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Low-Cost Alternative For Signal Generators in The Physics Laboratory
Low-Cost Alternative For Signal Generators in The Physics Laboratory
Low-Cost Alternative For Signal Generators in The Physics Laboratory
R
ecently devices such as the optical mouse1,2 of a com- Description of the assembly
puter, webcams,3 Wii remote,4 and digital cameras5
The assembly consists of:
have been used to record and analyze different physical
phenomena quantitatively. Devices like tablets and smart- 1. An Android tablet with Signal Generator application
phones6-10 are also becoming popular. Different scientific installed on it and
applications available at Google Play (Android devices) or the 2. An amplifier circuit from a USB speaker.
App Store (iOS devices) make them versatile. One can find
many websites that provide information regarding various sci- Android tablet with Signal Generator application
entific applications compatible with these systems.11-14 A vari- The Android tablet used is a product from Swipe Telecom
ety of smartphones/tablets are available with different types of (Model name: 3D Life+HDMI). The advantage of using a tab-
sensors embedded. Some of them have sensors that are capable let is that the application interface is displayed over its wide
of measuring intensity of light, sound, and magnetic field.10 screen. It has various control buttons and ports.
The camera of these devices has been used to study projectile The Signal Generator app is available at the Google Play
motion, and the same device, along with a sensor, has been store, and it can produce sine, square, triangular, and saw
used to study the physical pendulum.6 Accelerometers have tooth signals. The icon and the application interface are
been used to study free and damped harmonic oscillations and shown in Fig. 1.
to measure acceleration due to gravity.7,8 Using accelerometers
and gyroscopes, angular velocity and centripetal acceleration Amplifier circuit from a USB speaker
have been measured.9 The coefficient of restitution for a ball The USB speakers have an inbuilt amplifier circuit, which
bouncing on the floor has been measured using the applica- also acts as an impedance matching interface between input
tion Oscilloscope on the iPhone.8 In this article, we present the audio source and the speaker (Fig. 2). We used the Logitech
use of an Android device as a low-cost alternative for a signal USB Z120 speakers for our assembly [Fig. 2(a)]. The ampli-
generator. We use the Signal Generator application installed fier circuit, inside the speaker, was removed and placed in a
on the Android device along with an amplifier circuit. plastic box as shown in Fig. 2(c). The output terminals of the
amplifier circuit [Fig. 2(b)] can be used to drive the external
The Signal Generator Assembly circuits for different applications. Since these amplifiers are
Signal generators (SG) are used in physics experiments that meant for signals coming from music players, its fidelity
require an alternating signal. SGs should drive circuits with (frequencies do not get altered) is of high quality. Further, the
high as well as low input impedance. Commonly available low- amplifiers are used for driving low impedance speakers and
cost SGs have output impedance from 50 to 600 . Any cir- hence the signal strength is good enough to drive low imped-
cuit with input impedance lower than 50 will load the gen- ance circuits [Fig. 2(c)].
erator. Moreover, the frequency knob adjusted on a particular The amplifier circuit gets its input signal from the audio
frequency mark does not guarantee an alternating signal with port of the tablet. The output of the amplifier circuit [Fig.
the same frequency. 2(b)] is connected to two banana sockets on the amplifier
To overcome some of these problems, we present a low-cost box, which will act as the output terminals of the SGA [Fig.
but efficient alternative. An SG can be built with an Android
tablet/smartphone along with a commonly available ampli-
fier circuit obtained from a USB speaker. We call it a “Signal
Generator Assembly” (SGA). We also describe the results of
various experiments performed using this new assembly. The
low cost and easy availability of both of these devices make
this assembly versatile. This assembly can also run on power
banks, thereby making it portable and usable in countries with
frequent power shutdowns.
DOI: 10.1119/1.4981039 THE PHYSICS TEACHER ◆ Vol. 55, May 2017 301
(a) (b) (c)
Fig. 2. (a) USB speaker. (b) The amplifier circuit in the speaker. (c) The amplifier box used in our assembly.
Operation
The application interface has a waveform selector that can
be used to choose the different types of signals that can be
supplied (Fig. 4). The amplitude and frequency of the wave-
form can be varied in different ways.
1
Frequency response of SGA
The output voltage delivered by the SGA for various fre- 0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
quencies is as shown in Fig. 8. Other than very low frequen-
cies, the output power is almost a constant. This is one of the f/Hz
highlights of the SGA. Fig. 8. Frequency response of the SGA.
Applications
We describe some laboratory experiments where the SGA
can be used in the following categories:
Fig. 6. (a) Actual frequency from SG. (b) Actual frequency from
SGA.
0.9
Voltage gain A
SGA C 0.8
0.7
0.6
(a) 0.5
0.3
built-in impedance matching facility. Instead, the SGA with 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
USB speaker can be used in place of the specially designed (b) Log f
function generator to generate sound waves of different fre- Fig. 12. (a) Low-pass filter circuit. (b) Frequency response of low-
quencies [Fig. 9(b)]. Generally the change in the amplitude is pass filter.
detected with our ears. In the experiment done by us, the fun-
damental harmonics were detected using the mobile phone
application Sound Level Meter (from the App Store). Another
smartphone was used for this purpose [Fig. 9(c)]. Figure 9(d)
shows the graph obtained using the modified resonance tube
apparatus.
Fig. 11. The vibrator-speaker assembly. Fig. 14. (a) Schematic diagram of the apparatus. (b) Graph between
the secondary voltage and the distance between two coils.