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THE WIDE RANGE
PULSE
By Sam Gailbreath
and Rick Peterson
GENERATOR
If you are an electronics hobbyist, you
often need to generate pulses and logic
levels to check out the operation of
your circuit before completely finishing
the project. If you breadboard a circuit
to see if your idea will work, you need
signals to check its operation. If your
circuit interfaces with the external
world, you need to simulate inputs
during development. If you experiment
with electronics, a pulse generator is a
handy tool.
38
February 2013
When I started as an electronics hobbyist, my first design was a digital
speedometer. I made a pickup that produced
a pulse each time the drive shaft made a
revolution. I quickly realized that unless my
wife drove me up and down the street while
I worked on my circuit in the back seat, I
needed something to simulate pulses on the
workbench. I got through the speedometer
project with a 555 timer and a trimpot to
simulate the driveline pulses, but my very
next project was a general-purpose pulse
generator.
This project is an upgraded design that
incorporates features I found over the years
to be most helpful to an electronics hobbyist.
It is an instrument with real knobs that can
be quickly and easily adjusted — without soft
keys or layered menus.
