Jump to content

Amp failures


Ammar

Recommended Posts

Hello everybody,

I posted this topic a couple of months ago 

but my depression got worse and I spent alot of time just sitting around doing nothing, I satrted feeling better a couple of weeks ago so I decided to make this little "project"

Please note that I'm not being stingy or I don't want to buy a proper timegrapher the thing is it's not really worth it for me to buy one because I'm barely finding a decent watch to work on every couple of months I'll most definitely but one if things get better.

the other thing I want to point out is I have no idea what I'm doing I'm absolutely ignorant when it comes to electronics ad acoustics so I've been learning as I go. 

now I started buy buying this amp circuit thing with a bunch of piezo elements, I wired it and connected it to my laptop and it sounded decent with very low noise BUT when I tried listening to a watch the noise was lowed compared to the watch tick and I started experimenting with cables and options and nothing helped and the watch tick wasn't so loud anyway, I was using batteries and shielded cables as I have been told in the previous post.

 20200912_112033.thumb.jpg.01ecb652594ff2cdb92575889c1b0c9e.jpg

I did some googling and I found this video:

I thought well this is easy I'll give a go spoiler alert it didn't work and I had the same problem watch tick to low and the noise is high compared to it.

I wasn't ready to give up though so I decided to make this amplifier in Watch-O-Scope website:

http://www.watchoscope.com/amplifier.html

I got the components and sat down to make the circuit but the I realized I have no idea how to read schematics and make circuits so I had to watch some videos and read about it.

the first version  looked terrible and had a really really high noise so I thought to my self "I messed this up gotta start again"

so I made another one which to be honest looked better than the first one (to me at least) and I was a little bit proud of my self :woohoo-jumping-smiley-emoticon:but the thing is I didn't work either and had the same really loud noise I checked all the connections and everything seems to be fine I don't know what could be causing this and this is why I'm posting this long boring post.

I tried pulling the laptop charger off and even tried two more laptops but it made no difference.

can you guys tell me what I did wrong please?

20200912_112404.thumb.jpg.e9976c40e70cddebdce6ed5d129f6afc.jpg20200912_112421.thumb.jpg.d65d2c8b30094168158982395a0d252a.jpg539325333_WhatsAppImage2020-09-11at18_48_06.thumb.jpeg.a5701a5446031b1cd0ff73e0f478c38b.jpeg364388157_WhatsAppImage2020-09-11at18_33_18.thumb.jpeg.43dca45dc5ec6fa4bcb12a2f94313c30.jpeg

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, rodabod said:

What is the nature of the noise? Is it white noise? Hum?

untitled.mp3I'm not quite sure what this is exactly, please be careful when you open it it's really loud, the potentiometer is in the middle it's not all the way up, the noise decrease when I touch the ground I don't know what this means but I just noticed it.

Edited by Ammar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ammar said:

Please note that I'm not being stingy or I don't want to buy a proper timegrapher the thing is it's not really worth it for me to buy one because I'm barely finding a decent watch to work on every couple of months I'll most definitely but one if things get better.

the other thing I want to point out is I have no idea what I'm doing I'm absolutely ignorant when it comes to electronics ad acoustics so I've been learning as I go. 

out of curiosity do you value your time? you have zero idea which are doing which means your chance of success is limited. The DIY approach for the amplifier and especially the pickup to be somewhat problematic even if you know what you're doing. Versus just buying the Chinese 1000 timing machine and being done with it?

on the other hand if you look at this as a fun project  you don't care what the value of your time is and conceivably by the time to get through you may spend more money in time and effort in parts than to just buy one  then you can proceed.. It would be helpful if we had a picture of the pickup itself and how you're trying to pick up the watch. also a picture of everything in other words the amplifier the battery the laptop everything so we can see how your wiring it all up.

With just the amplifier hooked up the laptop  no pickup nothing what does that sound like?

 

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

out of curiosity do you value your time? you have zero idea which are doing which means your chance of success is limited. The DIY approach for the amplifier and especially the pickup to be somewhat problematic even if you know what you're doing. Versus just buying the Chinese 1000 timing machine and being done with it?

I agree 100% with that, at the same time I want express respect for taking a stab to something totally new and unknown, good luck to the OP, he can only learn in the process and no damage to watches can happen :biggrin:

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, JohnR725 said:

out of curiosity do you value your time? you have zero idea which are doing which means your chance of success is limited. The DIY approach for the amplifier and especially the pickup to be somewhat problematic even if you know what you're doing. Versus just buying the Chinese 1000 timing machine and being done with it?

on the other hand if you look at this as a fun project  you don't care what the value of your time is and conceivably by the time to get through you may spend more money in time and effort in parts than to just buy one  then you can proceed.. It would be helpful if we had a picture of the pickup itself and how you're trying to pick up the watch. also a picture of everything in other words the amplifier the battery the laptop everything so we can see how your wiring it all up.

With just the amplifier hooked up the laptop  no pickup nothing what does that sound like?

 

I'm unemployed and have a lot of free time and I like learning new things and doing little projects and this particular project costs almost nothing so I thought I'd give it a try and see what happens in addition to what I mentioned before that I don't really work on alot of watches maybe one  every couple of months and I don't feel it's worth it for me to spend around 150$ on a timegrapher especially that I'm unemployed and 150$ is almost 3 months rent where I live.

I uploaded a sample of the sound I'm getting and as for the pictures I have soldered the cables and connections yesterday to inspect the circuit and didn't solder them back but there is not much in it to be honest I'm just putting the watch in the case vise and put the piezo pick up against the crown, I tried a citizen 8200 and a Seiko 7009 and an Orient 46941 but the problem is even when I desolder the mic the noise is there and really terrible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ammar said:

untitled.mp3I'm not quite sure what this is exactly, please be careful when you open it it's really loud, the potentiometer is in the middle it's not all the way up, the noise decrease when I touch the ground I don't know what this means but I just noticed it.

That sounds like mainly hum to me - this is interference caused by EMI. The only way to shield against this is to put your circuit (especially the piezo transducer and the wires attached to it) inside a metal case which is attached to the circuit’s earth connection (likely the negative connection of the battery if it is battery-powered). 
 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't listen to the naysayers. If it's something you want to do, and it's not detracting from other critical things, it's a worthwhile project. Expect failure, learn, and do better the next time. Eventually your success will surprise you.

He said the sound decreased when he touched it. Additionally, the soldering on the back of the breadboard looks like there are some tenuous joints to ground. I'd go back, clean up that solder work, and pay extra attention to your ground. I assume you're using a DC power supply brick, some of those make a fair amount of noise. You may try a different model/manufacturer to see if that clears anything up. Last item down that totem pole is EMF. In hifi tube circuitry, it's common practice to keep your power supply lines totally separate from any signal lines to avoid internal interference. You're dealing with very low voltage signals in both applications, but this one is much much much lower voltage. Regardless, a solidly designed layout never hurts. For external interference, you can put the whole thing in a makeshift faraday cage and get rid of the external badnasties.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, spectre6000 said:

Don't listen to the naysayers. If it's something you want to do, and it's not detracting from other critical things, it's a worthwhile project. Expect failure, learn, and do better the next time. Eventually your success will surprise you.

He said the sound decreased when he touched it. Additionally, the soldering on the back of the breadboard looks like there are some tenuous joints to ground. I'd go back, clean up that solder work, and pay extra attention to your ground. I assume you're using a DC power supply brick, some of those make a fair amount of noise. You may try a different model/manufacturer to see if that clears anything up. Last item down that totem pole is EMF. In hifi tube circuitry, it's common practice to keep your power supply lines totally separate from any signal lines to avoid internal interference. You're dealing with very low voltage signals in both applications, but this one is much much much lower voltage. Regardless, a solidly designed layout never hurts. For external interference, you can put the whole thing in a makeshift faraday cage and get rid of the external badnasties.

thank you much for you encouraging words, I tried putting the circuit in an aluminum case i had laying around and the noise decreased dramatically the back and front of the case are open I don't know if that makes a deference I'll get a proper one later  as to the power I' using a 9 V battery as shown in the tutorial to avoid the noise you mentioned, I'll go over the soldering tomorrow and clean it u p and see what happens thank again 

 

Screenshot_3.jpg

untitled1.mp3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, rodabod said:

That sounds like mainly hum to me - this is interference caused by EMI. The only way to shield against this is to put your circuit (especially the piezo transducer and the wires attached to it) inside a metal case which is attached to the circuit’s earth connection (likely the negative connection of the battery if it is battery-powered). 
 

 

I'll work on it tomorrow I tried something out today and it kinda worked thank you so much I have attached a new sample ain the previous comment if you want to check it out 

thanks again

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The other thing to watch out for is sources of EMI, so LED lamps, mobile phones, etc. 
 

We have no reference point of the relative  level of your noise recording, so it’s hard to judge how good it is (unless we are meant to be hearing a watch ticking under that noise!). 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, rodabod said:

The other thing to watch out for is sources of EMI, so LED lamps, mobile phones, etc. 
 

We have no reference point of the relative  level of your noise recording, so it’s hard to judge how good it is (unless we are meant to be hearing a watch ticking under that noise!). 

I'll neaten everything up tomorrow and stick a watch on it and see what happens

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well first of all let me say that I've been "playing" with electronic devices all my life. I started out knowing nothing, and eventually ended up knowing enough to make a living out of it. Most of what I know, I found out for myself, so I totally agree with this sentiment.

3 hours ago, spectre6000 said:

Don't listen to the naysayers.

Noise is always present in any analog circuit. Amplifiers amplify, so they amplify the signal and they amplify the noise. The trick is to keep the signal to noise ratio acceptable. Since we only have the noise here, it is a little difficult as @rodabod
pointed out, to tell if the amplifier is noisy, or if we are simply hearing very low level noise amplified.


A high end HiFi amplifier works in pretty much the same way as a cheap one, the only real difference (apart from the sales speak and the eye watering price tag) is that the high end HiFi amp has higher fidelity.

This means that it has a better signal to noise ratio, and produces less distortion than the cheap one.

In this case, the most likely cause of the noise is one of the following.

A nearby mobile phone.

Switching noise from the power supply powering the amplifier.

Switching noise from  nearby light fittings, wall warts, LED lighting power supplies or whatever. 

It sounds too "dirty" to be simply mains hum, but it does appear to have a low frequency component, so mains hum may be a part of it. There is no big low frequency hump at the left of the spectrum though.

image.png.6b0ed456cb8678d325163e46b8fadea4.png

VLC's simple spectrum analyser is pretty crude, but it does show the noise is fairly broad spectrum.

I don't have anything more sophisticated to hand, but my gut feeling is that your amplifier is working just fine, but without a useful input signal it is amplifying all manner of the usual junk found in the local electrical environment.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, spectre6000 said:

Don't listen to the naysayers. If it's something you want to do, and it's not detracting from other critical things, it's a worthwhile project. Expect failure, learn, and do better the next time. Eventually your success will surprise you.

if you are including me in the naysayer you're not paying attention to what I was trying to say. There's nothing wrong with trying to learn to how to build something the problem is if you're trying to build something that has a problematic success. 

let me break down the problematic parts? The software is outstanding although it could have a few improvements but still overall it's wonderful. the amplifier don't have any experience with his, I designed my own. the problematic part is the microphone. You're attempting to pick up a vibration not a sound even though a sound is a vibration. The vibration is very very very quiet.  to test this out you should ideally find a pocket watch you need something it's making a lot of noise. In the absence of a pocket watch a clock will work. That is once you figure out why your amplifier circuits noisy. In the absence of a box to put it in wrap it with something insulating and then wrapped that with aluminum foil making sure the aluminum foil is grounded. The circuitry to pick up Ava where a quiet watch unfortunately has to have a heck of a lot again and any loose wires anything not shielded all going to pick up signal.

 

alternative DIY microphone.JPG

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guys I did it it's working I cleaned the ground soldering and soldered a new wire  then put it in an aluminum external hard drive case and stuffed the front and the back with aluminum foil and voilà it's working perfectly (well I don't know it it's perfect but who cars it's working).

I tried a citizen 8200a and a Seiko 7009 and an Orient 46941 on Watch-o-scope and the results weren't satisfying at all looks like I have to service them again the Citizen and the Seiko rates are all jumping all over the place so I'm not including them to save my self some embarrassment :hair:.

the Orient however was consistent not good but consistent but hey that's why I'm building this thing in the first place.

46941.PNG.e3b8ec7c24af74e04e3a8560e9d5425c.PNG

    Screenshot_4.thumb.jpg.3e9e83453f2f000a8ccceb569be9bc60.jpg    

 

Now I need to put the circuit in a proper case and solder the jacks and do some organizing then build some sort of proper stand for the pick up the Piezo element I'm using is about 20 mm I tried a 35 mm one and a 10 mm one but the 20 mm one seems the be the best.

20200913_135425.thumb.jpg.464012b421c889a5171ecec0b7b2f319.jpg

20200913_135325.thumb.jpg.89a82fee910b31ab0e2578cd7c5e55cd.jpg

20200913_135356.thumb.jpg.55ee4748607f4ee762cff51b4baa4f84.jpg

 

20200913_135415.thumb.jpg.3abfe4c75f6932236f448aa1220c9447.jpg

 

I have this DVB that I took it's guts out I think it would look neat but the problem is it's plastic I'm not sure if I line the inside  with aluminum foil what would happen I might  try that 

20200913_135917.thumb.jpg.05eef6bb284129da4e3ad24e9a9d23cc.jpg

 

now these are the schematics and links I used in this project (I flipped some of the pictures and put them over each other so I can understand what's going on):

http://www.watchoscope.com/amplifier.html

 

Screenshot_1.jpg.755a9e987c9bb3f6b5b0c91222b98bcf.jpg

post-140-0-20276500-1424197552.png.149e47abf2b73b2d48a323bcd4e8376d.png

post-140-0-61927600-1424197477.png.01c1a8a748ffb9985820d507d1245960.png

46943.mp3

  • Like 5
  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Ammar said:

I tried a citizen 8200a and a Seiko 7009 and an Orient 46941 on Watch-o-scope and the results weren't satisfying at all looks like I have to service them again the Citizen and the Seiko rates are all jumping all over the place so I'm not including them to save my self some embarrassment

outstanding the amplifier appears to be working and I should praise you and be happy and not say anything that could be construed as naysaying.  then I should sit back and watch you service your watches again only to find your back in the same place again

On 9/12/2020 at 8:44 AM, spectre6000 said:

Don't listen to the naysayers.

it really adds to my problem of helping if everything I say is interpreted as being negative when I'm trying to help you.

what you're demonstrating here is a problem that we've seen before fortunately you give us the oscilloscope so we can see what the problem is.  I'm attaching an image I swiped it off the website where the software came from. It's part of the manual and you'll notice is a reference to settings.  looking at your on oscilloscope you're not getting a good clean signal and you're not getting all of the signal each ticking sound has multiple of parts. without all the parts you cannot do amplitude but we can do rate and clean up your graphical display if you change a setting.  if you adjust the manual threshold level as is referred to in the image moving that up out of the noisy area should improve things. 

then in the future when you get all of the signal and can do amplitude I have a website below the list of lift angles

https://watchguy.co.uk/cgi-bin/lift_angles

 

setting DIY timing.JPG

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a win for sure Ammar,  you well deserve a pad on the back for getting this thing come to life, tunning it is nothing but a second step at the most.

No doubt building it empowers you with better understanding of how to use it.

Congrat.

All the best.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

it really adds to my problem of helping if everything I say is interpreted as being negative when I'm trying to help you

Hi,

I really did not take your comment as negative and you absolutely have a point about buying a proper timegrapher it's just not a viable option for me at the moment, I appreciate your help and looking forward to more replies on the stupid questions I usually post (I have alot of them)

13 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

then in the future when you get all of the signal and can do amplitude I have a website below the list of lift angles

https://watchguy.co.uk/cgi-bin/lift_angles

Are you the Watchguy? I absolutely love this website it's amazing.

Thank you so much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Nucejoe said:

This is a win for sure Ammar,  you well deserve a pad on the back for getting this thing come to life, tunning it is nothing but a second step at the most.

No doubt building it empowers you with better understanding of how to use it.

Congrat.

All the best.

thank you so much for your nice words.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...