Return to Answer

tl; dr version: The voltage step propagates as a wave along the wire.

Yes, your scheme will work if you take care of termination on the line so you don't get unwanted reflections.

The speed of the voltage-step wave propagation is some fraction of the speed of light, C. For a low-loss coax cable, the speed will be about 0.8 C. For a microstrip PCB trace it's more like 0.5 ~ 0.6 C (about 160-170ps/inch.)

You can take advantage of this fact to create a delay line, assuming you take care of signal integrity issues to ensure the waveforms you pick off are clean.

Here's a video with a visualization of wave propagation on a wire, unterminated and terminated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozeYaikI11g

In this video, the wire (or, more correctly, transmission line) is modeled as a distributed inductance and capacitance. With an unterminated transmission line, the wave bounces back toward the source with the same polarity (adds to the waveform as a positive step.) If it's terminated at the far end, the wave is absorbed at the end. If the line is shorted, the reflected wave is opposite polarity.

tl; dr version: The voltage step propagates as a wave along the wire.

Yes, your scheme will work if you take care of termination on the line so you don't get unwanted reflections.

The speed of the voltage-step wave propagation is some fraction of the speed of light, C. For a low-loss coax cable, the speed will be about 0.8 C. For a microstrip PCB trace it's more like 0.5 ~ 0.6 C (about 140-170ps/inch.)

You can take advantage of this fact to create a delay line, assuming you take care of signal integrity issues to ensure the waveforms you pick off are clean.

Here's a video with a visualization of wave propagation on a wire, unterminated and terminated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozeYaikI11g

In this video, the wire (or, more correctly, transmission line) is modeled as a distributed inductance and capacitance. With an unterminated transmission line, the wave bounces back toward the source with the same polarity (adds to the waveform as a positive step.) If it's terminated at the far end, the wave is absorbed at the end. If the line is shorted, the reflected wave is opposite polarity.

tl; dr version: The voltage step propagates as a wave along the wire.

The speed of the voltage-step wave propagation is some fraction of the speed of light, C. For a low-loss coax cable, the speed will be about 0.8 C. For a PCB trace it's more like 0.6 C.

Here's a video with a visualization of wave propagation on a wire, unterminated and terminated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozeYaikI11g

In this video, the wire (or, more correctly, transmission line) is modeled as a distributed inductance and capacitance. With an unterminated transmission line, the wave bounces back toward the source with the same polarity (adds to the waveform as a positive step.) If it's terminated at the far end, the wave is absorbed at the end. If the line is shorted, the reflected wave is opposite polarity.

tl; dr version: The voltage step propagates as a wave along the wire.

Yes, your scheme will work if you take care of termination on the line so you don't get unwanted reflections.

The speed of the voltage-step wave propagation is some fraction of the speed of light, C. For a low-loss coax cable, the speed will be about 0.8 C. For a microstrip PCB trace it's more like 0.5 ~ 0.6 C (about 160-170ps/inch.)

You can take advantage of this fact to create a delay line, assuming you take care of signal integrity issues to ensure the waveforms you pick off are clean.

Here's a video with a visualization of wave propagation on a wire, unterminated and terminated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozeYaikI11g

In this video, the wire (or, more correctly, transmission line) is modeled as a distributed inductance and capacitance. With an unterminated transmission line, the wave bounces back toward the source with the same polarity (adds to the waveform as a positive step.) If it's terminated at the far end, the wave is absorbed at the end. If the line is shorted, the reflected wave is opposite polarity.

tl; dr version: The voltage step propagates as a wave along the wire.

The speed of the voltage-step wave propagation is some fraction of the speed of light, C. For a low-loss coax cable, the speed will be about 0.8 C. For a PCB trace it's more like 0.6 C.

Here's a video with a visualization of wave propagation on a wire, unterminated and terminated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozeYaikI11g

In this video, the wire (or, more correctly, transmission line) is modeled as a distributed inductance and capacitance. With an unterminated transmission line, the wave bounces back toward the source with opposite polarity. If it's terminated at the far end, the wave is absorbed at the end.

tl; dr version: The voltage step propagates as a wave along the wire.

The speed of the voltage-step wave propagation is some fraction of the speed of light, C. For a low-loss coax cable, the speed will be about 0.8 C. For a PCB trace it's more like 0.6 C.

Here's a video with a visualization of wave propagation on a wire, unterminated and terminated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozeYaikI11g

In this video, the wire (or, more correctly, transmission line) is modeled as a distributed inductance and capacitance. With an unterminated transmission line, the wave bounces back toward the source with the same polarity (adds to the waveform as a positive step.) If it's terminated at the far end, the wave is absorbed at the end. If the line is shorted, the reflected wave is opposite polarity.