Hello

I have built 2 very simple 2-chip frequency counters with 8 LED binary
readout see http://www.hanssummers.com/radio/sfreq/index.htm . My Mk2
counter is extremely small (just 25 x 16 x 16mm) and consumes a low current
of 5mA max.

The question relates to the 4.096MHz oscillator which uses the internal
oscillator of the 74HC4060. Of the 5mA current consumption, 1.2mA is used by
the LED's when max 7 are on at any one time. About 0.8mA by the
diode-resistor gate logic, transistor switch, 74HC4040 and the voltage
regulator. Fully 3mA is wasted on the 74HC4060 crystal oscillator + divider.
It seems wrong to spend 60% of your current consumption on an oscillator,
compared to less than 25% on the LED's.

In the pursuit of excellence in this design, I would like to cut the current
consumption of the oscillator section. Does anyone know of a better
arrangement that will cut current consumption? Increasing the series
resistor wasn't the solution. I put a 100K variable in here in place of the
original 2K2. Initially as the resistor was increased the current
consumption fell, but at higher resistances the current consumption
increased quite dramatically. The optimum was at close to 4K7.

73 Hans G0UPL
http://www.HansSummers.com

regulator. Fully 3mA is wasted on the 74HC4060 crystal oscillator + divider.
It seems wrong to spend 60% of your current consumption on an oscillator,
compared to less than 25% on the LED's.

Try a plain 4060.

Each sub-circuit in an equipment should be considered seperately, on its own
merits, in respect of minimisation of power consumption.

It is essential for the future of the human race that electronic design
engineers are familiar with the basic principles involved. Energy
consumption has to be paid for throughout life of the equipment. It's a
part of the cost of ownwership.

At present much of the world's energy requirements come from oil, gas and
coal. Ordinary food is the principal source of energy of course and is
always in short supply. Oil is also used to make plastics for the packaging
industries, etc.

World war has been in progress for many years about control of food
supplies, the oil fields and pipelines. It is becoming daily more intense
and building up towards Armageddon. Fundamentally it is a war involving the
Multi-nationals, Wall Sreet Bankers and giant Insurance Companies, etc.,
completely beyond control of World Governments.

Sooner or later the World MUST concentrate on atomic energy. The sensible
French already have 90% of their energy requirements provided by atomic
power stations. The remainder by hydro-electric and tidal power. The
Japanese, having no natural biological energy resources, are also quietly
well on their way. Iranians, oil producers themselves, are busy building
there own atomic power stations in anticipation of a World oil shortage, but
their efforts are sabotaged by multi-national legal and political warfare
about who gets the development, investment and construction contracts.

When the World is mainly on atomic energy, electronic circuit designers can
feel free to enjoy themselves and exercise their unrestrained imaginations.
----
Optimistic Reg.

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 14:31:12 +0000 (UTC), "Reg Edwards"
wrote:

Sooner or later the World MUST concentrate on atomic energy.

Absolutely right, Reg. Even good old fission if necessary. Yeah, it's
dirty but so what? Outer space has a limitless capacity for our
radioactive garbage. Instead of encasing it in concrete and burying
it, we should be just firing away in rockets. Way to go!
--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

The problems of how to get rid of relatively minute quantities of mildly
radioactive waste materials have been exaggerated by the oil conglomerates
and the other multi-national companies in the control of world governments.
They do it for obvious reasons via the international media which they also
own and control. Whoever owns and controls the Internet will ruthlessly
rule the Earth. Only the Chinese can prevent it.
----
Reg.

======================================

"Paul Burridge" wrote -

Absolutely right, Reg. Even good old fission if necessary. Yeah, it's
dirty but so what? Outer space has a limitless capacity for our
radioactive garbage. Instead of encasing it in concrete and burying
it, we should be just firing away in rockets. Way to go!

"Reg Edwards" wrote in message
...

The problems of how to get rid of relatively minute quantities of mildly
radioactive waste materials have been exaggerated by the oil conglomerates
and the other multi-national companies in the control of world
governments.
They do it for obvious reasons via the international media which they also
own and control. Whoever owns and controls the Internet will ruthlessly
rule the Earth. Only the Chinese can prevent it.

To get rid of even a relatively minute quantity of radioactive material into
space requires the expenditure of rather huge amounts of fuels. Fossil fuels
that is. Ooops

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 16:31:08 +0000 (UTC), "Reg Edwards"
wrote:


The problems of how to get rid of relatively minute quantities of mildly
radioactive waste materials have been exaggerated by the oil conglomerates
and the other multi-national companies in the control of world governments.
They do it for obvious reasons via the international media which they also
own and control. Whoever owns and controls the Internet will ruthlessly
rule the Earth. Only the Chinese can prevent it.

God help us if the Chinese take over in 20 years' time.
But I was serious, Reg. There's nothing wrong with good ol' fashioned
fission. Just blast the leftover crap into space and have done with
it. It's lousy with radioactive debris anyway and the sun can swallow
everything we throw at it.
--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 23:13:36 +0100, Paul Burridge
wrote:

God help us if the Chinese take over in 20 years' time.
But I was serious, Reg. There's nothing wrong with good ol' fashioned
fission. Just blast the leftover crap into space and have done with
it. It's lousy with radioactive debris anyway and the sun can swallow
everything we throw at it.

There are only two small problems with this approach, since first you
have to reach the 11.2 km/s escape velocity to escape the earth. The
Saturn V moon rocket was capable of delivering about 40 tons to escape
velocity.

With this velocity, you just end up in an orbit similar to the Earth's
orbit. In fact the Apollo 10 (or 12) third stage went into solar
orbit, but a year or two ago, it was captured by the Moon and Earth
and now it orbits the Earth for a year or two, before escaping back
into the solar orbit. With some bad luck, this stage might have hit
the Earth and imagine that it had contained 40 tons of highly
radioactive waste, which would spread into the atmosphere...

Thus, in order to avoid the risk of collisions with the earth in the
future, an additional rocket burn is required in the solar orbit to
prevent the orbit from intersecting with the orbit of the Earth. Thus
reducing the available payload.

If you want to drop something into the sun, you first must kill nearly
all of the 30 km/s orbital motion of the Earth. This would require a
huge amount of fuel and practically nothing would end up into the Sun.

It is in fact much easier to escape the solar system, since only about
43 km/s is required or 13 km/s in addition to the Earth's orbital
velocity. With Saturn V, maybe 500 kg would reach the solar escape
velocity directly.

Using Jupiter as a slingshot (as with Pioneer 11&12 and Voyager 1&2)
maybe a few tons could reach the solar escape velocity.

Unfortunately Saturn V does not exist any more and the Shuttle and the
Proton are toys compared to Saturn V. Any launch failure would also be
quite nasty with a lot of nuclear waste on board.

Paul OH3LWR

Sooner or later the World MUST concentrate on atomic energy. The sensible
French already have 90% of their energy requirements provided by atomic
power stations. The remainder by hydro-electric and tidal power. The
Japanese, having no natural biological energy resources, are also quietly
well on their way. Iranians, oil producers themselves, are busy building
there own atomic power stations in anticipation of a World oil shortage,
but
their efforts are sabotaged by multi-national legal and political warfare
about who gets the development, investment and construction contracts.

What about renewable sources providing all of it, and sensibly conserving
energy with energy efficient appliances, homes, transport etc so that less
of it is required in the first place? Nuclear fission of current fuels
(Uranium) is in any case only a postponement of the problem since eventually
Uranium supplies will be burnt up just the same as fossil fuels.

The real costs of the nuclear alternatives have never been properly
considered, since nuclear programs have always been subsidised by
governments interested in the defence (or offence) applications of the
technology and byproducts. Once the full lifecycle cost of the power
stations is taken into account they become rather uneconomic in comparison
to other forms of energy such as renewable sources. The latter would have
become much much cheaper long ago had they received the same degree of
subsidised research and development as nuclear.

When the World is mainly on atomic energy, electronic circuit designers
can
feel free to enjoy themselves and exercise their unrestrained
imaginations.

At the moment my imagination concentrates itself on the unimaginably tiny
and simple frequency counter with tiny current consumption. Forget nuclear,
this thing could even run off solar power recharged batteries ;-)

So please, indulge my fancy for an even lower current frequency counter
containing just 2 IC's,, and tell me if there's a way!

73 Hans G0UPL
http://www.HansSummers.com

Hans Summers wrote:

Hello

I have built 2 very simple 2-chip frequency counters with 8 LED binary
readout see http://www.hanssummers.com/radio/sfreq/index.htm . My Mk2
counter is extremely small (just 25 x 16 x 16mm) and consumes a low current
of 5mA max.

The question relates to the 4.096MHz oscillator which uses the internal
oscillator of the 74HC4060. Of the 5mA current consumption, 1.2mA is used by
the LED's when max 7 are on at any one time. About 0.8mA by the
diode-resistor gate logic, transistor switch, 74HC4040 and the voltage
regulator. Fully 3mA is wasted on the 74HC4060 crystal oscillator + divider.
It seems wrong to spend 60% of your current consumption on an oscillator,
compared to less than 25% on the LED's.

In the pursuit of excellence in this design, I would like to cut the current
consumption of the oscillator section. Does anyone know of a better
arrangement that will cut current consumption? Increasing the series
resistor wasn't the solution. I put a 100K variable in here in place of the
original 2K2. Initially as the resistor was increased the current
consumption fell, but at higher resistances the current consumption
increased quite dramatically. The optimum was at close to 4K7.

73 Hans G0UPL
http://www.HansSummers.com





Not familiar with the chips you are using but you should use the lowest
frequency oscillator possible.
Maybe try the 32 + KHz crystal

A lot of the current is used to charge and discharge internal capacity
so doing that less often helps.

Bill K7NOM