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Don Lancaster’s
Hardware Hacker
Short haul telemetry
Max-min slope theory
SETI books & resources
Unique new optical link
Maximum power transfers
June, 1993
A s I might have mentioned a
your generator to look and act like a
current source .
For instance, a current source load
for a transistor amplifier can offer an
enormously high voltage gain. These
unusual apps sometimes justify the
low power and bad efficiency.
Do note what this maximum power
transfer curve is telling us: You can
deliver the most power to a load by
throwing half of the generated power
away in your source!
The max power transfer curve is
surprisingly broad. Double or halve
time or two before, I am the
sysop of Guru’s Lair and do
have bunches of reprints of
my Hardware Hacker , Ask the Guru ,
and LaserWriter Corner columns.
We might start off with a pair of
back-to-the-basics fundamentals…
Maximum Power Transfer
Say you’re using an electrical or
electronic generator. Say further it
happens to provide a one ohm source
impedance and is outputting a one
volt signal. What is your "best" load
resistance?
As figure one shows us, there is no
"best" choice. Only compromises that
depend entirely on exactly what you
are trying to do.
If you make your load resistance
fairly high, you’ll get high efficiency
and good regulation. But you will be
unable to get the maximum possible
power from your generator . Your ac
power utility is an example where the
generator impedance is made as low
as possible to minimize all the source
and transmission losses.
If you make your load resistance
equal to your source resistance, you
should extract the maximum possible
power from your generator. But the
efficiency will be a mere fifty percent
and your regulation will be poor.
Video and rf transmission lines get
important areas where you want to
precisely match load to the source.
Besides delivering maximum power,
you’ll also minimize reflections and
standing waves. Other areas where
"make load = source" are important
are the older power audio amplifiers
driving speakers, car batteries when
cold cranking, and solar cells trying
to deliver as much power to the load
as possible.
You also have the choice of using a
very low load resistance. Which will
give you a horrible efficiency and a
terrible regulation. It also will only
deliver a tiny fraction of the possible
generator power. But there are a very
few lower level uses where you want
(A) Typical generator and normalized load. Varying load resistor R
changes the total delivered power…
(s ourc e)
1
W
R
(load)
(B) Maximum power transfer takes place whenever the source
resistance matches the load resistance…
1.0
100%
E
F
F
I
C
I
E
N
C
Y
P
O
W
E
R
0.5
50%
0
0%
0
1
2
3
LOAD RESISTANCE IN OHMS
(C) How to prove the maximum power transfer theorem…
Borrow these two rules from differential calculus…
d(uv) = vdu + udv
d(u n du) = nu n-1 du
The voltage across the load will be…
V L = R/(1 + R)
The load power E 2 /R will simplify to…
P L = R/(1 + R) 2
Take the derivative and set it equal to zero…
(1 + R) -2 - 2(1 + R) -3 = 0
And simplify to…
(1 + R) - 2 = 0
Which solves as R = 1.
Fig. 1 – THE MAXIMUM POWER TRANSFORM THEOREM tells us that you
deliver the most possible power to a load only when you purposely burn up
half of the generated power in your source. Here are some key details.
65.1
Copyright c 1997 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved. Reposting is expressly forbidden.
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Hardware Hacker
construct any economical high power
E-field machine.
As far as I know, there never has
been any E-field machine anywhere
ever produce commercial "nickel per
kilowatt-hour" ac power. I’ll give you
if you can prove me wrong on this.
And while any piezo generator is
obviously an E-field machine, it is
only a "fair to middlin" one at its very
best. Sigh…
Finding Maximums
and Minimums
There’s a number of fairly obvious
ways you could verify that maximum
power transfer curve of figure one.
Being lazy, I just told the incredibly
superb general purpose PostScript
computer language to plot it for me.
As we have seen before, PostScript is
now the ultimate hacker’s language.
Or, you could go into the lab and
use a wattmeter and a variable load
resistor. Which should give you the
same curve, again with its maximum
value matching your source.
Let’s try using some math instead.
There’s this ugly rumor going around
that electrical circuits will obey math
rules. And that you can predict what
they will do simply by looking at the
underlying math.
In the figure one circuit, we have a
voltage divider which attenuates our
one volt input by…
e out = R/(1 + R)
Your output power should be this
voltage squared divided by the load
resistance. Which simplifies to…
P out = R/(1 + R) 2
You or a computer can then plot
this curve for different values of R to
generate the max power curve.
By the way, this stunt of using one
volt generators with one ohm source
impedances is called normalization .
If you can ever analyze something
using easy numbers instead of hard
ones, it will usually pay to do so.
Anything that can be scaled can also
be normalized. Much more on this in
But there is a much better way to
find your maximum power transfer
point. There is a math process called
max-min theory that easily lets you
find maximum or minimum points for
At a local MAXIMUM , the slope (or the
first derivative) will be ZERO and the
rate-of-change of slope (or the second
derivative) will be NEGATIVE
At a local MINIMUM , the slope (or the
first derivative) will be ZERO and the
rate-of-change of slope (or the second
derivative) will now be POSITIVE
At an INFLECTION POINT , the slope
(or the first derivative) will be ZERO
and the rate-of-change of slope (or the
second derivative) will also be ZERO
Fig. 2 – MAX-MIN THEORY is a branch of differential calculus that lets you
quickly and easily find a maximum or a minimum of any reasonable curve.
your load and your power that gets
delivered only drops by about twelve
percent or so. Thus, an exact match
sometimes isn’t all that important for
maximum power transfer. A precise
match just might be needed for other
reasons, though. Such as to eliminate
standing waves and reflections.
If you are going to mismatch, it
usually pays to do so on the high side.
This way your overall efficiency will
be better, even if the delivered power
drops a tad.
Let’s look at several examples of
how a bad source-to-load mismatch
can severely do you in. In figure two,
let’s take a piezo striker and see what
we can get out of it. Let’s assume the
striker has a source impedance of ten
megohms and outputs a peak of 1600
volts. We will also disable the spark
gap to prevent breakdown.
Into an open circuit, we get zero
power. For maximum possible power,
we’ll use a ten meg load, matching
source to load. Half the voltage will
appear across the load, and our power
will end up as 640 milliwatts. Per the
usual P = E 2 / R rule.
Which is over half a watt, so we
should be able to light a lamp with it,
right? Wrong. As 2-B shows us, a
flashlight bulb offers a resistance of
about ten ohms. With a ten ohm load
and a ten meg source, you can only
deliver 256 nano watts!
Your efficiency is essentially zero .
Ergo, no light.
Can you do better? Substituting a
neon lamp for a flashlight bulb would
help bunches. Instead, you can place
a transformer with a 1000:1 turns
ratio between the striker and the bulb,
as shown in 2-C . A 1000:1 turns ratio
gives you a 1,000,000:1 impedance
ratio. Your bulb now "looks" like a
ten meg load to the source. And you
should get nearly the full maximum
power flashing the lamp.
Remember, of course, that all piezo
devices are ac only generators.
Most small impedance mismatches
between source and load are not that
big a deal. But bad ones (especially
with high value sources driving low
value loads) will severely do you in.
Several columns back, we found
several good reasons why any piezo
power production hacks were likely
to end up a bad scene. Some of you
helpline callers pointed out there is
an even more fundamental gotcha.
Most power generators are either
E-field machines or H-field machines .
An H-field machine uses a changing
magnetic field to induce current into
a conductor . An E-field machine will
use a changing electric field to induce
a voltage across an insulator .
All E-field machines are inherently
high impedance devices. The power
density of all known E-field machines
is extremely low . E-field machines
tend to force you to the inefficient
extreme left of the maximum power
transfer curve of figure one. Precisely
where you don’t wanna be.
The curent state of the art in both
materials science and high vacuum
techniques simply will not allow us to
65.2
Copyright c 1997 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved. Reposting is expressly forbidden.
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June, 1993
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With an OPEN CIRCUIT , 1600 volts is
routed to an infinite resistor. The total
delivered load power is ZERO .
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With an MATCHED LOAD , 800 volts is
delivered to a 10 meg resistor. Total
delivered power is a fairly respectable
640 MILLIWATTS .
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With a BADLY MISMATCHED LOAD ,
1.6 millivolts is delivered to a 10 Ohm
incandescent lamp. The total delivered
power is a useless 256 NANOWATTS .
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With a MATCHED LOAD , nearly 640
MILLIWATTS can be delivered to the
incandescent lamp by using a 1000:1
turns ratio matching transformer.
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sent to an 0 Ohm resistor. The total
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Fig. 3 – GROSSLY MISMATCHING your source and load impedances can
severely reduce your total available delivered power. Here are examples that
try to use a piezo striker as a power generator.
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Technical Insider Secrets
FREE
any reasonable curve. Figure three
shows you the key secret.
Any reasonable curve will also
have a slope . A slope is simply the
"steepness" or the "rise over run" of
any tiny portion of the curve. One
crude way to find the slope of any
point on a curve is to take a point just
before and one just beyond and create
a tiny triangle out of it. The rise/run
(or tangent ) of the triangle will equal
the slope of your curve.
As figure three shows us, there are
only three possible cases where you
can get a zero slope on a curve. These
happen only at a local maximum , at a
local minimum or, more rarely, at an
inflection point . And that’s all there
is to max-min theory.
Just find the math expression for
the slope of your curve. Set it to zero
and solve it. All solutions will be a
max, a min, or an inflection point.
How can you tell which is which?
Often, it will be completely obvious.
If not, you’ll go one step further and
find the slope of the slope . If you are
at a local maximum (3A) , the rate of
change of slope will be negative . At a
minimum, (3B) , the rate of change of
slope will be positive . And if you are
now at an inflection point, the rate of
change of slope will be zero .
Your "correct" and "exact" way to
determine the slope for any curve is
known as finding the derivative and
this whole field is called differential
calculus . You could find a full set of
rules in any university level Calculus
101 text. A good listing also appears
in the Mathematical Tables from the
Handbook of Chemistry and Physics .
I’ve shown how you use max-min
theory to prove the maximum power
transfer theorem in figure one. Sure
enough, the maximum is exactly at a
load impedance which matches the
source. Taking most derivatives is
quite simple. For instance, a parabola
y = x 2 has a slope anywhere of 2x .
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65.3
Copyright c 1997 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved. Reposting is expressly forbidden.
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Hardware Hacker
Good old u n du and friends.
Advanced math can be neat stuff.
And very valuable, too.
SETI Resources
NASA has recently started a new
and very aggressive SETI (search for
extraterrestial intelligence) program.
In the first few hours of operation,
more frequencies have been observed
in more ways than have in the entire
history of all previous ET watching.
One prominent researcher in SETI
is Frank Drake. He is famous for the
"Drake Equation" which accurately
predicts the number of intelligent civ-
ilizations and unintelligent senators
that are likely to be lurking in the
universe at any given time. Frank has
recently authored a new and highly
readable book titled Is Anybody Out
There? and published by Delacorte .
So, I thought it might be a good
time to do a resource sidebar on SETI .
I’ve included several associations and
a listing of the better books.
Besides the three groups Frank
mentioned in his book, I’ve added the
Amateur Radio Astronomers who also
publish a Radio Observer newsletter.
But note that their main focus is on
radio astronomy fundamentals. And
that they do distance themselves from
ET watching and the UFO crowd.
For several reasons, I strongly feel
that the odds for an imminent SETI
contact are quite high. As openers,
our signal detection, processing, and
computing abilities have skyrocketed
in the last several years. And should
continue to do so.
Shortly after World War II, our sun
suddenly turned into a radio star.
Captain Video , Roller Derby , and
Kukla, Fran, & Ollie became our first
goodwill ambassadors to outer space.
These signals are now 45 light years
away from us, and have now swept
out nearly a third of a million cubic
light years of space.
Within this humongous volume are
several hundred "probable" candidate
star systems. Our own signals are
easily detectable at this range with
our present state of the electronic art.
In another 45 years, eight times more
volume will be swept out with eight
times more candidate star systems
now watching Your Hit Parade .
At a further signal strength drop of
less than six decibels!
SETI RESOURCES
Associations:
Amateur Radio Astronomers
247 North Linden Street
Massapequa NY 11758
(516) 798-8459
Pacific Astronomical Society
390 Ashton Avenue
San Francisco, Califronia 94112
(415) 337-1100
Planetary Society
65 North Catalina Avenue
Pasadena California 91106
(818) 793-5100
SETI Institute
2035 Landings Drive
Mountain View California 94043
(415) 961-6633
Publications:
Edward Ashpole, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Blandford, 1989.
Issac Asimov, Asimov’s Biogaphical Encyclopedia, Doubleday,1972.
John Billingham, Life in the Universe, MIT Press 1981.
Howard Blum, Out There, Simon & Schuster 1990.
Ben Bova, First Contact, New American Library 1990.
Ronald Bracewell, The Galactic Club, Stanford Alumni, 1974.
A.G. Cameron, Interstellar Communications, W. Benjamin, 1963.
Nathan Cohen, Gravity Lens, John Wiley, 1988.
Frank Drake Intelligent Life in Space, MacMillian 1962.
Frank Drake, Is Anyone Out There? Delacorte Press, 1992.
Robert Forward, Dragon Egg, Ballantine 1980.
Donald Goldsmith, Quest for Extraterrestrial Life, University Science, 1980.
Donald Goldsmith, Search for Extraterrestrial Life, Benjamin, 1980.
James Gunn, The Listeners, New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1972.
J.S. Hey, The Evolution of Radio Astronomy, Neal Watson, 1973
John Lilly, Man and Dolphin, Doubleday 1961.
Thomas McDonough, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, John Wiley, 1987.
Greg Mamikunian, Current Aspects of Exobiology, JPL, 1965.
Philip Morrison, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, NASA, 1977.
Bernard Oliver, Project Cyclops Report CR-114445, NASA, 1973.
Dennis Overbye, Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, Harper-Collins, 1991.
Michael Papagiannis, Strategies for the Search for Life, Reidel 1980.
Cyril Ponnamperuma, Interstellar Communications, Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
Robert Rood, Are We Alone?, Charles Scribners, 1981.
Carl Sagan, Contact, Simon & Schuster,1985.
Carl Sagan, Communications with Extraterrestrial Intelligence, MIT Press, 1973
Carl Sagan, Murmurs of Earth, Random House, 1978.
Iosif Shklovsky, Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon, W. Norton 1991
Iosif Shklovsky, Intelligent Life in the Universe, Holden-Day, 1966.
Walter Sullivan, Search for Intelligent Life on Other Worlds, McGraw-Hill, 1964.
David Swift, SETI Pioneers, University of Arizona Press, 1990.
Frank White, The SETI Factor, Walker, 1990.
Recommended range:
1 to 36 inches
+5v
+5v
Data
input
Data
output
RY5AT01
RY5AR01
Fig. 4 – NEW SHARP OPTO CHIPS offer all sorts of new possibilities for
wireless communication, safety isolation, and short haul telemetry. The 500
kHz pulse modulation ignores ambient light and TV/VCR remotes.
65.4
Copyright c 1997 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved. Reposting is expressly forbidden.
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June, 1993
We are now in transition between
calling hundreds of candidate star
systems to annoying thousands more.
On the other hand, I personally feel
that looking for obviously modulated
narrow SETI signals in the expected
"water hole" frequency band might
not be the swiftest way to go. If Earth
is an even remotely typical example,
all the unintentional radiated signals
swamp those intentional ones by at
least a zillion to one.
And we have recently discovered
spread spectrum communications. If
you really want to punch any signal
through very high noise over great
distances, spread spectrum seems a
very good way to go. The chances are
that you could step up to multiple
dimensions of spectrum spreading.
Using, say, frequency, time, and
some sort of a trellis modulation type
of overlay.
Perhaps a "multi-level marketing
scheme" in which the unswift could
pick up that something was coming
down, the fairly bright could receive
useful info, and the superintelligent
could grab the full set of plans. This
surely would beat sending out prime
numbers forever.
The signals may be there but we
just might not be smart enough to
recognize them just yet. Perhaps the
fundamental question to ask is "What
spreading and modulation scheme
would give us the most bang for the
buck?" And then start looking for
something similar heading our way.
Let’s have your thoughts on this.
New Opto Chips
Infrared data communications has
recently become much simpler thanks
to a pair of Sharp circuits. Figure one
shows details.
These devices look like a transistor
with a built-in lens. Their RY5AT01
transmitter outputs a burst of 500 kHz
modulated infrared square waves if
fed a logic one. And outputs nothing
with a logic zero. This is a form of
modulation that’s called Amplitude
Shift Keying .
The RY5AR01 receiver accepts an
infrared signal and converts it back
into digital logic levels. An internal
digital filter rejects most interfering
signals or noise.
The modulation scheme largely
ignores ambient light. Signals from
NAMES AND NUMBERS
Cerac Inc
Box 1178
Milwaukee, WI 53201
(414) 289-9800
Delacorte Press
666 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10103
(212) 765-6500
GEnie
401 N Washington Street
Rockville, MD 20850
(800) 638-9636
Gerber Scientific
83 Gerber Road
South Windsor, CT 06074
(203) 644-1551
NASA
Langley Research Center
Hampton, VA 23665
(804) 865-3281
NEC
401 Ellis Street
Mountain View, CA 94039
(800) 632-3531
Radio Observer
7605 Deland Avenue
Ft Pierce, FL 34951
(407) 464-2118
RF Design
6300 S Syracuse Way, S650
Englewood, CO 80111
(303) 220-0600
Sharp
5700 NW Pacific Rim Blvd.
Camas, WA 98607
(206) 834-2500
Signetics/Philips
811 E Arques Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94088
(800) 227-1817
Synergetics
Box 809
Thatcher, AZ 85552
(602) 428-4073
Wired
544 Second Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
(415) 904-0664
most interfering TV or VCR remotes
are also strongly rejected. Data rates
up to 19,200 baud are supported. The
beamwidth is a somewhat narrow ten
degrees, and the recommended range
is 1 to 36 inches.
Obvious hacker uses include safety
isolation, data comm, handicapped
aides, virtual reality, robotics, and for
wireless mice.
Because of the narrow beamwidth,
the two devices must point directly at
each other at all times. While there is
good rejection to ambient light and
many random IR signals, there is no
selective coding. Which means that
you will have to strictly isolate each
optical linkup from any potentially
interfering neighbors. This turns into
an especially sticky problem in full
duplex (two-way) data comm.
Sadly, Sharp’s $10 intro price for
these is in the "What are they on, and
where can we get some of it?" range.
These will be superb products when
they drop to sixty cents each.
Short Haul Telemetry
There are all sorts of emerging new
uses for shorter range wireless data
communication. I’d like to apply the
generic term short haul telemetry for
any newer method that tries to send
information a few inches or a few feet
without any wires.
We’ve seen one possible need in a
previous column and in my ongoing
Hardware Hacker BOD reprints.
An Isopod is a tennis-ball shaped
beastie that you glomp onto an ac
power wire. The isopod automatically
measures and transmits the current to
a nearby receiver. This can greatly
simplify home energy management.
No rewiring, no electricians, and no
code hassles need be involved.
Another new need is for a wireless
pulse rate sensor for use on a bicycle
computer. And there are thousands
more. How about an "optical mouse"
that senses where you are looking ? Or
new ways to get data onto or off of a
rotating shaft or moving vehicle. Or
ground-loop-free alternatives to data
communications?
But why don’t you tell me instead?
For this month’s contest, either (A)
show me a use for the RY5AT01 and
the RY5AR01 , or else (B) dream up a
brand new application for short haul
telemetry.
There will be dozens of the usual
book prizes awarded, along with an
all-expense paid (FOB Thatcher, AZ)
tinaja quest going to the best of all.
65.5
Copyright c 1997 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved. Reposting is expressly forbidden.
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