[time-nuts] Divide by 3

[Nick Sayer]

In this case, the FE-405B outputs a sine wave, which is converted to square with a self-biased inverter. That’s fed into an NB3N551 clock buffer. Two of the outputs go off to the discipline system and the other two are user outputs, one of which would be fed into the circuit in question.

On the scope, the 10 MHz I have from the FE-5680As look 50% to me, but of course that doesn’t mean a lot. The controller is clocked from it too, and it really wants “close” to 50% duty cycles, but again, their tolerances aren’t Time Nuts(tm) grade.

All that said, I’m feeding this stuff into a 53220A, so I’m not sure there aren’t bigger fish to fry...


> On Jun 8, 2016, at 11:48 AM, Alex Pummer <alex at pcscons.com> wrote:
> 
> utilizing rising and falling edges makes the circuit output signal duty cycle sensitive to the input signal's duty cycle, and therefore the harmonic content will vary with the input duty cycle variation.
> 73
> KJ6UHN
> Alex
> 
> On 6/8/2016 9:47 AM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist wrote:
>> The URL you cited doesn't have the schematic in any obvious
>> place.  However, using both edges of the clock to supposedly
>> result in 50% duty cycle output depends on having 50%
>> duty cycle at the input.  If you have differential logic
>> like ECL, this can be realistic.  Single ended logic,
>> questionable.
>> 
>> The other issue is that the divider can start up in any
>> one of 3 phases with respect to any other frequency
>> dividers in your system, unless you do something to
>> synchronize the various dividers.
>> 
>> This is probably old hat to most readers of time-nuts, but
>> I just wanted to mention it in case some were unaware
>> of it.
>> 
>> Rick
>> 
>> On 6/8/2016 6:55 AM, Nick Sayer via time-nuts wrote:
>>> I’m contemplating trying my GPS board with an FE-405B. That’s a different kettle of fish, but at the end of that, if I’m successful, one of the goals would be to be able to use it for the external reference of my 53220A. Unfortunately, 15 MHz isn’t one of the options - only 1, 5 and 10.
>>> 
>>> So I did some googling and found a divide-by-3 circuit using flip-flops, and then designed a board for it:
>>> 
>>> https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/jxXp7wYM
>>> 
>>> The circuit uses 3 D flip-flops and 3 NOR gates and has a 50% duty cycle output that’s 1/3 the frequency of the input. The OSHPark project has a pointer to the original blog post that has a schematic. The only difference between their schematic and mine is that in theirs, the third flip-flop has an inverted clock input. The third NOR gate inverts the clock to achieve that in mine (also one flip-flop and one NOR gate are unused and have the inputs tied high).
>>> 
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