Great project Steve. I've put out the word to our local ham radio group to check out this series of videos if they're looking for a very economical generator for their bench.
i noticed you have not made videos for a long time. I baced my buying equipment on your opinion and tare down and love your fix and upgrade of products.
Thanks, I bought one and have started to order the parts for the modifications. For what it's worth there are some very nice potted, PCB mountable transformers by MAKRAI in Hungary which are less bulky than the ones you used. They are available from a number of EBay traders.
Great job :D I have one of these and will be doing the mods. this gave me some ideas for isolating my pololu programmer... last time i used it i blew my computer up and the programmer and the circuit i was working on :( thanks for the great content!
PROBLEM! I could only find the IL612-2 at Digi-Key, but you have to buy 10! Is there a more common part to substitute? -- Also, what type connectors are you using?
Can you please explain why you wish to have the signal generator's exposed grounds (BNC connectors, USB connector) isolated from mains ground. A simple solution to the safety concerns is simply to connect the mains ground (green-wire in the USA) to the signal system ground (power supply negative) which in turn are connected to the BNC and USB connectors.
It means you can connect the signal generator to any point in your circuit and not worry about stray return paths. It's not a necessity, but it means you could drive some high side transistors easily for example.
Another interesting video. I'm planning a very similar upgrade of my own unit. I see you've used the IL600 series though - any particular reason for that choice? Those look a bit awkward to use, by way of "coil current" and so on. I've always been more a fan of the Analog Devices range; in particular the ADuM1201 would do well here. That's the chip I'm planning to use in mine.
No particular reason - both are valid options. The nice thing is that they are buffered outputs, so you don't need to worry about the impedance of your pull-up resistor which you'd typically use on a standard transistor output opto.
Hi John, there's quite a difference - there are some vents built into the bottom of the case, so with the fan I didn't see anything more than 2°C higher than ambient in the free space of the case. Without the fan the internals reached 15°C higher, but the 15V transformer was alarmingly warm at full load into 50 ohms.
Yes absolutely. Just watch size of the pull up resistor if you use the output transistor in open collector configuration as it'll effect the rise time. The baud rate isn't too high though so shouldn't be too challenging.
OMG, just add a grounded power cord... Changing out the entire power supply is unacceptable. Your turning this inexpensive device into something no one would want to touch... We are used to switching power supplies, they are everywhere.
