Squegging in LC oscillators
John Popelish wrote:
My concept may be over simplified, and not include
everything that is happening. I would look at the screen
bias voltage during the squeeging to see if it is also
bouncing with it, or remains stable through a cycle.
Wow, man, if I make it happen again I see the screen voltage
motorboating up and down by about 3V (around the nominal 150V) at about
30kc.
Changing the screen bypass capacitor between
680pf/0.001/0.002/0.005/0.010 and changing the current through the 0A2
between 5mA and 10mA and 20mA and 30mA doesn't stop the squegging but
it does somewhat alter the timing/amplitude.
Plate can be held at a steadyish 350V (even bypassed)
through all this.
So this is something like the textbook squegging which seems to be
something like a motorboating of the plate voltage, but in my case I
see it in the nominally regulated screen instead. New one for me!
I don't think this is quite like the typical NE-2 relaxation oscillator
circuit, because I thought 0A2's were supposed to be stable with these
small amounts of capacitance and the behavior seems independent of room
lighting, but I could be wrong. The screen voltage waveform sure as
hell looks like a relaxation oscillator at 30kc.
Looking at my old schematics I see my Heath HW-16 crystal oscillator
puts the crystal between the screen and the grid of a 6CL6. Manual says
that the screen is serving as the plate of the oscillator. Probably
completely unrelated to the intended operation of my oscillator (where
I bypass the screen and the leads are short) but may be related to the
unintended mode of operation!
Tim.
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