Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-16 Thread Will Matney
Thanks Hal, and Henry, I was wondering about how they acted. I have really nver studied them that much for this type of application. Of course, I have some old moon filters laying around, that are a very low shade, and I could cut up. That could work without having to play with the LED's. Thanks,

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-15 Thread ehydra
There get slower with falling current. - Henry -- ehydra.dyndns.info Hal Murray schrieb: I was thinking about trying an orange or yellow LED here, and dimming the LED with the series resistor, trying to make it as dim as the neon bulb, but I don't know if a LED can be dimmed down that low.

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-15 Thread Hal Murray
> I was thinking about trying an orange or yellow LED here, and dimming the > LED with the series resistor, trying to make it as dim as the neon bulb, but > I don't know if a LED can be dimmed down that low. LEDs work fine at low output levels. At low current, the light output is linear with cu

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-15 Thread J. Forster
> John, > > They used Lucite rods, I shouldn't have said tubes. The neon bulbs are > about at the center of the PC board, and the CDS cells are at the edge, so > to get the light to them, they used the rods. More than that. They wanted to minimize capacitance coupled between the neons and cells to

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-15 Thread Will Matney
Paul, No, not the direct light emitted from the LED, but the extra current the cell passed was probably over their limit. I thought of placing the LED's vertical to the Lucite rods, instead of horizontal, or head-on, to decrease the intensity. From the side, a LED, it's much dimmer. The NE-3 bulbs

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-15 Thread Poul-Henning Kamp
In message <201106151021530546.2070a...@smtp.citynet.net>, "Will Matney" writes : >My guess is that the LED's brightness helped kill the CDS cells. That is not possible by direct effect, light does not hurt CDS cells. It is far more likely that more intense light than designed has decreased the

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-15 Thread Will Matney
John, They used Lucite rods, I shouldn't have said tubes. The neon bulbs are about at the center of the PC board, and the CDS cells are at the edge, so to get the light to them, they used the rods. I think they did the same thing on the 845AB too, but I'm not looking at the manual right now to see

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-15 Thread J. Forster
> John, > > I will check it out, and may do some experiments myself on these. Also, I > will take a look at the photo-FET's, as I had forgotten about those. > > What has me wondering is how neon bulbs act in the circuit, their low > brightness, and their drop out times, as I think the on voltage is

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-15 Thread paul swed
Well a couple of thoughts. As I said modern choppers do work and have big pluses these days. But to the neon bulb. I would use a led thats color more approximates neon. They make them. I rebuilt a HP5360 counter /nixie with modern 7 seg leds that matched the nixie color and it turned out very well.

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-15 Thread Will Matney
Bruce, Correct, and by adding the series resistor for higher impedance, the voltage regulation at the zener value is raised from 10 volts to some value higher. I actually remember a variable bias control to a tube using a similar circuit, except the fixed resistor was a pot. He shows using this on

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-15 Thread Bruce Griffiths
Will Matney wrote: As far as the power supply is concerned, I think I am going to go with Ni-Cad batteries, and regulate the voltages. I think what they had was nothing more than four step voltages from the battery supply, going from 3, 6 (7), 12, and 24 Vdc, or X2 of the other. From what I saw i

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Will Matney
John, I will check it out, and may do some experiments myself on these. Also, I will take a look at the photo-FET's, as I had forgotten about those. What has me wondering is how neon bulbs act in the circuit, their low brightness, and their drop out times, as I think the on voltage is around 90 v

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Will Matney
Paul, Remember the HP 412? It used incandescent bulbs, a spinning disc, and a syncronous motor. I actually still use two of these, and the bulbs are the only fault. Getting back on topic, somewhat, has anyone ever checked the noise on the rails feeding the OCXO's in this GPS equipment? Especially

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Will Matney
Paul, Remember the HP 412? It used incandescent bulbs, a spinning disc, and a syncronous motor. I actually still use two of these, and the bulbs are the only fault. Best, Will *** REPLY SEPARATOR *** On 6/14/2011 at 10:21 PM paul swed wrote: >Though its a bit off topic >Ran i

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread J. Forster
Hi Will, I don't know. Check the HP Group archives. I only vaguely followed the thread. I'm not so sure a phototransistor will work without circuit mods. A photoFET might. Best, -John === > John, > > I wondered about that, as using a LED is generally in conjunction with a > photo-

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Will Matney
John, I wondered about that, as using a LED is generally in conjunction with a photo-transistor, and not a CDS cell. The reason I thought it might work is that a company years back used them together to form a safety light curtain. The Fluke, and the HP, had a bad rep for those neon bulbs going o

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread paul swed
Though its a bit off topic Ran into this chopper issue also on a HP410. I replaced the thing with a modern chopper amp. I think an LTC. This was quite a few years ago (10 plus easily) and it works very well. Still does actually. It did take a bit of rework to get things back in balance correctly.

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread J. Forster
I forgot to add that noise on the bridge excitation should not matter much when the bridge is at null, as the differential mode voltage is zero. -John === > John, > > No, it's DC. I'm trying to meet the original specs of the batteries in not > only voltage/current, but cleanliness o

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread J. Forster
The reason I asked is that most microvolt bridges use choppers and have BP filters at the chopper frequency, so noise is largely uncorrelated. On the neon photochoppers, it has been discussed at length several times on the HP-Agilent Yahyoo Group. A similar thing is used in the 410C. There are app

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Will Matney
John, No, it's DC. I'm trying to meet the original specs of the batteries in not only voltage/current, but cleanliness of the current. Now inside the Fluke 844, it has a chopper, and it uses an AC power supply internally to feed its circuitry. The Vishays bridge uses the batteries voltage, and on

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread J. Forster
Is the bridge excitation AC or DC. If it's AC, you may not even need low-noise power supplies. -John == > Hi Will, > > You could consider building your own power supply system for the > replacement of > the batteries. Use a separate power transformer which, I suspect, would > be s

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Will Matney
Bill, I forgot to add, the Vishay bridge uses a Fluke 844 (OEM version of the 845AB) null-microvolt meter to read the bridge circuit. ESI did the same thing, first using a HP 419, and then a Keithly 155 OEM meter assembly, for their bridges. The Fluke has its own supply from the line voltage. The

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread WB6BNQ
Hi Will, You could consider building your own power supply system for the replacement of the batteries. Use a separate power transformer which, I suspect, would be small as the current requirements would be low for driving a bridge circuit. The main company to look toward for high quality, low

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Will Matney
Bob, Yes, and especially after reading the article that Chris posted the link to, I agree. Definately the lead-acid is out, after I saw the noise the battery alone could generate. I always thought they were much cleaner than that, and I wonder what type of havoc that could create on a GPS device i

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Bob Camp
Hi Ni-cads are pretty low noise, reasonably stable, and close to the per cell voltage of the mercury cells. The gotcha is the self discharge rate. If you don't need a floating supply I suspect you can build up a " good enough" linear regulator to get things working. Bob On Jun 14, 2011, at

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Will Matney
Bob, I've thought about that, and also thought about the 24 volt battery packs used in those Schwinn scooters the kids have. I can buy a 24 volt charger cheap for those, but the batteries run about $60.00 each plus shipping, and they are probably rated at around 4 amp hours, I think. It may be the

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Will Matney
Chirs, No, actually, I need both. They used the mercury battery over its ability to hold the voltage steady over its charged cycle, which was something they did pretty well. It's a shame they've really not made anything to match them yet, except I've heard of folks using Lithium in their place. I

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Bob Camp
Hi Ni-cads are a pretty good bet. Bob On Jun 14, 2011, at 7:02 PM, "Will Matney" wrote: > Hello, > > I am in need of a very clean 24 Vdc power source, to replace some old > mercury cell batteries with. What would a good low noise, clean, power > supply be in your recommendations? I thought

Re: [time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Chris Albertson
I was just looking at battery noise last week. I assume you need low noise, not good regulation. If so then in practical terms, I think the best thing you could do is get an 8 cell battery holder for AA cells then connect a 220 uF capacitor across it. This is pretty good. has test results for se

[time-nuts] Low noise power supply recommendations

2011-06-14 Thread Will Matney
Hello, I am in need of a very clean 24 Vdc power source, to replace some old mercury cell batteries with. What would a good low noise, clean, power supply be in your recommendations? I thought of using two 12 Vdc lead-acid batteries in series, and making a charging circuit with regulators, but I a