Richard and David, The stack is OK. The noise appears to be coming in on the 5v supply and/or ground line(s) from the main board. There is no separate ground for the analog, digital and RF sections. They are all lumped together. The RF runs directly off of the battery voltage, 9.6 volts nom. At the battery with the scope I have about 2 volts p-p of noise. I put a 1 ohm resistor in the supply line expecting that it would make an RC filter with the caps on the daughter board because the noise is 72 Mhz. It improved things slightly - maybe. After doing a bit of research, it looks like the 10uF Tant won't do much for noise at this frequency because of the ESR. The three 0.1uF ceramics should do OK. I have some ferrite beads on hand that I would like to try out. They are axial single beads BL01RN1 http://www.electrokit.se/download/0900766b80098a6d.pdf Putting one on the tip of the scope probe and then measuring the noise across the battery terminals dropped the noise by 1/2. Should I be putting a ferrite bead on both the supply and ground line to the daughter board? Would it be a good idea to add a 1uf ceramic as well? Thanks for your ideas - this is well beyond me. Regards, Gordon Williams ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Prosser" To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 3:50 PM Subject: Re: [PIC] CCP1 Glitches in noisy environment (RC Tx) : Gordon, : You're not just running out of stack or something like that are you? : Have you checked stack usage? : : Otherwise, could the RF be getting back into the chip via an : unprotected pin. Do you have ferrite beads / caps on all input (& : possibly output ?) pins if the RF level is so high? Once the : protection diodes start conducting all sorts of strange things can : happen. : : RP : : 2008/5/13 Gordon Williams : : > : > : > : You have a huge noise there, try to see why. Almost 2Vpp of noise is a : > : real mess. : > : It's possible that sometime the PWM dutycycle be longer that PWM period? : > : Only then the CCP output remains high. Maybe a compiler problem ? : > : > I should have been clearer about the part of the CCP module that I was : > using. I'm using the "compare" rather than the "pwm" part. : > : > I don't think that it is a compiler problem as the effect is random and : > nothing else appears to be affected. I can't see it just jumping off : > somewhere else in the program and not having an effect on either the Timer 1 : > or the CCPR1 register. : > : > I need to look more carefully at the noise on the 5 V section of the : > daugther board. It is buried in the transmitter box and a PIA to get at. : > Because the ADCs are noise free, my assumption was that it was fairly noise : > free. : > : > How much noise on the power lines is acceptable? : > : > If the noisy supply voltage stays between 2.0 and 5.5 volts, is that OK? Or : > does the noise component need to be kept below some value p-p? : > : > Regards, : > : > Gordon Williams : > : > : > : On 5/12/08, Gordon Williams wrote: : > : > Hi All, : > : > : > : > I'm having problems tracking down the reason of some glitches occurring : > on : > : > the CCP1 output and it is driving me a bit crazy. : > : > : > : > I'm putting some smarts into a basic RC transmitter. I've replaced the : > : > current chip producing the pulse train to the RF section with a daughter : > : > board and added a cell phone LCD, some switches and Serial port for : > input : > : > and output. The serial port and LCD (spi) work fine and they don't have : > any : > : > glitches. The 5 ADC readings for the joysticks (4) and battery voltage : > also : > : > work well with only 1 bit of noise on a 10 bit reading (referenced to : > the : > : > power and gnd lines). : > : > : > : > The PIC that I am using is the 16F886. Its supply is a 78L05 on the : > main : > : > board and I have a 10uf Tant and three 0.1uF on the power lines on the : > : > daughter board. The daughter board is single sided with a ground plane : > pour : > : > under the PIC and every else where I could. Because I don't have ADC : > : > problems or serial or spi errors that noise must be reasonably : > constrained, : > : > I think. : > : > : > : > I'm using CCP1 (pin C2) to produce the PPM that goes to the RF section. : > It : > : > is the standard PPM protocol (each channel pulse is 1 to 2 ms wide : > including : > : > the following 0.3 ms pulse, repeated every 20ms). : > : > : > : > Timer1 runs freely. With a CCP1 interrupt (my only interrupt) I update : > : > CCPR1 with the duration until the next transition high or low and the : > : > CCP1CON bits to set the next transition in the correct direction. My : > main : > : > program clears a flag and that is all. : > : > : > : > Most of the time it works perfectly and looks like: : > : > http://www.cyberus.ca/~g_will/TxGlitch/NoGlitch1.jpg : > : > : > : > or detail : > : > : > : > http://www.cyberus.ca/~g_will/TxGlitch/NoGlitch.jpg : > : > : > : > The receiver pulses for the first 4 channes are shown in the logic : > section : > : > below. : > : > : > : > Every 20 to 100 frames on average (sometimes they are consectutive : > frames) I : > : > get a glitch: : > : > : > : > http://www.cyberus.ca/~g_will/TxGlitch/Glitch1.jpg : > : > : > : > or : > : > : > : > http://www.cyberus.ca/~g_will/TxGlitch/Glitch2.jpg : > : > : > : > The green lines indicate where the signal should have been. : > : > : > : > There is a fair bit of noise - about 1.8 volts p-p because the scope : > ground : > : > was attached to the battery neg lead. I don't think that my probes are : > very : > : > well shielded either. The noise is from the 72 Mhz RF. : > : > : > : > In each case the low output flips high. My question is WHY? : > : > : > : > Timer 1 keeps on rolling as there is no problem with frame spacing or : > the : > : > width or placement of the next good pulse. : > : > : > : > CCPR1 is not upset or incorrectly set for the same reasons - because the : > : > next good pulse is in the proper location relative to the last good : > pulse. : > : > : > : > The serial and LCD have been comment out. I'm reading 2 ADC on port A : > and : > : > 3ADC on port B. All other pins on ports A,B,C are inputs and some are : > : > floating (could this be a problem?) : > : > : > : > Is there anything else on the chip that may be miss-configured that may : > be : > : > giving me a problem? : > : > : > : > The chip docs say: : > : > Note: Clearing the CCP1CON register will force : > : > the CCPx compare output latch to the : > : > default low level. This is not the PORT I/O : > : > data latch. : > : > : > : > But I don't think that this applies to me. The only time that I do : > anything : > : > with the CCP1CON is during the long bit in the frame between the pulse : > : > series and the glitch doesn't always happen there. : > : > : > : > It is not read-mod-write ... I'm not writing anything to the port. : > : > : > : > I read the errata - nothing there indicated a problem. : > : > : > : > Any ideas what I should be looking at/ trying next?? : > : > : > : > - I guess I should look at the 5 v power going to the chip to see that : > it is : > : > truly quiet and doesn't have a spike. Brown out is disabled. : > : > : > : > - Should set the un-used outputs to either high or low. - Good right? : > : > : > : > Funny that it is only affecting one pin that I can see. : > : > : > : > Looking for suggestions... : > : > : > : > Regards, : > : > : > : > Gordon Williams : > : > : > : > -- : > : > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive : > : > View/change your membership options at : > : > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist : > : > : > : -- : > : http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive : > : View/change your membership options at : > : http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist : > : : > : > -- : > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive : > View/change your membership options at : > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist : > : -- : http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive : View/change your membership options at : http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist : -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist