Free Tools for TPU design

[angryScientist]

Hi there

I am thinking about building a sweep generator also but instead of a pic I already have a few SX chips that I have been using for projects. I have never used the pic's but some of the options on them look really appealing.

I had considered using a voltage from a DAC to drive a Voltage controlled oscillator also. I don't have the equipment to keep the line clean and short. And I know that I would have a lot of problems with the stability. Not to mention that I don't have a DAC nor money to order one.

I do have a PLL 4046 chip though. I was thinking about finding a decade counter or programmable counter and dividing the output from the oscillator section to get a lower frequency. Then feed that into the phase comparator along with a frequency generated by my SX. The oscillator adjusts it's self until the phase of the two frequencies are the same. Since the signal I'm comparing against is divided down to a fraction of the generated frequency I should be able to get a much more accurate count with my 50MHz SX. Because the count is so long I can get more resolution. I'm thinking two bytes or more.

I realize that I could use the function generator with the PLL and counter to get a more accurate frequency, I hope, but I can't do a long slow sweep with function generator.

[duff]

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[BEP]

Is there something in Linux I could use to do the same thing?  Hello all, new reader and poster, very happy to have found this site!

I'm trying to read everything, so if I ask a silly question that has been answered to death, please direct me to the thread so that I may no longer be a null unit.

Have you tried KyLix from Borland? I'm a Delphi buff but have played with it. You can find VB converters if that is all the code you can find but I suggest dropping Delphi code into it. Plenty of it out there. Then you can give your code to *Nix'ers or WindBlows [users?]. I don't like that term as it implies they are the users when they are actually being used 

[pauldude000]

@Giantkiller

Can you work with some of the standard rs232 protocalls? (I can give you a list if possible of what is available to me.)



@Linux Only Users

As of yet, I have not programmed in linux, though I do have Debian on dual boot on my laptop.

Someone mentioned wine... It will not work, unless someone has built into wine support for 2.0 dot.net. Wine would have to support both the VB.net 2.0 framework, as well as my progs. Sorry.

Maybe sometime in the future I will port to Python or GTK, but that is not in the near future.

My largest complaint with the Linux platform is the difficulties involved with having to port to individual distro's, and the multitude of required formats of packaging required to do such. The masterminds of the linux world need to accept that the end user makes or breaks an operating system, and it is currently NOT Linux/VS/Windows, it is Debian/VS/Windows AND Ubuntu/VS/Windows AND RedHat/VS/Windows etc etc etc......

As long as these distro's refuse to accept universal common standards for such things as simple as packaging, they will never compete seriously with windows according to the commercial support. As long as there is little commercial support, there will be relatively low comparitive end user support, as end users just want their computer to run the "stuff" they buy for it. At this point, it seriously seems to me that the Linux Distro Engineers care more about their own wants/needs than the end user.

Personally I LIKE linux better than windows. However, as a programmer, I require stability, ease of access to computer hardware, simplicity of programming, ease of distribution, and reliability. I want to put out a program that works the manner I intended, on all machines it is installed upon with reasonable limitations, with a minimal end user installation and using learning curve.

When Linux eventually sets its own ANSI-type standardization, I will start programming  either in dual port, or even specifically for Linux.

I have Debian installed, as it seems that the designers are edging towards this goal, which made me "jump for joy" when I saw it. If I do decide to port, it will be for Debian.

Sorry, I am not desiring to rant about this, but like I said, I LIKE both the concept and actualization of Linux, and this mess has frustrated me to no end for a long time.

I apologise if I have offended anyone, and my intention is NOT to cause any hard feelings, but these statements are what I truly and seriously believe.



@KingGeorge

Watt/Hours is a matter of available Amps/Voltage. I could write a program which determines Overunity, but the available watt/hours for any energy medium varies with manufacturer. For instance, just in 9v batteries, a rayovac alkaline has different available watt hours than a comparable duracell. To write a comparison program, I would quite literally have to download the specs for every battery available.........

Also, concerning overunity, people new to the concept that electrical energy in, does not necessarily mean electrical energy out... You can input 50watts of electricity into a circuit, recieve 5 watts of electrical energy out, and still be over unity!!!! (hunh?) If you recieve 5watts of electrical energy and 50 watts of thermal energy, and another 2 watts of stray field (magnetic/electric) energy, then the total output is actually 57watts for the 50 input.

Energy is energy.

Measuring such accurately is the problem. For instance, otto may have been getting overunity all this time, but I do not think anyone has thought to measure the heat output of his design, just the electrical.

I can easily write a program to measure overunity, but to use it, people would have to obtain field meters, thermal measuring devices, true rms volt/ammeters, etc.

If everyone wants it though, I will be happy to build it.



@angry

I may be wrong, but what I gather you desire is a PC based frequency generator. This requires hardware as well as software, and there are two options I know about at this point.

1. There is free software which uses your soundcard as a frequency generator. (Do a search on "PC frequency generator" on yahoo) It is limited to the frequency range of your sound card though.

2. A USB PC based function generator. (Do a search on ebay, for "USB PC function generator)

Without special hardware, a PC cannot generate an analog signal, that I know of. For instance, I cannout output an audio signal to a USB port, using nothing more than software. It woud require the processing of a sound card or similar device.

Paul Andrulis

[acerzw]

@Paul,

Program sounds cool... just a suggestion, why hobble such a useful program by making it platform-dependent. There are two other approaches you could take...

You could produce a simple version in ANSI C with a 'standard out' text interface, that could then be easily recompiled from the source to run on any Linux Distro, or other platform e.g. Apple, PS2 etc.  Then for simple Winblows use you could write a separate GUI module which controls the simple C text program while it runs in a Winblows DOS(S) box using fake key inputs? You could use a finite-state-machine algorithm to model the GUI mouse click/window interaction to key conversion process...

or even better produce it as a web-page interfaced java applet which could be downloaded as a .jar file with a custom stand-alone html page, also downloadable, which references the applets .jar file?

Might I also suggest, whether the above are possible or not, that you make your collection of formula available in the form of a spreadsheet or PDF, thus saving everyone doing their own research into the maths of this... others might then be able to re-write or port the program to other platforms...

This approach would also guarantee that we are all using the same modeling criteria and can discuss there use with confidence... an open source coil modeling standard if you will!

This approach would also allow people to modify the formula if necessary to more closely replicate their individual experiments, they would then just have to quote any deviation from the 'standard formula' rather than re-quote the whole thing each time.. of course version control would be required in order that as the formula used to model coils improve usage of old formula could be understood in the correct context... worth including a version number on your program if it doesn't already have one to avoid this anyhow...

Acerzw