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Circuit diagram:

Parts:
R1____________5K6 1/4W Resistor R2____________1K8 1/4W Resistor R3,R4________15K 1/4W Resistors R5__________500R 1/2W Trimmer Cermet R6__________330R 1/4W Resistor R7__________470R Linear Potentiometer C1,C2________10nF 63V Polyester Capacitors C3__________100F 25V Electrolytic Capacitor C4__________470nF 63V Polyester Capacitor Q1,Q2_______BC238 25V 100mA NPN Transistors LP1___________12V 40mA Filament Lamp Bulb (See Notes) J1__________Phono chassis Socket SW1__________SPST Slider Switch B1_____________9V PP3 Clip for 9V PP3 Battery

Circuit description:
This circuit generates a good 1KHz sinewave adopting the inverted Wien bridge configuration (C1-R3 & C2-R4). It features a variable output, low distortion and low output impedance in order to obtain good overload capability. A small filament bulb ensures a stable long term output amplitude waveform.

Notes:
The bulb must be a low current type (12V 40-50mA or 6V 50mA) in order to obtain good long term stability and low distortion. Distortion @ 1V RMS output is 0.15% using a 12V 40mA bulb, raising to 0.5% with a 12V 100mA one. Using a bulb differing from specifications may require a change of R6 value to 220 or 150 Ohms to ensure proper circuit's oscillation. Set R5 to read 1V RMS on an Audio Millivoltmeter connected to the output with R7 rotated fully clockwise, or to view a sinewave of 2.828V Peak-to-Peak amplitude on the oscilloscope. With C1, C2 = 100nF the frequency generated is 100Hz and with C1, C2 = 1nF frequency is 10KHz but R5 requires adjustment. High gain transistors are preferred for better performance.

Wien Bridge Oscillator (rail-to-rail) Sine Wave Generator

This circuit is known as a Wien Bridge Oscillator It has both a positive and negative feedback loop. For oscillations to occur, the net feedback must be positive. The circuit oscillates at a frequency determined by the R C time constant at a frequency f= x 1/(3.1416 x R x C) and produces a sinusoidal waveform at the output VOUT. For many situations, this Oscillator is used as a sine wave generator. Using a rail to rail operational Amplifier the sine wave generated at VOUT is also rail to rail. The output sine wave is relatively distortion free if the component values of the RC do not strain the Operational Amplifier selected. Obviously, the Operational Amplifier also must have sufficient output drive and slew rate for the sine wave frequency desired. Recommended Components ALD1706 ALD1702 ALD1704 ALD1706 Wien Bridge Oscillator (rail-to-rail) Sine Wave Generator application circuits

Ultrapure 1kHz Sine Wave Generator

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A lamp provides amplitude stability while the very low noise amplifier creates a pure sine wave signal. The R an C values set the oscillator frequency and the feedback resistor sets the lamp current and output amplitude.

Sine Waving into the New Year!

I have been slowly reading through Jim Williams "Analog Circuit Design" book. Not slowly because it is boring, it is actually very interesting and a good read; I just get easily distracted and it has been a few weeks since I picked it up. I am about 200 pages or so into it and my favorite chapter so far has been the one where Jim Williams describes the steps he took while recreating William Hewlett's Model 200A Wien Bridge Oscillator. It is essentially the same project described in Linear Tech's AN43 Appnote, but with a lot more background and Jim describes the inner workings very conversationally in the book.

Jim's first iteration of the circuit consisted of a RC Wien Bridge, an LT1037 Opamp and a #327 Lamp. The Lamp is used as a variable resistor that starts out at a very low 98 Ohms DC resistance that helps get the Opamp oscillating (because of the increased gain) and ends up stabilizing at around 235 Ohms once it heats up (thus servo-ing the gain down to an equilibrium point that keeps the circuit oscillating). I thought this would be a fun circuit to build up and recreate. Below is the ~1KHz Sine Wave Oscillator schematic; note I needed to add a LT1001 buffer, so I could measure the output waveform and hook it up to my Distortion Analyzer. Without the buffer the output's amplitude gets very jumpy. The Lamp had roughly a 4Vp-p sinewave across it, so now I could calculate the approx. resistance of the Lamp when it is oscillating. The Lamp's Resistance during oscillation is 4V/((12V - 4V)/470) = 235 Ohms. All I did was make a switched resistance that started at approx. 98 Ohms (168 || 235) and then after 5ms the Lamps resistance changed to 235 Ohms.You can see from the simulation that after switching the resistance to 235 ohms the output wave form changes from a square wave to a sine wave.The real circuit servos to the larger 235 resistance value, so it isn't so abrupt.... but this equivalent circuit allows a rough approximation of what is going on.

I then hooked up the Oscillator up to my HP 331A Distortion Analyzer to see how good of Sine wave it was. I did this with another home brew oscillator in a previous blog. I measured 0.18% Distortion. Not a bad Sine Wave (especially since my previousblog's circuit was 7.4% and most low-end Function Generators are appox. 1%), but it is way off from Jim's result of 0.0025%. I am not quite sure why Jim's results were so much better than mine. My HP 331A Distortion Analyzer hasn't been calibrated since 1987, so it could very well be off.... but the results are very repeatable with my Distortion Analyzer. I did make an attempt at improving the distortion. Jim has an opamp rule "always invert (except when you can't)". What this means is opamp's like to have their non-inverting input at gnd; in our circuit the noninverting input of the LT1037 isn't at a DC gnd. I hooked up a u741 opamp (U2) as shown in the schematic below to try and improve the distortion. This opamp servos to make the non-inverting input of the LT1037 at GND. The distortion waveform did change, but it wasn't an improvement; I got roughly 0.4% distortion now. I'll have to play around with this circuit a bit more and see if I can figure out why my distortion is 0.18% and Jim's was 0.0025%.... a battle for another night. Later that day...... It bugged me that my sine wave's distortion was still a lot higher than Jim's and I didn't want to blame it all on my uncalibrated Distortion Analyzer. I did some searching and came across a paper by Kenneth A. Kuhn "Sine Wave Oscillators"where he had built up this same circuit and plotted the Rf (feedback resistor) vs the output signal. I was using a 470 Ohm feedback resistor and getting about 12Vp-p output signal. What happens if I change the feedback resistor to 320 Ohms and drop the output voltage to about 5Vp-p..... maybe 12Vp-p is a bit too high for the components I had. I slapped in a 1K Ohm resistor in parallel with my 470 Ohm and got roughly 5Vp-p output. I then measured my distortion and was pleasantly surprised to see I had now reached 0.024%.... still and order of magnitude off from Jim's 0.0025% but now I think I maybe zeroing in on the limits of my uncalibrated equipment