Hi Peter, Not quite an answer to your question but I've just been reading this article where he has an idea for using a 60kHz ceramic filter in a super-regen circuit for receiving time signals. May be worth a look. RP 2009/9/17 Peter Restall : > > Good evening, > > I was playing about with some low frequency crystal filters at the weekend > (60KHz - it's the ongoing epic that is my MSF receiver :) and I was just > wondering if anybody out there has any good sources of information that t= hey > can point me to - specifically LF crystal filters and their nuances. =A0T= here's > tons of info on the 'net about MHZ region stuff, including Wes Hayward's > articles - all very useful if I was building a higher frequency filter. > > I've noticed a few things about my filter that I'm specifically intereste= d in > learning more about/fixing. =A0The filter itself is basically a DC-blocki= ng > capacitor, a crystal and resistor in series, sandwiched between two > non-inverting op-amp stages (with resistor to ground on the + input to he= lp > allieviate DC offset problems). =A0It seems to work well in terms of filt= ering, > but: > > * It is susceptible to pick-up due to the high impedances involved; would= it > =A0be wise to shield this section of the circuit in in some way, such as = by > =A0enclosing the thing in a grounded bit of metal like a bit of copper cl= ad > =A0board ? =A0The pick-up tends to happen if I touch the crystal or a res= istor, > =A0which is unlikely to happen when it's in a project box (eventually). > > * I believe the Q of the filter is very high - perhaps the bandwidth is t= oo > =A0narrow as it seems to increase the high-low and low-high transition ti= mes > =A0of the carrier significantly. =A0I get a nice sine wave from the outpu= t, but > =A0it's no good for decoding if it takes tens of milliseconds to decay; w= ithout > =A0the crystal the carrier switches in the blink of an eye, so I know I'm= not > =A0hitting any op-amp slew limitations, etc. =A0Any suggestions for incre= asing > =A0the bandwidth ? > > I knocked up some SPICE simulations and did a lot of trial-and-error to g= et > something working, but would rather like some rules-of-thumb or more conc= rete > methods for designing something robust. > > As I said, any pointers to LF crystal filter information would be very mu= ch > appreciated - or perhaps some words of wisdom from one who has been there > before ! > > Regards, > > Pete Restall > -- > 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