tracer
author: BattleToad
2 layer board of 2.68 x 1.35 inches (68.2 x 34.2 mm)
Uploaded:
July 01, 2020
Shared:
July 01, 2020
Total Price:
$18.00
BOM
Contact me if there are questions.
I got the inspiration for this project from the YouTube channel Mr. Carlson’s Lab, where its owner Paul can’t stress enough how useful a curve tracer is for troubleshooting faulty elecrical components. Back in the 1930s and 1940s curve tracers had been integrated into some oscilloscopes from this period. However, nowadays curve tracers are expensive specialized devices like the Huntron Tracker and if you dont feel like spending that kind of money, you have to build your own.
My idea was to make use of the built-in Function Generator which your oscilloscope might already have in order to inject AC current into the component under test. This way I developed an “Octopus”-like frontend for a FG which Dave Jones reviewed in his Mailbag Monday video EEVblog #1137. Octopus circuits are a very simple type of curve tracers which can be easily found on the internet, but as it is shown in the Mailbag video this design only works in combination with an expensive differential probe. In my lengthier project description I talk about this in more depth.
Paul Carlson has published his own version of a curve tracer circuit on Patreon from which I “borrowed” the use of another opamp as a difference amplifier. I added this to my Octopus design and gave this improved version the name YACT. In hindsight, the addition of a difference amplifier which eliminates the need for a differential probe seems like a natural and easy approach. However, a few years ago when I first pondered about the Octopus frontend idea this was somewhat over my head. Regarding to electronics I still am an amateur who needs to gain experience and an effective stimulus (thanks, Paul :-)).
Schematics:
3D Model:
BOM
Contact me if there are questions.
I got the inspiration for this project from the YouTube channel Mr. Carlson’s Lab, where its owner Paul can’t stress enough how useful a curve tracer is for troubleshooting faulty elecrical components. Back in the 1930s and 1940s curve tracers had been integrated into some oscilloscopes from this period. However, nowadays curve tracers are expensive specialized devices like the Huntron Tracker and if you dont feel like spending that kind of money, you have to build your own.
My idea was to make use of the built-in Function Generator which your oscilloscope might already have in order to inject AC current into the component under test. This way I developed an “Octopus”-like frontend for a FG which Dave Jones reviewed in his Mailbag Monday video EEVblog #1137. Octopus circuits are a very simple type of curve tracers which can be easily found on the internet, but as it is shown in the Mailbag video this design only works in combination with an expensive differential probe. In my lengthier project description I talk about this in more depth.
Paul Carlson has published his own version of a curve tracer circuit on Patreon from which I “borrowed” the use of another opamp as a difference amplifier. I added this to my Octopus design and gave this improved version the name YACT. In hindsight, the addition of a difference amplifier which eliminates the need for a differential probe seems like a natural and easy approach. However, a few years ago when I first pondered about the Octopus frontend idea this was somewhat over my head. Regarding to electronics I still am an amateur who needs to gain experience and an effective stimulus (thanks, Paul :-)).
Schematics:
3D Model:
