rogs
Well-known member
My rather ancient Neutrik Minirator MR1 signal generator has served me well for many years - although it does now need lots of TLC and sticky tape to keep it in one piece! ( Quite why Neutrik decided to use a 'degradeable' plastic for the case remains a mystery? )
It does still produce high quality signals - quite accurate enough for almost anything I need....
It is however limited to a 20KHz upper frequency limit, which makes it pretty useless for ultrasonic testing for example (I do some recording of bat ultrasonics, and build detectors to help monitor those recordings, so a generator with an extra few octaves is quite useful )
I came across this cheap DDS Function Generator the other day. Ridiculously cheap - less than £14 including tax and shipping !! - and I did find one or two horror stories on You Tube...
Still, with a frequency range of 1Hz to 500KHz in 1Hz increments, and a choice of Sine, Square, Triangle and Sawtooth waveforms I thought I'd give one a try, at that price.
And it's not at all bad! ... OK the user interface is a bit 'clunky', but it does what it says on the tin.
Sinewave distortion at 1KHz is around 0.02% which I find quite usable for many tests....
The waveforms are pretty clean, and although the output level does drop off a bit above 100KHz, it has an external rotary volume control which helps deal with that.
OK not a 'top class' generator, but at that price, quite a useful thing to slip into the tool box, I thought?....
It does still produce high quality signals - quite accurate enough for almost anything I need....
It is however limited to a 20KHz upper frequency limit, which makes it pretty useless for ultrasonic testing for example (I do some recording of bat ultrasonics, and build detectors to help monitor those recordings, so a generator with an extra few octaves is quite useful )
I came across this cheap DDS Function Generator the other day. Ridiculously cheap - less than £14 including tax and shipping !! - and I did find one or two horror stories on You Tube...
Still, with a frequency range of 1Hz to 500KHz in 1Hz increments, and a choice of Sine, Square, Triangle and Sawtooth waveforms I thought I'd give one a try, at that price.
And it's not at all bad! ... OK the user interface is a bit 'clunky', but it does what it says on the tin.
Sinewave distortion at 1KHz is around 0.02% which I find quite usable for many tests....
The waveforms are pretty clean, and although the output level does drop off a bit above 100KHz, it has an external rotary volume control which helps deal with that.
OK not a 'top class' generator, but at that price, quite a useful thing to slip into the tool box, I thought?....
