Thermocouple measurement using LTC2368-24 Noise

Hi,

I guess all of the SPI signals go through the isolator, so all of the signals have delay. How high is the SCK frequency? What is the frequency of the ADC START signal? When the SPI read is started relative to these signals?

The delay of the ADC data relative to the SCK edge is the double of the isolator's delay, this should also be considered.

Zoltan

Hi,

Just let me note: this ADC is not the best choice for a thermocouple application. I would choose a precision sigma-delta ADC (e.g. AD7193, AD7793. Much simpler to use, much cheaper, etc. See the Applications/Technology Solutions/Sensor Interfaces/Temperature Sensing/Thermocouple page for more devices, reference designs.

Zoltan

Hi Zoltan,

the adc start frequency is around 21 hz,  i  trigger a conversion every 20 ms.

the spi clock is quite slow,  250 khz, i have roughly 2us on time, and 2us off time.

The time between busy falling edge and the first spi clock rising edge is arround 3.1 us

I have uploaded here the excel raw data for N=1 and N=4,  400 samples.

One remark,  instead of 100k & 10 ohm,  i used 1Mega & 100 ohm, and 100nf cap.

I agree with you that maybe 24bit is to much for such a aplication.  Of course this adc will not be directly conected to the thermocouple.  I plan to use a instrumentation opamp using max4238 with some gain.

Latter edit: i uploaded the corect data file.

XLSX

This is the start and ready signals for N=4.

I have 1.3 us time between the falling edge of the ready signal and the next rising edge to start a new conversion.

Between the 4 start signals, there is no clocking on the spi.

After the 4th falling edge on the ready signal, i wait arround 3.1us to send 24 spi clocks and readout the value .

Unfortunatly i discovered also the date before and after the opto isolator is diferent because of that delay....

the ADC sends 00 3E AE,  and after the opto, the mcu sees 00 1F 57,    i need to change my setings for the spi. Because of this delay i need to change the data to be validated on the traling edge of the SCK ( CPHA = 1 ).

I will come back in the evening with the corect values, i hope this was my only problem in why the data is strange...

Hi ZoltanDTI 

i removed completely the opto isolators, i noticed that delay from the optical isolators is causing me serious trouble with MOSI and SCK hold/setup times.

Now everything is tied directly to the mcu.

I have attached the correct data now, 400 samples read with N=1 and 400 with N=4.

What do you think?

XLSX

Hi,

I don't see change in the data and the calculated voltage does not seem to match the input voltage. You've used 100 Ohm and 1M for dividing Vref of 3.3V, so the input voltage should be 330uV. The corresponding code is 1678, but even considering the zero scale error (max ±20ppm, ±336 code), your data are far from this.

I do not understand why don't you have the same mean using four averages. Figure 14 shows that you should get the average of four consecutive samples, that should fluctuate around the same mean as the individual samples:

Are the data really the raw values from the ADC?

So until you can't calculate the applied input voltage properly from the ADC output code (at least for N=1), you certainly have somewhere a mistake in reading the data. Maybe in the software.

Zoltan

Hi,

I am wondering, since there is no software power management for supplying the adc,  basically everything is powerd at once ,  and  when the mcu gpio's get initialised  could this trigger these strange values?

Bellow is the 2.5Vdd & 3.3Vref voltage for adc at powerup aswell  the start& busy signals

After the power up at ~560 miliseconds i sent 24 dummy clocks on spi to clear the IO register

for N = 1 ,  SCLK is 250khz,   330uV at input.

This how the raw spi comunication looks like without any software manipulation. The exact same values are read trough software.

Also bellow a picture with the timings between Start-CNV, BUSY and the 1st clock edge

After the busy goes down i clock 24 bits  in frames  of 3 x 8 to readout the data.

And this is how a data frame looks for N = 4 - reading 0x0021CC.

Bellow is how the start-cnv and busy signals look for N=4

After the 4th BUSY falling edge  i send 24 bits to read the averaged by 4 data.

By the way, maybe this sounds stupid.... i presume the adc is already dividing by 4 the data before reading via spi,  I mean i dont need to average this in my sw, right?

At this point i start to go out of ideas.

Hello,

i think i found something strange while checking a data frame.

Here i have ploted also a serial out for debuging the data.

N = 4 and i aparently get a value of hex value of 21BA.

But if i look closely to bits 15-8, judging by the logic voltage levels ( see the zoomed picture bellow) , i actually get 43 in hex

For the rising edge of bit 14 i see the miso goes high delayed by 4 ns from the clock edge, maybe this is why i read this bit as 0 instead of 1.

The same problem for the falling edge of the bit.

The same situation is also for other bits,   the last byte is seen as 0xBA, but based on logic levels seen, i have 0x74.

So my data in reality would be  0x4374 instead of  0x21BA?

Is this 4 ns delay  time normal? 

I am a bit puzzled.

To be honest this is my first time to see a spi device behaving like this.

There are no capacitors or other components on the spi line that can cause such a delay.