Velleman HPG1 Signal Generator - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 16, 2013, 06:31:53 pm
content: This is kinda a mini teardown of a Velleman HPG1 Signal Generator i picked up, these are £82 (GBP) from CPC/Farnell.Sine, Triangle & Square from 1Hz to 1MHzInternal nimh battery, with a weird arsed USB charger.There are pics of the internalsInterface is a little clunky but easily useable, output works ok upto a point. There is little glitching on the signal, it's downside really is the rise/fall times mean that triangle and square at 1MHz is a joke (see pics).Signal gets very noisy & glitchy at it's lowest amplitude (see pics)Note i have persistence on in the scope pics.Cant see any DDS chip on there so looks like it's run from the dsPIC?

author: jancumps
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 16, 2013, 06:39:39 pm
content: Did you load it with 50 ohms when testing?

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 16, 2013, 06:54:06 pm
content: bah!, no...i blame the interruptions and the beer

author: jancumps
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 16, 2013, 06:57:48 pm
content: Asking because my generator is way out of spec when measuring it unloaded. It's doing fine for amplitude and waveform when properly loaded

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 16, 2013, 08:20:23 pm
content: there is no mention of output loads in the (very basic) manual i think its too cheap for fancy things like that

author: jancumps
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 16, 2013, 08:34:28 pm
content: Datasheet on Velleman's site says 50 Ohms.

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 16, 2013, 09:17:15 pm
content: Yes your right, will try and test again in the week

author: nathanpc
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 13, 2013, 05:40:58 pm
content: What's the minimum voltage peak-to-peak that the HPG1 can do? I just want to confirm this. The minimum I saw on your screenshots was 40mVpp.

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 13, 2013, 10:00:34 pm
content: I dont remember and the battery is flat at the moment so will have to check once its chargedI seem to recall the waveform started to look a bit poor at the low outputs

author: Juggle4Evr
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 07:10:47 pm
content: Hi,I own the HPG1 Signal Generator and as I just got my new scope I thought I'll play around with it. So I opened the HPG1 and was surprised to find a dsPIC33FJ32GP that does all the work. I probed some of the pins and I found that when in sweep mode, the PIC outputs a sync impulse marking the start of the sweep on its pin 21. See the attached pic (upper channel is PIC pin 21, lower channel is HPG1 output sweep, sorry about the quality, just a quick screenshot with a camera).So it's just adding an additional connector to the case and attaching it to that pin (maybe with a "safety" resistor). Could perhaps use the hole at the back for this strange "service measure point".Would be quite nice to use that sync output for filter frequency analysis etc.

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 07:50:31 pm
content: There are much better options than the device from Velleman.Take a look at the device from FeelTech, discussed in details on the thread which I posted:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/feeltech-fy3224s-24mhz-2-channel-dds-aw-function-signal-generator/

author: Juggle4Evr
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 24, 2015, 07:28:48 am
content: Sure, you can always get something better, cheaper, fancier. But as I already have the HPG1 for one year or so, it's nice to get a hidden sync output for free.

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 24, 2015, 09:05:42 am
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on December 23, 2015, 07:50:31 pmindeed, there are way better devices... HPG1 is very close to being useless