×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Instrumentation amplifier to get discrete DC measurements of AC signal

Instrumentation amplifier to get discrete DC measurements of AC signal

Instrumentation amplifier to get discrete DC measurements of AC signal

(OP)
If i'm trying to measure a relatively slow (~1kHz) AC signal.  Can I use an instrumentation amplifier to "read" discrete DC signals so they can be latched and sent to a computer for plotting?

The AC signals can vary and are not necessarily sinusoidal.  I had one suggestion of using a low pass filter and then having a gain of 0.707 and then just re-creating a sinusoid at the computer.  But this will only work on sinusoids and I want the display to accurately reflect the signal being measured

RE: Instrumentation amplifier to get discrete DC measurements of AC signal

The instrumentation amp should be the front end of an Analog to Digital converter. This device would then give you a value for the DC voltage at the instant it did the conversion. The microprocessor would read the value of the A/D at some interval thus creating points on a graph to recreate the value. This is a classic digital oscilloscope application.

RE: Instrumentation amplifier to get discrete DC measurements of AC signal

(OP)
Yes, this is a digital oscilloscope application.  Can you recommend any parts or things to help me make a better design?  I was looking at single-chip instrumentation amps and also building my own from op-amps.  

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources