Hi everyone,
I'm new to the forum, and new to digital electronics. I work with analog circuits, primarily vacuum tubes.
First, some background on my project:
I'm hoping to design a specialist tool for measuring the operating parameters of vacuum tubes in new and existing designs.
It would be for observing power pentodes and beam tetrodes in power amplifiers, and I would like to measure a number of parameters:
a: cathode voltage relative to ground
b: cathode current (low side)
c: control grid voltage relative to cathode
d: control grid current
e: screen grid voltage relative to cathode
f: screen grid current (high side)
g: anode voltage relative to cathode
h: anode current (high side)
Obviously the high voltages involved in tube circuits will present some challenges (I would like to be able to measure circuits under operating conditions, such as transformer coupled push-pull power amplifiers, where peak voltages could reach up to 1.5kV), and relative voltage measurements and high side current measurements will need to be opto-coupled and will require isolated power rails.
I'm intending to develop this using the Arduino platform, and have recently acquired a Mega2560 board to familiarize myself with the environment.
So, my question is this:
I would like to use A/D converters with higher bit depth than the Arduino 10bit analog channels, preferably I would like to use 14 bit or higher for at least some of my inputs so as to retain high resolution over a wide input range and without resorting to any range switching, however, I am unsure how to accomplish this due to my unfamiliarity with digital circuits. I was hoping someone could advise me if this is possible, and how to approach it, or direct me to a source where I could learn more.
Thank you in advance for any assistance anyone can provide, and hope that you find my project interesting!