If you need assistance, please send an email to forum at 4hv dot org. To ensure your email is not marked as spam, please include the phrase "4hv help" in the subject line. You can also find assistance via IRC, at irc.shadowworld.net, room #hvcomm.
Support 4hv.org!
Donate:
4hv.org is hosted on a dedicated server. Unfortunately, this server costs and we rely on the help of site members to keep 4hv.org running. Please consider donating. We will place your name on the thanks list and you'll be helping to keep 4hv.org alive and free for everyone. Members whose names appear in red bold have donated recently. Green bold denotes those who have recently donated to keep the server carbon neutral.
Special Thanks To:
Aaron Holmes
Aaron Wheeler
Adam Horden
Alan Scrimgeour
Andre
Andrew Haynes
Anonymous000
asabase
Austin Weil
barney
Barry
Bert Hickman
Bill Kukowski
Blitzorn
Brandon Paradelas
Bruce Bowling
BubeeMike
Byong Park
Cesiumsponge
Chris F.
Chris Hooper
Corey Worthington
Derek Woodroffe
Dalus
Dan Strother
Daniel Davis
Daniel Uhrenholt
datasheetarchive
Dave Billington
Dave Marshall
David F.
Dennis Rogers
drelectrix
Dr. John Gudenas
Dr. Spark
E.TexasTesla
eastvoltresearch
Eirik Taylor
Erik Dyakov
Erlend^SE
Finn Hammer
Firebug24k
GalliumMan
Gary Peterson
George Slade
GhostNull
Gordon Mcknight
Graham Armitage
Grant
GreySoul
Henry H
IamSmooth
In memory of Leo Powning
Jacob Cash
James Howells
James Pawson
Jeff Greenfield
Jeff Thomas
Jesse Frost
Jim Mitchell
jlr134
Joe Mastroianni
John Forcina
John Oberg
John Willcutt
Jon Newcomb
klugesmith
Leslie Wright
Lutz Hoffman
Mads Barnkob
Martin King
Mats Karlsson
Matt Gibson
Matthew Guidry
mbd
Michael D'Angelo
Mikkel
mileswaldron
mister_rf
Neil Foster
Nick de Smith
Nick Soroka
nicklenorp
Nik
Norman Stanley
Patrick Coleman
Paul Brodie
Paul Jordan
Paul Montgomery
Ped
Peter Krogen
Peter Terren
PhilGood
Richard Feldman
Robert Bush
Royce Bailey
Scott Fusare
Scott Newman
smiffy
Stella
Steven Busic
Steve Conner
Steve Jones
Steve Ward
Sulaiman
Thomas Coyle
Thomas A. Wallace
Thomas W
Timo
Torch
Ulf Jonsson
vasil
Vaxian
vladi mazzilli
wastehl
Weston
William Kim
William N.
William Stehl
Wesley Venis
The aforementioned have contributed financially to the continuing triumph of 4hv.org. They are deserving of my most heartfelt thanks.
Registered Member #2376
Joined: Mon Sept 21 2009, 05:13AM
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 14
Hi Everyone,
Being that I've been working in IT for about 15yrs or so, I've collected a lot of bits-and-pieces including some now rather old laptops. A P75 with 64MB isn't that useful for much, but as I don't have a signal generator in my electronics collection, I wondered what extra considerations there might be apart from loading up some software to make the various required tones via the sound card?
Would it be worthwhile isolating the output somehow? Designing an amplifier for the output? I've tried searching for threads on this topic but didn't come up with much, is it even worth considering using a laptop/PC sound card output for this purpose?
Registered Member #2372
Joined:
Location:
Posts: 62
seems like a sound card would be really slow, you can probably buy an old function generator for like 50 buck that goes up to a few MHz. If for some reason you needed a low frequency arbitrary waveform generator maybe the computer would work for that.
Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058
See if you can find an old Soundblaster 16 with on board amplifier, I got one and it can output DC so it is brilliant for experiments. As mentioned, anything above 10-15 kHz (sinewave) is pretty hopeless with an average soundcard.
I am using this in the signal generator I am building at the moment.
Registered Member #2376
Joined: Mon Sept 21 2009, 05:13AM
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 14
Thanks for the responses everyone, yes true the upper frequency limit would be pretty low, but at least I could easily create waveforms other than a square wave.
Good pickup, re: the SB16 with on-board amp, I do have one of those squirreled away, I forgot that they had a decent on-board amp, thanks!
This site is powered by e107, which is released under the GNU GPL License. All work on this site, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. By submitting any information to this site, you agree that anything submitted will be so licensed. Please read our Disclaimer and Policies page for information on your rights and responsibilities regarding this site.
Old laptop as a function/signal generator?
