Author Topic: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2  (Read 6805 times)

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Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« on: November 18, 2012, 11:47:18 am »


Dave.
 

Offline nitro2k01

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2012, 03:11:11 pm »
You're triggering off channel 1 (the input from the waveform gen) throughout the video. I would have preferred a trigger level of maybe 100 or 200 mV which probably would have reduced the jitter and spurious triggers to almost nothing.
Whoa! How the hell did Dave know that Bob is my uncle? Amazing!
 

Offline kg4arn

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2012, 05:13:47 pm »
Very interesting device.
To get 64uS delay from RG58 coax requires 47,000 feet!

Dave,

Since you have the RIGOL Spectrum Analyzer and the DG4162, how about a 2 tone IMD test on this delay line?
It would be interesting to see how much distortion is introduced by the RF --> ultrasonic --> RF conversion.
 

Offline kxenos

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #3 on: November 18, 2012, 07:56:09 pm »
I wonder if it would be possible to make a 0 tempco, jitter-free clock source out of these things.
It would be easy to make a clock by amplifying the output back to 5 volts and returning it to the input, but would it be any better than the already existing crystals?
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #4 on: November 18, 2012, 08:13:00 pm »
Low Q and limited frequency range. They are great as a wideband delay, but the output signal is very low. Perfect for TV, where the noise on the colour signal would only present as slight colour shift, not as brightness variations.

For an oscillator use a SAW filter, as they are optimised for frequency response, and have a very short delay and very poor response outside of the band they are designed for. In TV sets pre digital tuners you would have one with 2 outputs, centred on 39 MHz, with one being optimised to give the video signal to the demodulator without having the sound carriers present and the other output just passing the sound carriers without the video being present. This got rid of both sound on vision and video buzz at the same time, AFC being used to give the maximum signal out of the video side before the FM demodulator made the baseband video, and the sound was mixed down to a typically 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5 MHz ceramic filter ( system dependant) before it was demodulated into 1, 2 stereo or a NICAM audio signal. Started off as a big piece of printed board but ended up as a single chip that did it all except for NICAM, which was still a multi chip arrangement.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #5 on: November 18, 2012, 08:35:43 pm »
I wonder if it would be possible to make a 0 tempco, jitter-free clock source out of these things.
It would be easy to make a clock by amplifying the output back to 5 volts and returning it to the input, but would it be any better than the already existing crystals?

You won't get jitter free, as you have to amplify the thing, adding all sorts of nasties.
And you have the "seed" it with the initial signal at start-up as well, as in this configuration these are circular memories and initially contain nothing.

Dave.
 

Offline ftransform

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #6 on: November 19, 2012, 07:08:25 am »
as tensions between the uk and australia escalate......

so mike, whats your next move. Thermal analysis of a delay line with your IR? Pumping 3 megawatts into a delay line and making it explode/melt (slow motion camera)?
Team up with photonic induction? Link a bunch of delay lines?

I think we need a high power signal in a delay line asap.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2012, 08:01:29 am »
I think we need a high power signal in a delay line asap.

I tried the opposite, a piss-ant 1mW laser into it to see if it would bounce around, but no joy, no internal reflections at all :(
Might work with some form of silver mirrored edge, but that's pretty lame.

Dave.
 

Online ejeffrey

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #8 on: November 19, 2012, 09:44:48 am »
I tried the opposite, a piss-ant 1mW laser into it to see if it would bounce around, but no joy, no internal reflections at all :(

That should work fine, but you do have to launch it through the 45 degree face.  It looked like most of that face is covered by the actuators.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #9 on: November 19, 2012, 11:39:44 am »
That should work fine, but you do have to launch it through the 45 degree face.  It looked like most of that face is covered by the actuators.

It is, but I scrapped some of one off. Still works though as seen in my latest video shot after I did that, but probably reduced amplitude?

Dave.
 

Offline apis

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #10 on: July 13, 2014, 08:49:41 pm »
I had never seen one of these before, thanks for showing them! I love this sort of devices with strange looking mm-scale patterns, they remind me a bit of microstrip filters.

Not sure if it was mentioned in the video but I would guess the reflection is from when the wave hit the output transducer edge, a part of the wave would be reflected back and travel backwards to the input, there some of it bounces back again and return to the output with a total of 3*64 us delay. If you look at the input signal (around 29.00 in the video) you can see the reflection returning to the input (yellow ch1) at about 2*64. That's my guess on what's going on at least.
 

Offline Richard Head

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Re: EEVblog #386 - Glass Delay Lines Part 2
« Reply #11 on: July 20, 2014, 03:33:44 pm »
That was an interesting video clip. Thank you.
It would have been interesting to see how much intermodulation distortion the device introduces. You would need two sig gens and a spectrum analyser.
 


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