Chopper stabilised op-amps - is there a mystery to the noise

On Friday, October 4, 2019 at 7:37:48 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 3 Oct 2019 20:46:18 +0000 (UTC), Hul Tytus <ht@panix.com
wrote:

Thanks John. As you say, the local reference sensor is a problem. Might use the
adc to measue a 1n914 or similiarly heavily used diode and sort the diodes
as they come in the door.

That sounds like a hassle. We use a surface-mount 1206 platinum RTD.
We put it in series with a good Susumu resistor and use the
delta-sigma ADC to measure the voltage across each. A bit of math gets
the RTD resistance, and a bit more gets the temperature. It's easy and
super accurate.

It may be easy, but it isn't super accurate. Super accurate would be Ac excitation - or at least reversing DC.

The voltage drop across a nominally 100R Pt sensor at 1mA is 100mV, and if you want super accuracy you have to be able to correct for any thermocouple voltages present. Reversing the direction of the current through the sensor allows you to that easily, generally using the same sensor, resistor and ADC, if your power supplies allow it.

My 1996 per on our millidegree thermostat does mention this, but we could only have done it (at the time) if we'd had access to a -15V rail, which we didn't.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote

That sounds like a hassle. We use a surface-mount 1206 platinum RTD.
We put it in series with a good Susumu resistor and use the
delta-sigma ADC to measure the voltage across each. A bit of math gets
the RTD resistance, and a bit more gets the temperature. It's easy and
super accurate.

It may be easy, but it isn't super accurate. Super accurate would be Ac excitation - or at least reversing DC.

The voltage drop across a nominally 100R Pt sensor at 1mA is 100mV, and if you want super accuracy you have to be able to correct for any thermocouple voltages present. Reversing the direction of the current through the sensor allows you to that easily, generally using the same sensor, resistor and ADC, if your power supplies allow it.

The self heating aspect can be sorted by turning on the current only
for a reading.

Lots of instruments do that. I bought a cheap chinese one on ebay. It
wasn't accurate so I went to measure the sensor current and... there
wasn't any :)

Measuring DC accurately must be easier than measuring AC, I would
think. Or perhaps you are referring to slow switching, using four
analog switches to reverse the sensor, so you take just the two
readings. I saw some appnotes on AC excitation and synchronous
detection but it didn't sound all that accurate.

To eliminate PT100 self heating "totally", with even a tiny package in
free air, you need to go down to something like 100uA and then you are
measuring just 10mV which is hard work, with noise, etc.
 
On Fri, 04 Oct 2019 09:09:30 +0100, Peter <nospam@nospam9876.com>
wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote

That sounds like a hassle. We use a surface-mount 1206 platinum RTD.
We put it in series with a good Susumu resistor and use the
delta-sigma ADC to measure the voltage across each. A bit of math gets
the RTD resistance, and a bit more gets the temperature. It's easy and
super accurate.

It may be easy, but it isn't super accurate. Super accurate would be Ac excitation - or at least reversing DC.

The voltage drop across a nominally 100R Pt sensor at 1mA is 100mV, and if you want super accuracy you have to be able to correct for any thermocouple voltages present. Reversing the direction of the current through the sensor allows you to that easily, generally using the same sensor, resistor and ADC, if your power supplies allow it.

The self heating aspect can be sorted by turning on the current only
for a reading.

Exactly; we share the multiplexed delta-sigma ADC among three RTDs and
some other stuff. RTD current duty cycle is low and self-heating is
minimal anyhow. The error is dominated by our initial calibration
accuracy and drift in the Susumu resistor and the thin-film RTD
itself. Platinum resistance changes about 3800 PPM/K, and we measure
to roughly 10 PPM, so the temperature error is microscopic, way better
than any thermocouple can claim. Our RTD measurements are fun but, in
real life, gross overkill.



Lots of instruments do that. I bought a cheap chinese one on ebay. It
wasn't accurate so I went to measure the sensor current and... there
wasn't any :)

I got a cheap dual-channel thermocouple meter from Amazon. It is very
good. Delta-t offset between two thermocouples is zero. Good for heat
sink tests.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018QHQSB8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Measuring DC accurately must be easier than measuring AC, I would
think.

Absolutely. A cheap delta-sigma ADC makes ratiometric measurements to
PPMs. Intelligent PCB layout avoids any stupidities.


Or perhaps you are referring to slow switching, using four
analog switches to reverse the sensor, so you take just the two
readings. I saw some appnotes on AC excitation and synchronous
detection but it didn't sound all that accurate.

To eliminate PT100 self heating "totally", with even a tiny package in
free air, you need to go down to something like 100uA and then you are
measuring just 10mV which is hard work, with noise, etc.

A 1206 thinfilm RTD can have some thermal copper pours on the PCB, on
the end caps, to reduce self-heating by a lot. 1 mA and 100 ohms and
10 K/W times 0.1 duty cycle is.... pretty small.







--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics
 
On Saturday, October 5, 2019 at 1:17:07 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 04 Oct 2019 09:09:30 +0100, Peter <nospam@nospam9876.com
wrote:
Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote

That sounds like a hassle. We use a surface-mount 1206 platinum RTD.
We put it in series with a good Susumu resistor and use the
delta-sigma ADC to measure the voltage across each. A bit of math gets
the RTD resistance, and a bit more gets the temperature. It's easy and
super accurate.

It may be easy, but it isn't super accurate. Super accurate would be Ac excitation - or at least reversing DC.

The voltage drop across a nominally 100R Pt sensor at 1mA is 100mV, and if you want super accuracy you have to be able to correct for any thermocouple voltages present. Reversing the direction of the current through the sensor allows you to that easily, generally using the same sensor, resistor and ADC, if your power supplies allow it.

The self heating aspect can be sorted by turning on the current only
for a reading.

Depends on the thermal time constant of of the resistance sensor.

Exactly; we share the multiplexed delta-sigma ADC among three RTDs and
some other stuff. RTD current duty cycle is low and self-heating is
minimal anyhow.

If John Larkin had done the job properly he'd be able to say how much the sensor warms up while he was reading it. "Minimal" means that he doesn't know.

The error is dominated by our initial calibration
accuracy and drift in the Susumu resistor and the thin-film RTD
itself.

So you don't calibrate all that accurately, and don't spend enough on your low drift reference resistor.

<snip>

Measuring DC accurately must be easier than measuring AC, I would
think.

National standards labs use AC bridges to measure the resistance of their platinum sensors

Larsen N T 1968 Rev. Sci. Instrum. 39 1–12

They tend to use ratio transformers to establish the relationship between the resistance of the sensor and the resistance of the reference resistor, which gets you down to Johnson noise limited accuracy.

You could play around to get that a bit lower. if you tried hare enough.

Sloman A W 1978 J. Phys. E: Sci. Instrum. 11 967–8

Absolutely. A cheap delta-sigma ADC makes ratiometric measurements to
PPMs. Intelligent PCB layout avoids any stupidities.

It's been done.

Sloman A.W., Buggs P., Molloy J., and Stewart D. “A microcontroller-based driver to stabilise the temperature of an optical stage to 1mK in the range 4C to 38C, using a Peltier heat pump and a thermistor sensor” Measurement Science and Technology, 7 1653-64 (1996)

Admittedly we used an interchangeably thermistor rather than a platinum resistance sensor (which is a whole lot less sensitive).

It's less accurate than a Blumlein bridge built with properly wound ratio transformer.

https://www.amazon.com/Coaxial-Bridges-Kibble-Rayner-Hardcover/dp/B011SK680Q

It's a terrible title - what was meant was that the transformers involved were completely shielded.

The Brian Kibble listed as one of the authors is the same Brian Kibble for whom the Kibble balance is named.

Or perhaps you are referring to slow switching, using four
analog switches to reverse the sensor, so you take just the two
readings. I saw some appnotes on AC excitation and synchronous
detection but it didn't sound all that accurate.

You clearly didn't understand it properly.

To eliminate PT100 self heating "totally", with even a tiny package in
free air, you need to go down to something like 100uA and then you are
measuring just 10mV which is hard work, with noise, etc.

It doesn't eliminate it - just makes it smaller.

A 1206 thinfilm RTD can have some thermal copper pours on the PCB, on
the end caps, to reduce self-heating by a lot. 1 mA and 100 ohms and
10 K/W times 0.1 duty cycle is.... pretty small.

But not zero. And you need to know the thermal time constant before you can work out how much self-heating you've actually got.

Of course, once you've done that properly, you can subtract it out of the result you present to the customer.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
John Larkin wrote...
On 3 Oct 2019, Winfield Hill wrote:

John Larkin wrote...

We use a surface-mount 1206 platinum RTD. ...

Wow, sounds interesting, p/n?

VISHAY PTS1206M1B100RP100

About $2.

Thanks John, that's a good one to know about!

When they say the long-term stability is 0.1%,
that 0.1% of the 100 ohms, right? Which with
the 3850ppm/K sensitivity is 1/3.85 - 0.26
degrees, right? I see the B indicates class
F0.3, or 0.3C initial accuracy, best offered
for this part, right? Together that's 0.56 C.


--
Thanks,
- Win
 
Bill Sloman wrote...
If John Larkin had done the job properly he'd be able to
say how much the sensor warms up while he was reading it.
"Minimal" means that he doesn't know.

No, I think "minimal" means minimal, which is well below
the 0.3C rating of the part. If one has a precision RTD,
they can can pull out all the stops for measurement, but
this $2.05 part (D-K, 100 pieces) is not in that class.
Moreover, with modest care, thermocouple voltage effects
won't be encountered onboard the PCB.


--
Thanks,
- Win
 
On 5 Oct 2019 07:12:54 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote...

If John Larkin had done the job properly he'd be able to
say how much the sensor warms up while he was reading it.
"Minimal" means that he doesn't know.

No, I think "minimal" means minimal, which is well below
the 0.3C rating of the part. If one has a precision RTD,
they can can pull out all the stops for measurement, but
this $2.05 part (D-K, 100 pieces) is not in that class.
Moreover, with modest care, thermocouple voltage effects
won't be encountered onboard the PCB.

The Vishay data says that the thermal time constant in air is seconds;
we digitize in milliseconds. We do add big copper pours on the PCBs to
reduce theta and add thermal mass. Our ref junction accuracy is way
overkill for processing thermocouples.

One interesting use for these surface-mount RTDs is as a simultaneous
heater and sensor, to explore the thermal effects of soldering parts
to PC boards.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8fvxphmyunh7dd9/RTD_in_air.JPG?raw=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nnxr165corhrwf0/RTD_on_board.JPG?raw=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dnzjvpg0kf08ync/RTD_lotsa_copper.JPG?raw=1

I did the math once to turn that into K/W. Can't find it just now. But
the effects of the added copper are pretty stark, theta and tau. I
recall the free-air (just some tiny long wires) theta being something
like 200 K/W. On a PC board it's much less.

We also hang thermistors here and there on boards, to snoop local
thermals. My new class-D power amp will be thermally instrumented, so
we can play with air flow.


I design electronics. Sloman whines.





--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics
 
On Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 3:36:05 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On 5 Oct 2019 07:12:54 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com
wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote...

If John Larkin had done the job properly he'd be able to
say how much the sensor warms up while he was reading it.
"Minimal" means that he doesn't know.

No, I think "minimal" means minimal, which is well below
the 0.3C rating of the part. If one has a precision RTD,
they can can pull out all the stops for measurement, but
this $2.05 part (D-K, 100 pieces) is not in that class.
Moreover, with modest care, thermocouple voltage effects
won't be encountered onboard the PCB.

The Vishay data says that the thermal time constant in air is seconds;
we digitize in milliseconds. We do add big copper pours on the PCBs to
reduce theta and add thermal mass. Our ref junction accuracy is way
overkill for processing thermocouples.

One interesting use for these surface-mount RTDs is as a simultaneous
heater and sensor, to explore the thermal effects of soldering parts
to PC boards.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8fvxphmyunh7dd9/RTD_in_air.JPG?raw=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nnxr165corhrwf0/RTD_on_board.JPG?raw=1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dnzjvpg0kf08ync/RTD_lotsa_copper.JPG?raw=1

I did the math once to turn that into K/W. Can't find it just now. But
the effects of the added copper are pretty stark, theta and tau. I
recall the free-air (just some tiny long wires) theta being something
like 200 K/W. On a PC board it's much less.

We also hang thermistors here and there on boards, to snoop local
thermals. My new class-D power amp will be thermally instrumented, so
we can play with air flow.

I design electronics. Sloman whines.

John Larkin claims to design electronics. I point out how he could have done it better. He doesn't like that - what he wants is uncritical admiration, which he's poorly equipped to attract.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 
On Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 12:13:06 AM UTC+10, Winfield Hill wrote:
Bill Sloman wrote...

If John Larkin had done the job properly he'd be able to
say how much the sensor warms up while he was reading it.
"Minimal" means that he doesn't know.

No, I think "minimal" means minimal, which is well below
the 0.3C rating of the part.

That's one meaning you can attach to the world "minimal".

John Larkin hasn't been that specific, and clearly hasn't bothered to work out how much his sensor does warm up. Quite a few people make that particular mistake.

Sloman A. W. “Comment on ‘A versatile thermoelectric temperature controller with 10 mK reproducibility and 100 mK absolute accuracy’ [Rev. Sci. Instrum. 80, 126107 (2009)] “, Review of Scientific Instruments 82, 27101 - 027101-2 (2011).

In that particular case it vitiated their claim of 100mK absolute accuracy - they had 200mK of self-heating.

If one has a precision RTD,
they can can pull out all the stops for measurement, but
this $2.05 part (D-K, 100 pieces) is not in that class.
Moreover, with modest care, thermocouple voltage effects
won't be encountered onboard the PCB.

A printed circuit board carries elements that dissipate power, so it's got thermal gradients. There a lots of different metals in the components - copper tracks, solder joints, aluminium metalisation on the integrated circuits.

It takes more than modest care to eliminate thermocouple voltages - more a renegotiation of the laws of physics.

A $2.05 part isn't all that cheap, and with proper care could deliver very accurate measurements. The metallurgical quality of the platinum film may be a bit dubious - if it's coefficient of thermal expansion doesn't exactly match the substrate you can get thermal stress which can change the observed coefficient o of the resistance against temperature term - but Vishay aren't the only source for that kind of sensor.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
 

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