ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTS

INTRODUCTION
For the measurement of currents of less than 50 μA full scale, an amplifier must be employed.

This represents the power required for a meter for full-scale deflection and does not represent the power
dissipated in the series resistor, and thus the total power required by the example meter would be greater than
½ μW and would depend on the voltage range.
Electronic instruments, mainly electronic voltmeters, used either transistors or vacuum tubes. The later one is
called the Vacuum Tube Voltmeter (VTVM) and the former one is called the Transistorised Voltmeter (TVM).

In almost every field of electronics, VTVMs have been replaced by TVMs because of their numerous advantages.
In TVM, due to the absence of a heating element, warm-up time is not required. It is portable due to the light
weight of the transistor. VTVMs cannot measure current due to the very high resistance whereas due to the low
resistance of the TVM, it can measure the current directly from the circuit. VTVMs also cannot measure high-
frequency signals. The only disadvantage of
TVM over VTVM is that the TVM has very low input impedance.

But using FET (Field Effect Transistor) in the input stage of the voltmeter overcomes this low-impedance
problem, because an FET offers input impedance almost equal to a vacuum tube.
ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL INSTRUMENTS DISADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL INSTRUMENTS

[Link] of Low Level Signals 1. Effects on noise in more predominant on digital instruments

[Link] Input Impedance 2. Analog instruments have higher overload capacity than digital
instruments.
[Link] Power Consumption
3. Digital instruments can sometimes loose its reliability
[Link] Frequency Range 4. Digital instruments and their internal electronic components
are very much sensitive to external atmospheric conditions.
[Link] Resolution

[Link] Facility
PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF DIGITAL METERS

1. Resolution 5. Settling Time

[Link]
2. Accuracy 6. Temperature Sensitivity

3. Linear Error

4. Monotonicity
DIGITAL MULTIMETER
A digital multimeter is an electronic instrument which can measure very precisely the dc and ac voltage, current (dc and ac),
and resistance. All quantities other than dc voltage is first converted into an equivalent dc voltage by some device and then
measured with the help of digital voltmeter.

Block diagram of a digital multimeter Block diagram of a current-to-voltage converter

▪ For measurement of ac voltage, the input voltage, is fed through a calibrated, compensated attenuator, to a precision
full-wave rectifier circuit followed by a ripple reduction filter. The resulting dc is fed to an Analog Digital Converter (ADC)
and the subsequent display system. Many manufacturers provide the same attenuator for both ac and dc
measurements.
▪ For current measurement, the drop across an internal calibrated shunt is measured directly by the ADC in the ‘dc
current mode’, and after ac to dc conversion in the ‘ac current mode’. This drop is often in the range of 200 mV
(corresponding to full scale).
▪ Due to the lack of precision in the ac–dc conversions, the accuracy in the ac range is generally of the order of 0.2 to
0.5%. In addition, the measurement range is often limited to about 50 Hz at the lower frequency end due to the ripple
in the rectified signal becoming a non-negligible percentage of the display and hence results in fluctuation of the
displayed number. At the higher frequency end, deterioration of the performance of the ADC converter limits the
accuracy. In ac measurement the reading is often average or RMS values of the unknown current. Sometimes for
measurement of current, a current-to-voltage converter may also be used, as block diagram in Figure.
Comparison between Analog and Digital Multimeter
DIGITAL VOLTMETERS (DVMS)
▪ The Digital Voltmeter (DVM) displays measurement of ac or dc voltages as discrete numbers instead of a pointer
deflection on a continuous scale as in analog instruments. It is a versatile and accurate instrument that is employed in
many laboratory measurement applications. Because of development and perfection of IC modules, their size, power
consumptions and cost of the digital voltmeters has been drastically reduced and, therefore, DVMs are widely used for all
measurement purposes.
▪ The block diagram of a simple digital voltmeter is shown in Figure. The unknown signal is fed to the pulse generator
which generates a pulse whose width is directly proportional to the input unknown voltage.

Block diagram of DVM Representation of DVM using blocks

▪ The output of the pulse generator is applied to one leg of an AND gate. The input signal to the other leg of the AND gate is
a train of pulses. The output of the AND gate is, thus, a positive trigger train of duration t second and the inverter converts
it into a negative trigger train. The counter counts the number of triggers in t seconds which is proportional to the voltage
under measurement. Thus, the counter can be calibrated to indicate voltage in volts directly.
▪ Thus, the DVMs described above is an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) which converts an analog signal into a train of
pulses, the number of which is proportional to the input voltage. So a digital voltmeter can be made by using any one of
the analog to digital conversion methods and can be represented by a block diagram shown in Figure. So the DVMs can be
classified on the basis of ADCs used.

▪ The input range of the DVM may vary from ±1.00000 V to ±1000.00 V and its limiting accuracy is as high as ±0.005 percent
of the reading. Its resolution may be 1 part in 106, giving 1 μV reading of the 1 V input range. It has high input resistance of
the order of 10 MΩ and input capacitance of the order of 40 pF.
DIGITAL FREQUENCY METER
A frequency counter is a digital instrument that can measure and display the frequency of any periodic waveform. It
operates on the principle of gating the unknown input signal into the counter for a predetermined time. For example, if the
unknown input signal were gated into the counter for exactly 1 second, the number of counts allowed into the counter
would be precisely the frequency of the input signal. The term gated comes from the fact
that an AND or an OR gate is employed for allowing the unknown input signal into the counter to be accumulated.

Block diagram of frequency counter Different waveforms in a frequency counter

▪ One of the most straightforward methods of constructing a frequency counter is shown in Figure in simplified form. It
consist of a counter with its associated display/decoder circuitry, clock oscillator, a divider and an AND gate. The counter is
usually made up of cascaded Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) counters and the display/decoder unit converts the BCD outputs
into a decimal display for easy monitoring.
▪ A GATE ENABLE signal of known time period is generated with a clock oscillator and a divider circuit and is applied to one
leg of an AND gate. The unknown signal is applied to the other leg of the AND gate and acts as the clock for the counter.
The counter advances one count for each transition of the unknown signal, and at the end of the known time interval, the
contents of the counter will be equal to the number of periods of the unknown input signal that have occurred during
time interval, t. In other words, the counter contents will be proportional to the frequency of the unknown input signal.
For instance if the gate signal is of a time of exactly 1 second and the unknown input signal is a 600-Hz square wave, at the
end of 1 second the counter will counts up to 600, which is exactly the frequency of the unknown input signal.
SIGNAL GENERATORS
A signal generator is numerously known as test signal generator, tone generator, arbitrary waveform generator, frequency
generator, digital pattern generator, function generator, etc. It is an electronic device which produces repeating or non-
repeating electronic signals (either analog or in digital patterns). These signals are utilised in testing, designing,
troubleshooting and repairing electronic devices; apart from their artistic uses as well. Signal generators also modulate
sinusoidal output signal with other signals. This feature is the main distinguisher between the signal generator and oscillator.
When an unmodulated sinusoidal output is generated by the signal generators then they are said to be producing CW
(continuous height wave) signal. When they produce modulated output signals then they can be in the form of square waves,
externally applied sine waves, pulses, triangular waves, or more complex signals, as well as internally generated sine waves.
Although Amplitude Modulation (AM) or Frequency Modulation (FM) can be used, yet amplitude modulation is generally
employed. In Figures the principles of amplitude modulation and frequency modulation are shown respectively.
• For providing appropriate signals for calibration and testing, signal generators are mainly employed. They are also used
for troubleshooting of the amplifier circuits used in electronic and communications circuit amplifiers. Signal generators
also measure the features of antennas and transmission lines.
• Figure illustrates the block diagram of a signal generator. A Radio Frequency (RF) oscillatoris applied for producing a
carrier waveform whose frequency can be attuned typically from about 100 kHz to 40 MHz. With the help of vernier dial
setting and range selector switch, carrier wave frequencies can be varied and displayed. Frequency dividers are
employed to determine the range. An oscillator s frequency stability is kept very high at all frequency ranges.

(a) Amplitude modulation (b) Frequency modulation

The following measures are taken in order to attain stable frequency output.
1. Regulated power supply is employed to reduce the change in supply voltage as it changes frequency of output voltage.
2. To separate the oscillator circuit from output circuit, buffer amplifiers are used. This is done so that any change in the circuit
linked to the output does not affect the amplitude and frequency of the oscillator.
3. Temperature compensating devices are used to stable the temperature which causes change in oscillator frequency.
4. In place of an LC oscillator, a quartz crystal oscillator is employed to achieve high Qfactor, for instance, 20000.
5. When an audio frequency modulating signal is generated in another very stable oscillator, it is called the modulation
oscillator. For changing the amplitude and the frequency of the produced signal, provision is made in the modulation
oscillator.
6. Provision is also employed to get several types of waveforms such as the pulses, square, triangular oscillator. The
modulation frequency and radio frequency signals are applied to a broadband amplifier, called the output amplifier.
Modulation percentage is indicated and adjusted by the meter.
7. A control device can adjust modulation level up to 95%. The amplifier output is then sent to an attenuator and at last the
signal reaches the output of the signal generator. An output meter reads or displays the final output signal.
8. An important specification of the signal generator performance is depending by the accuracy to which the frequency of the
RF oscillator is tuned. Most laboratory-type signal generators are generally calibrated to be within 0.5–1.0% of the dial
[Link] most measurements, this accuracy is sufficient. If greater accuracy is required
then a crystal oscillator (frequency
9. Depending upon the different purposes and applications, various types of signal generators are available, however no
device is suitable for all possible applications. Though traditional signal generators have embedded hardware units, with the
advancement of multimedia-computers, audio software, tone generators signal generators have become more user-friendly
and versatile.
Discussion