Intro scope and clock

Come here to introduce yourself, who you are, and what you do
Post Reply
jlbcs
Newbie
Posts: 0
Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:05 pm

Intro scope and clock

Post by jlbcs »

Hi,
after 40 years as a system engineer working for IBM high end system I am a beginner in horology and I want to delegate to my computer low level tasks. For instance, I would like to use my picoscope to make sure that the escapement of a clock is correctly balanced.
You all know that a mechanical clock sounds tic toc. A clock is limping or shaky when the time between tic and toc is not equal to the time between toc and tic. Time between two tics is known as period and 1/period is the frequency.
One of my objective is to build a tool to visualize the balancing of a pendulum as a diagram with Lissajous representation.
A circle (sin(w*t), cos(wt*)) with w*t = one period. Add to A and B the sound of tic and toc.
When the frequency is not exactly the period of the pendulum, the tic and toc mark will rotate clockwise or counterclockwise. So we need to adjust the frequency of the AWG.
When tic and toc marks are spaced by 180° (diameter) the pendulum of the clock is balanced, otherwise we need to change something.
The AWG can be used, thought I am working with very low frequencies (0.5 hertz up to 10 hertz) but I do not know how to shift one channel (A or B) by pi/2 and how to add the tic and toc from a microphone.
Sure I need help.
Regards, Jacques

Hitesh

Re: Intro scope and clock

Post by Hitesh »

Hello Jacques,

Which PicoScope model are you using?

What sort of microphones are you using and are you able to connect the output to channels A and B?

Regards,

jlbcs
Newbie
Posts: 0
Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2014 12:05 pm

Re: Intro scope and clock

Post by jlbcs »

Hello,
sorry for the delay, I was very busy with clocks to fix.
I am only starting the project.
The pendulum oscillations can e detected by sound or IR beam stopped.
I have been sniffing alternate solutions, like 4 amplifiers making one period and using O°(1rst amp.) and 90°(2nd amp) as input to A and B, and adding the sound when ever it occurs along the cycle. This solution does not work as the period is fixed by the delay of each amplifier.
I can see only 2 ways to solve that problem:
1/ assemble a 4 phases generator driven by a stepper motor. The stepper will give the variable frequency and the generator will give the 2 voltages shifted by PI/2.
2/ use a program to generate the sin and cos voltage based on the requested frequency. Add to sin and cos the pulses of the microphone.
Can you imaing an other way which would use the generator which is in the Picoscope ?
Thanks and regards, J. Bouchard

Hitesh

Re: Intro scope and clock

Post by Hitesh »

Hi,

I'm not really familiar with the set-up that you describe.

Are you looking to combine 2 signals into each channel? If so, a BNC T-connector might help.

A diagram of what you are trying to achieve and the proposed setu-p might help.

Are you looking to just output sine waves from the PicoScope?

Regards,

Post Reply