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Last edited by Vasco Guita

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Converter from Differential to Single Ended and Cable Driver

KiCad 3D renders Top and bottom views

Project description

This cable driver is an active electronics circuit which aims at solving several issues often encountered in large hardware installations where analog signals need to be digitized at a large distance from the origin of the signal.

It aims to solve:

  1. Noise on the signal reception due to the use of high-precision instrumentation amplifiers on the source, combined with long cabling
  2. Signal clipping/saturation on the OASIS digitizers due to lack of possibility for attenuation on differential signals
  3. Signal polarity issues
  4. Ground loop issues

The cable driver requires an external power supply, providing 9V-36V DC voltage.

Main Features

  • high-current differential receiver
  • optional attenuation (0dB, 6dB, 10dB or 12dB)
  • polarity inversion on input and output
  • ground lifting on input and output

Project information

Releases

version:v1.0

Sources

All the sources are available in the git repository under the tag v1.0 (commit hash commit:3b450ffc).

A PDF version of the schematic is also available.

Production files

Gerber files, Excellon drill files, pick-n-place positioning files, bill of materials and an export of the board in GenCAD format are available as a compressed archive file.

Commercial producers

This design is not commercially available (to our best knowledge).

v0.1 (original concept)

Original concept design files (done in Altium) are available as a compressed archive file. These files are provided "as is", they are not supported in any way, nor should they be used for production.

Contacts

General questions about project

Status

Date Event
17-01-2013 Idea of New OASIS analog front-end presented.
16-07-2016 First iteration of schematic and PCB layout done with Altium.
01-08-2016 Schematic and PCB layout ported to KiCad and finalised.
15-09-2016 Order for the production of 18 bare PCBs placed with commercial PCB manufacturer.
26-09-2016 Production files delivered to CERN's electronics design office for PCB population.
30-09-2016 18 bare PCBs received.
04-10-2016 Bare PCBs and components delivered to CERN's electronics design office.
24-10-2016 18 complete boards received and tested, ready for installation in CERN's OASIS system.
01-11-2021 Boards not needed at CERN anymore and made Out-of-Service. Not supported anymore at CERN.