UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING LABORATORY SKILLS A/M - H51LSA/M TITLE: MINI -PROJECT INDIVIDUAL

REPORT

Students name:Anant Johri Students ID:4042046 Lab Group: J1 Name of other members:Benjamin White(4021539) & Philip Popejoy(4037661) Submission date: 28/4/06

Introduction
This mini project is the part of the Laboratory skills A/M module. This project was a combination of the theory and practical skills that helps the students to understand the course in a better and interesting way. This was a group project which was to be carried out in the group of three students. The main aim of the project was to construct and test an electronic circuit and the main objectives were development of self study skills, to acquire the basic project management skills and good team working practice. Through this project students came to know that project planning and monitoring are also the important factors that contribute to the eventual success of the project. They also came to know how to identify the weaknesses of the circuit provided and how to improve them. There were two timetabled lab sessions. Students were supposed to perform the circuit construction before attending the laboratory and should use the lab for testing their circuits. The complete circuit was divided into three sections Signal Generator, Waveform Selector and the Filter Rectifier. The basic tasks involved in the project were: 1) Construction of the circuit and each section should be constructed on a separate breadboard. 2) Including a switch in each circuit 3) Testing of the circuits 4) Connecting a LED at the output of each circuit. This report describes the construction and working of the Waveform Selector, which takes square wave as an input from the signal generator and then it first changed the amplitude of the square wave and after that change this to a triangle wave, saw tooth wave and finally into sine wave respectively. But before the construction of the circuit, a basic knowledge of the working and functioning of the individual components was required. Section 1 will deal with the basic construction and testing of the Waveform selector and some important knowledge of the Vero board which is used for the construction of the circuit. Section 2 will tell the working and functioning of whole circuit and individual circuit as well. In the Section 3, the improvement in the circuit is suggested, though those were not been implemented in the circuit. Section 4 will deal with the conclusion of the circuit.

Section 1:-

Construction and testing of the Circuit

The first part of the project was to construct a Waveform Selector circuit. This is done by collecting and putting the required components on the bread board. The components consist of seven resistors (one-one each of 1k, 4.7k, 100k and 1M respectively and three were of 10k), six capacitors (one-one each of 10nf, 100nf and 1f and three of 47nf), a switch, LEDs, a ZTX302 Transistor and a 9V battery. The diagram given below shows the Schematic of the Waveform Selector. Before the construction of the circuit one thing about the Vero board should be kept in mind that on Vero board the top two and the bottom two lines are horizontally connected while the middle 10 lines are vertically connected. For less confusion the resistors and capacitors were arranged in such a way that wire used in the construction of the circuit will be as less as possible.

While testing the circuit it was found that there was some problem in any of the components of the circuit so all the components were checked using multi meter and it was found that one of the resistors was faulty so after changing it the circuit worked fine and the desired results came. Also there was a problem in the output when the circuit was not properly grounded but on careful observation this problem was solved.

Section2:-

Working of the waveform selector

The waveform selector got the input that was the output of the signal generator which produced a square wave with the help of the 555 and when the first switch was on/pressed then the circuit containing resistor R8 and resistor R2 acted as a voltage divider network and so only the amplitude of the square wave was changed so the output on the oscilloscope was a square wave only with a changed amplitude as before, as expected. The main aim of using the capacitor C7 and the capacitor C4 was to get a more smooth and continuous waveform. It will be so as if one capacitor is charged then the other one will be discharged so more smooth and continuous waveform will be obtained. Now a more continuous and smooth wave will reach resistor R4 and now the RC combination of the resistor R4 and the capacitor C5 will act a Low pass RC circuit. A low pass circuit is a circuit of passive elements which can pass the low frequency component of input signal to load and bypass the high frequency component to earth. The circuit diagram of low pass RC circuit is given below:-

Also the combination of the resistor R4 and the capacitor C5 acted as an integrator so the square wave was integrated and a triangle wave was obtained which was also expected as square wave on integration always gives triangle wave. The sketch of the obtained waveform is given below:

Now using the resistor R5 and capacitor C6 the duty cycle of the waveform was changed and this RC combination again acted as an integrator and on integration of a triangle wave a saw tooth waveform was obtained.

Now the RC combination of resistors R6 & R11 and capacitor C2 together with ZTX302 transistor acted as a RC phase shift register and due to this the saw tooth waveform was changed to a sine wave. The sketch of the sine wave is given below:-

So the final result of this circuit is that it produces a multiple waveforms at 1KHz with a decreased amplitude.

Section 3:-

Circuit improvement

The main weakness of this circuit is that it is using a transistor so this circuit can be operated within a specific range. So it will be better if this circuit was made using an opamp then this problem can be overcome and the circuit could be operated in a vide range of signals. Also Vero-board could have used as the use of it would have made the circuit look more neat. Also a switch could be placed for the proper use of voltage supply. A resistor or a potential divider could be placed in the connection between the collector pin of transistor and switch in order to get the amplitude of the sine wave same as the other waves which was very high before the use of the resistor/potential divider. The circuit diagram of improved circuit is given below:-

Section4:-

Conclusion

Overall this project was really helpful in developing and enhancing individual skills in constructing circuit, testing of that circuit and understanding the working of that circuit. Through this project, students also learned how to work in team and how to handle the pressure of working in teams and also helped the students to realize their individual responsibilities and role in the group project. Both the construction and testing of the circuit was interesting and knowledgeable. The students also came to know about the working of the different components used in the project like resistors, capacitors, diodes, 555, 741 and BJTs. The behavior of resistors and capacitors as an integrator was also highlighted in the project. This project also enhanced the skills of students in improving a circuit so that it can work more economically and more efficiently.