C60 System - User Manual o Measure frequency responses from 10Hz to 4MHz o Frequency axis displayed logarithmically or linearly o Measure amplitude responses o Gain or loss displayed in dBs o Measure phase responses o Phase display ranges of 0o to 180o or ± 180o o Measure complex impedance responses o Display impedance in Ohms or admittance in Siemens o Calculate time delays o Produce professional graphs with 10 plots per graph o Interactive powerful graphing program o Save graphs as data files and jpg, bmp and meta files o Copy and paste plots from one graph to another o Easy to use PC interface o Reliable performance o Small, light weight, portable, USB powered device o Affordable www.cypherinstruments.co.uk Cypher Instruments Ltd Page 2 of 121 Contents © Copyright Cypher Instruments Ltd 2005 - 2006. All rights reserved. Contents................................................................................................................................................. 2 Legal Disclaimer, Warnings and Restrictions ............................................................................................. 4 Product Description ................................................................................................................................. 5 Installing the Software ............................................................................................................................ 7 Installing the Software from the CD ...................................................................................................... 7 Software and Firmware Web Updates ................................................................................................... 9 Using the CypherGraph Software ........................................................................................................... 12 Menu Bar .......................................................................................................................................... 13 Tool Bars........................................................................................................................................... 28 Status bar ......................................................................................................................................... 30 Viewing a graph................................................................................................................................. 31 Measuring Amplitude Response.............................................................................................................. 39 Obtaining optimum results ................................................................................................................. 43 Measuring Impedance Response ............................................................................................................ 45 System Limitations ................................................................................................................................ 49 Harmonics ......................................................................................................................................... 49 Phase detection ................................................................................................................................. 50 Phase accuracy.................................................................................................................................. 52 Dynamic range .................................................................................................................................. 53 Time smearing................................................................................................................................... 54 Impedance boundaries....................................................................................................................... 55 Impedance accuracy .......................................................................................................................... 57 Applications Notes................................................................................................................................. 58 Filter responses ................................................................................................................................. 58 Ceramic resonators ............................................................................................................................ 60 Ultrasonic transducers........................................................................................................................ 61 Acoustic transducers .......................................................................................................................... 63 Simple reactive components – L C R ................................................................................................... 64 Battery impedance............................................................................................................................. 68 Characteristic impedance – Cables ...................................................................................................... 69 Measuring delay times – Cables .......................................................................................................... 71 Digital audio devices .......................................................................................................................... 72 Transformer – Transmission ............................................................................................................... 73 Transformer – Reflected Impedance ................................................................................................... 74 Appendix A ........................................................................................................................................... 75 Amplitude responses and phase shifts in simple electrical circuits ......................................................... 75 Appendix B ........................................................................................................................................... 79 Reactance and Impedance in simple electrical circuits .......................................................................... 79 Appendix C ........................................................................................................................................... 81 The scripting language....................................................................................................................... 81 Script commands ............................................................................................................................... 82 Appendix D........................................................................................................................................... 95 Installing CypherGraph....................................................................................................................... 95 Installation on Windows ’98................................................................................................................ 96 Installation on Windows ME.............................................................................................................. 101 Installation on Windows 2000........................................................................................................... 106 Installation on Windows XP .............................................................................................................. 113 C60 & CypherGraph User Manual November 2006 Part # MAN-C60-1.2 Cypher Instruments Ltd Page 3 of 121 Preface written by Tim Orr I have been designing electronic filters for about 35 years. These have been active and passive devices. Since the arrival of personal computers and design software, it has been possible to design and simulate a wide variety of filters. Of course, in the real world, you cannot purchase the precise component values that this software generates. Also, real components are far from perfect. Capacitors and inductors have parasitic elements and natural resonances; op amps have bandwidth, slew rate and phase shift problems and printed circuit board tracks seem to do their very best to defeat your designs. Even if you can over come all these hurdles, a design still has to be built and tested. This is also a problem because there isn’t much equipment out there that will test filters and networks at a price that the average engineer can justify spending. Recently, the frequency response analyser that I purchased 15 years ago, became unusable because its consumables have been discontinued. I needed to obtain a new piece of test equipment just to satisfy my own needs! I had designed many frequency response analysers over the last 30 years, and so we set out to produce another unit based on what was the best current technology. The plan was to make a USB peripheral device that would employ all the power of the PC to produce, store and print graphs. After 2 years of design work (mission creep) the C60 was produced. One result of deviation from the original design brief was that the unit not only measures Amplitude and Phase frequency responses, but it also measures Impedance responses. This reveals the often bizarre behaviour of electronic and electro-acoustic devices. I wish that I had owned one of these machines 10 years ago when we were designing ceramic PZT transducers. Many mysteries