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In article , Paul Burridge
writes: On 09 Dec 2004 19:12:18 GMT, (Avery Fineman) wrote: Of course the resistor lead contribute some inductance. In fact, most of it. However that inductance is directly calculable based on old, available data. What remains is the resistor body itself. A very quick approximation of that body would be to get a scrap of kitchen aluminum foil and wrap it tightly around the body with the overlap tight around the leads to make contact. [won't make much difference because the body, being larger in diameter than the leads, will have much less inductance than those leads] Sorry, Len, I stand to be corrected (no doubt) but surely this way of shorting the ends together is going to make matters much worse? Aren't you going to end up with a significant amount of capacitance between your outer foil and the inner spiral of resistive film? Isn't that going to just throw another complex variable into the mix and probably completely change the resistors SRF? Paul, don't kick yourself after reading this, but shorting out the body with foil will put a conductor in contact with BOTH ends of the resistor body. :-) I mentioned that only in passing since it isn't necessary to do in order to find out anything significant. Finding a "self resonant frequency" involves doing several measurements of the total R, C, and L of the device, finding the complex R and X at each, then plotting that (a Smith Chart will do it nicely) to see the skew shape of the curve as compared to a perfect resistor (a single point on a Smith Chart). You will have to work out the SRF yourself based on that information; that is going to vary with each specified R value, film type, and the kind of laser trimming (or whatever) is done to get the DC/low-frequency R value precise through a film spiral or gouging or whatever. Not needed. If you just measure the device with a bridge/instrument yielding the complex impedance or admittance, you just apply that to the circuit taking the device and be done with it. You will have to allow for some adjustment in the circuit itself to compensate for the device characteristics (whatever they come out to be). An analytical model of the resistor is an R component in series with an L component (due to any spiral of film, if any, plus the length/diameter of the resistor body), but that has fringing capacity between the ends of the leads inserted into the body...that capacity being in parallel to the series R-L connection. You can estimate that and do a paper exercise to see the effect for jollies...or just skip it, use the device measurements to base the overall model as it applies to the circuit and go on with the project. The effect, if any, is going to be minimal with 1/4 Watt or smaller resistors at VHF on up to low UHF bands. Nothing to worry about provided the leads themselves follow the usual "short as possible" rule. One can go nuts on the intellectual paper exercise and about all it is good for is mumbling-bragging over glasses at the local pub. :-) |
#52
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#53
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In article , Paul Burridge
writes: [comprehensive explanation snipped] Thanks, Len. That's about as in depth as it gets, I reckon! Ian swears by his VNA to do these kind of measurements, but you strike me as the kind of guy who might know of an alternative way using more conventional test gear... care to share? The Vector Network Analyzers yield the complex-quantity Z or Y directly...which is a wonderful thing for really detailed design and checking to see if a part/device/etc. will fit an application. A very few "RF Bridges" might do that but their upper frequency limits are rather limited for venturing into the high end of HF and certainly not VHF and up. For the hobbyist lacking a VNA, I would suggest the neat little LC-Meter from AADE. I have one and find it extremely handy for winding lots of coils (particularly toroids) without firing up the VHF Q-Meter now rather on its last legs and needing calibration. I don't worry about the "intellectual exercise" sort of things, such as "self-resonant frequency" of a resistor. That is mainly up to the lead length rather than any spiral of resistive film in the resistor body. The circuit to receive such a resistor has to be calculated to take an _estimate_ of the residual/parasitic L or C with, if the need is critical, some sort of trimmer to "tune out" that L or C. Case in point at HF: Bandswitched coils for an old multi-band "communications receiver" took care of tolerance variations in those coils either by using adjustable powdered iron cores or by individual trimmer capacitors (usually compression micas). Some of the same method can be applied to higher frequencies, such as a rotary ceramic or piston trimmer cap or turns-spreading/ -compressing of a toroid or solenoidal core coil to adjust the L. The point I'm trying to make is to prepare ahead of time. That preparation is anathema to some who just like to grab parts and stuff them together based on old rules of thumb or imprecise nomographs, then "hope for the best." One can get away with that at lower HF most of the time but that gets tougher going up in frequency. Analysis models will take care of finding a spread of part tolerances and what to do about trimming them out. That's all paper work and - unfortunately - shunned by many. One excuse is "I haven't got the time!" However, bad preparation will have the TIME spent in trying to adjust something, taking comparative measurements, etc., is usually takes more time than doing the initial paper work on analyzing the circuit. As to measurement methods with different bridges, there's lots of texts available to cover that, most of them old ("old" being at least 30 years back, heh heh). General Radio wrote up the circuit details on their old RF bridges in fine form, sometimes including that in their owner's manuals. Problem is, that sort of thing takes even more skull work to make sure of accuracy...plus planning on how to calibrate it once it is built. [ain't no good if it reads wrong or has improper calibration] Some of the simpler bridges are the "substitution" variety such as the extremely portable RX Noise Bridge (noise excitation for the RF source makes it portable, it works fine with a known frequency source too). One arm has a calibrated R and C in parallel (the "known" side) while the other arm has the unknown with half-value of the calibrated C duplicated across the unknown. It basically reads admittance when balanced but that can be recalculated to impedance with a handy scientific calculator such as the HP 32 SII or the newer 33 model (each does a single-key complex inversion). The simplicity is what makes it good; symmetry in physical construction is easy to achieve, that increasing the accuracy of the little instrument. The known arm of the bridge can be calibrated with some of the newer digital capacitance meters that go down to picoFarads of resolution, the R part of the known arm calibrated with an accurate DVOM. A dual carbon/metal film potentiometer wired in parallel will reduce the internal distributed inductance of the varying position of the wiper arm. One problem of those simple bridges is that one spends a LOT of time taking readings and then converting them to useful number quantities. A VNA using a microprocessor can do all that math for you and at many frequencies in an eyeblink. Reduction of TIME spent in getting data is very powerful with the VNA. An extension of that would be a Smith Chart presentation on-line (as the fancier HP analyzers had/have) for direct visualization of what the heck is going on inside something. Hobbyists are always short of time. :-( |
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