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I am wondering if I need any special kind of waveform / function generator in order to generate a signal with the following description / parameters: 19 V max and 6mA operational limits; unbalanced biphasic waveform; delivers triplets of pulses at 5 ms intervals every 20 ms; adjustable pulse-width (0.4-0.6 µs).

Thank you very much for your time.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ biphasic? or bipolar output? no adjustments besides PW50? \$\endgroup\$ Sep 29, 2016 at 3:26
  • \$\begingroup\$ rise time?> adjustable amplitude? may draw it and indicate tolerance \$\endgroup\$ Sep 29, 2016 at 3:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ Rather than try to find something, if it is just generating pulses it might be easiest just to build one using a high-speed PIC32 or ARM microcontroller with a fast cycle time (5 - 10 ns). \$\endgroup\$
    – tcrosley
    Sep 29, 2016 at 4:31

1 Answer 1

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Maybe you could breadboard this out of some basic gates. One possibility: an oscillator giving the 200 Hz (5 ms) basic pace. Divide by four using a cascade of two J-K flip-flops (= a two-bit binary counter). Use an AND or NOR gate to detect a 00 or 11 binary on the output of the counter, and use that detection result to gate the 5ms signal (you may end up with short residual glitches, not sure. Would require a tiny further post-processing step). This should result in 3 pulses (edges) spaced 5 ms and a fourth pulse missing. Next, use that to trigger a single-shot with an RC cell for your variable timing constant, and use a potentiometer to tweak the pulse width.

[200 Hz clock] -> [1:4 divider with 00 detection] -> [00 gate] -> [single-shot]

Bi-phase means what? Two outputs like that? What shift between them? A tandem potentiometer might be used to tweak the pulse width in both channels.

And oh you'd need a discrete transistor circuit to level-shift this to 19 V. An op-amp could do it for slower signals, but sub-microsecond rail-to-rail pulses are probably too much to ask from a typical op-amp that can stand 19+V Vcc.

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