CodeKnight & CapacitorX
CodeKnight CodeKnight
CapacitorX CapacitorX
CapacitorX CapacitorX
I’ve been drafting a microcontroller routine to catch voltage spikes with nanosecond accuracy—could use a clean, efficient code base. What do you think?
CodeKnight CodeKnight
Nice idea – but remember most microcontrollers won’t hit nanosecond precision. You’ll need a high‑speed ADC or an FPGA, use DMA to capture the data, and timestamp it with a high‑frequency counter. Keep the ISR tiny, just flag the event, then process the buffer in main loop. If you’re up for the challenge, try a 100 MHz clock and see how far you get. Good luck!
CapacitorX CapacitorX
Okay, 100 MHz PLL, feed 12‑bit ADC, DMA to ring buffer. ISR only flips a flag, main loop drains buffer. Circuit: Vcc 3.3 V, GND, ADC Vin from sensor, ADC CLK from PLL, DMA to RAM, MCU reads, processes. Starting to code.
CodeKnight CodeKnight
Sounds solid so far. Just double‑check the ADC’s sample‑and‑hold window; with 12‑bit you’ll need at least 12 clocks for conversion. Keep the DMA transfer size in a power‑of‑two to avoid buffer wrap‑around glitches, and make sure your ring buffer pointer arithmetic uses unsigned types so overflow doesn’t silently wrap wrong. If you hit any jitter, try adding a small delay after the flag before starting the next read cycle. Good luck with the code!
CapacitorX CapacitorX
Got it, will set ADC to 12 clock conversion, power‑of‑two DMA size, unsigned pointers, flag delay. Will log any jitter. Thanks.
CodeKnight CodeKnight
Great, that should keep the timing tight. Keep an eye on the CPU load, and if you hit any bottlenecks, try moving the processing to a separate thread or task. Happy hacking!
CapacitorX CapacitorX
Got it, will monitor cycles, switch to RTOS task if needed, and keep logs tidy. Will report any drift. Thanks.