Thermal fluctuations on PCB - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 06:22:03 pm
content: Attached is a plot of a temperature measurement via a 1N4148 diode (normal mounted DO35 THT case) on my DVM board.Quite often I see a quite stable oscillation with a 5-8 seconds period. The amplitude in the temperature is not very large (some 5 mK peak to peak in the example), but this really gets anoying when aiming for low noise also over a longer time scale. I can suppress the oscillation by covering the PCB, but it needs quite some thermal isolation to make it disappear and the cloth on top of the circuit is not ideal with extra leakage and long time to stabilize. In the test shown there is a 2nd board (low power) on top with some 12 mm separation, but similar oscillations also happen without.I see similar fluctuations with an NTC sensor in the same size case.It this normal to get so much instability in the temperature ?Are there good methods to avoid it ?

author: Andreas
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 06:45:42 pm
content: Does this correlate with breathing?

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 06:57:29 pm
content: There is no correlation with beathing (also happens when nobody in the room) and it also happend on a very low wind day, so not infra-sound from wind power.It seems to get a bit worse when the temperature is otherwise stable - though also hard to see when a lot of drift.

author: miro123
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 07:10:15 pm
content: In one article Bob Dobkin menshonen that "Air tight" is the must for precision voltage measurements.My experiance is that air tight is more important than insulation.I still equalize the air pressure with small goretex membrane.Do you see the same picture with NTC? NTC have 10x more sensitivity than diode

author: Echo88
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 07:44:48 pm
content: Is it an oscillating process which correlates with the current consumption of a certain part on your pcb, so it could be isolated by measuring which part is the oscillating offender? I found the current measurement method quite useful when judging oven stability, not relying on thermal sensors with their delay and thermal capacity.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 08:45:56 pm
content: I don't think there is much variation in the power consumption, especially not at that time scale and not near the sensors. The part next to the diode are 74HCT4094 seeing no update of data, DG408 with one seeing an update eveny 20 ms in a regular way (used to measure the diode signal).Overall the mian PCB is relatively low power (~1.7 W over 90x190 mm²).I see similar variations with the NTC, though the NTC is more to the edge of the PCB, while the diode is more to the center. Another diode at the same place also showed similar oscillations. I have however currently no easy way to measure them both at the same time, to see if they are correlated - this looks like a good idea. So a reason to look at the SW again.The outer case (21x23x9 cm³ size metal cooky box) is close to air tight (still some 3x2 mm² hole at a cable) quite a bit away from the sensors.Looking a bit more in what did help and what not, there is the possibility that the thermal oscillation of starting away from the main PCB with a 5 V regualtor that produces some 1.3 W of heat, running a bit warm with an only 35x60 mm² heat sink. Part of the problem can be heat tranfer via convection to the relatively cool top side. The bottom sitting on the desk will not loose much heat. So the box may have an unfavorable temperature gradient.

author: iMo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 09:07:01 pm
content: I saw such a turbulence (though not nice periodic one) in my meter too - what helped was to isolate the box inside with a thin foam. Try to cover the inner walls of the box with thin isolation material. I guess those are the thermal waves bouncing between the metal walls and the pcb..

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 09:55:12 pm
content: I heard a story where a precision measurement was upset by a passing tram in front of the building.When I was doing similar 24h measurements, I could tell when someone was in the same room, or when the air conditioning was on (I had an isolated box), and I was measuring voltage and not temperature. And depending on your setup, maybe it's your multimeter doing it.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 10:30:10 pm
content: I am just running an extra test with the NTC and tilting the box a little. Just some 5 deg tilt changes a lot. One direction the oscillation stoped (concentrated heat source at the bottom) and other direction the frequency changed.Changing the raw input voltage changes the heat at the regulator. Going from a nominal 7.5 V to 12 V (easy to switch) the osciallation amplitude goes up ( ~3-4 x).So this points to the regulator as the driving force.

author: guenthert
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 11:11:42 pm
content: Those oscillations are only 5mK pk-pk. Might that be self-heating? In the case of the NTC, perhaps one with higher nominal value (and hence smaller current) might show less of it.Can the board be mounted vertically? Ideally that would yield a laminar air flow bottom to top and a constant temperature (gradient), instead of hot-air pockets/bubbles/oscillations. Just something I would try to gather more information.

author: iMo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2023, 11:20:20 pm
content: Quote from: imo on November 18, 2019, 01:04:33 pmThe Bold font comes from the original post..

author: thermistor-guy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2023, 02:41:02 am
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on February 15, 2023, 10:30:10 pmThe regulator could be driving convection currents, directly and through the PCB (PCB acting as a secondary heater).That's consistent with the oscillation period in your original plot; the suppressing effect of a cloth; and the variation with circuit orientation.

author: maxwell3e10
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2023, 04:30:08 am
content: I have seen very similar effect herehttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/beautiful-convection-oscillations/msg4371031I believe it is due to a convection cell. Turning the box upside down, so that the empty side of the circuit board is on top and is close to the top wall of the enclosure seems to eliminate the effect in the most reliable way. One can calculate the Rayleigh number, if its larger than critical and heat source is on the bottom, it causes a convection instability. The Rayleigh number is proportional to L^3, so having top surface of the enclosure as low as possible reduces the effect. But due to varying height of components it's hard to have a low top surface on the component side of the circuit board.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2023, 09:51:54 am
content: The unstable / oscillating convection cell seems very plausible. With some 9 cm that box is rather large and the relatively hot regulator is a strong local source, in my case about at half the hight. The disturbance than seems to get to the sensor via variations in the air flow, even over quite some distance.Having the PCB upside down may be a good solution for the final set-up, but it is a bit unconvenient for testing, unless one has enough test points available on the other side.With hot THT parts there could also be trouble, as more hot air could get trapped. For the current setup this would be mainly the LM399.A first try for a fix would be to mount the regulator heat sink to the case, more on the upper end and this way start with less heat flow via convection.Less hight, or the PCBs mouted further up could also be a good idea.Mounting the regulator on the top cover is just a bit unconventient - otherwise probably a good solution.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2023, 01:50:52 pm
content: The Rayleigh number and Rayleig-bernard convection are for the occorance of a stable convection patter. This would not be that bad and in the ideal simple theroy the flow would be steady and stable.The problem is when the flow gets unstable / turbulent.The occourance of oscillatin seem to be a known effect but difficult and still subject of research. As an example I found an article:https://arxiv.org/abs/0806.4882

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 16, 2023, 10:32:10 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on February 16, 2023, 01:50:52 pmAnd so Kleinstein descended to the fluid dynamics rabbit hole, only bringing coffe and pizza to the journey...

author: Henrik_V
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2023, 08:32:22 am
content: Just did some measurements about stability of a laser wavelength.. using a ASL F250 and two Pt100.Found some nice correlations between room temperature +-200mK and the 9th digit of a better telco diode laserbut that was with a 45min periode ...So: Have you monitored the surrounding conditions (temp) ?Those little mK are very sensitiveBut 5-8 seconds periode .mmh.. if you replace the NTC with a good resisitor do you have a stable reading?

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2023, 10:31:12 am
content: With a resistor I get a stable reading, though the last one I tested as a direct 1:1 replacement was only 100 ppm/K grade - so a little slow drift, but not much.I also saw corresponding variations with a diode in place of the NTC, and little variations with a low TC Zener. The NTC also shows a comparable signal with a lower current (10 µA and 30 µA instead of 100 µA used for most tests). So I have no doubt that it is really a temperature variation.Changes from the outside (e.g. touch the case, light diretly on top) are visible too, but slow and with some delay. That is more 1 minute and longer and no easy way to get a 5-10 second periodic signal from the outside. It takes quite some warm up time to get the temperature stable enough to see the small variation directly and not have them burried in the drift.A fast thermal effect may come via the air pressure, e.g. from wind gusts or closing of doors, but that is usually not that periodic and not much on a low wind day.Unstable convection (as regulator oscillation or more chaotic) seens to be not that uncommon and not that easy to predict. The amplitude of the variations is still moderate, but when looking for very low noise in the LF region it can be an issue.Chances are other ciruits, especially when running a bit hot could have similar temperature fluctuations.

author: dietert1
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2023, 09:19:46 am
content: Someone should look at the heater current of a LM399 or the like with a precision meter. Who knows. I have that ADR1399 evaluation kit with the heater running at about 600 mW.Depending on the circuit NTCs and diodes can be unstable in the sense of heating more the hotter they are while a reference oven will rather damp nearby temperature fluctuations.Regards, Dieter

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2023, 09:39:25 am
content: When operated at a more or less constant current the diode as a sensor would not get thermally unstable. The diodes have a thermal run-away problem when working at fixed voltage or with low resistance. As a sensor there is a large resistor (some 220 K to 15 V if I sticked to my plan) in series. In theory the NTC could get unstable, but the test current is too low (100 µA for most of the tests) for that. Unstable would be a run-away to one direction, not oscillation.The LM399 is significan heat source - an extra cover just on the reference did not change the temperature oscillation (I have not checked the heater current). The TO46 case version should need some 200 mW. In my case it is on an extra adapter PCB ( had the footprint upside down) with with an extra connector and some 15 mm higher than normal.I had though about oscillation in the temperature regulation of the reference - but that would have also effected normal voltage measurements in a significant way.

author: miro123
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2023, 04:46:12 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on February 18, 2023, 09:39:25 amThere are many way to connect NTC. I prefer to use the constant current mode provided by ADS1220/ AD1256. It makes self heating easy to compensate.I've run a simple Jupyter notebook simulation to show the difference between serial connection of R1=10, R2=10kohm NTCsecond screenshot is ntc powered @100uA.

author: dietert1
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2023, 08:19:08 pm
content: Another method is shown in the sketch appended. I built this in 2009 for a Geller AD587 board. The inner oven is the NTC itself, glued to the reference chip. The bridge operates at maximum gain and bandwidth, limited only by NTC self heating. The bridge output level serves as temperature sensor for adjusting an outer thermostat. In steady state the NTC uses its self heating to operate at constant resistance (= constant temperature).Regards, Dieter

author: MK
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2023, 09:44:26 pm
content: One product I worked on was trying to get a millidegree or so stability, but was dissipating about 20mW in a 1-10mW thermistor, self heating was raising its temperature well above the pcb it was hoping to control. Just by dropping the drive voltage to the bridge circuit was enough to make the stability adequate

author: miro123
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2023, 10:13:56 am
content: Quote from: dietert1 on February 18, 2023, 08:19:08 pmI enjoy to read this post. You build dual loop SIMO controller with analog components!. I wonder can you build my TC oven with analog components.- MIMO controller -https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Control_Systems/MIMO_Systems- Feed forward component for outer loop based on ambient temperature and humidity- state machine - states IDLE, SETTLE_T_UP, SETTLE_T_DOWN , STEADY_STATE - it changes the PI coefficients and notch filters- Debug interface to trace controller, sensors and actuators internal data.@Kleinstein - lessons learned from TC oven - try to reduce any fluid and air gaps as much as possible Not properly designed air and oil baths resulted in temperature noise. Unfortunately that was the lessons learned mostly on the hard way. Happly HPM7177 thermal design become available and I learned a lot from it.

author: MegaVolt
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 02, 2023, 04:00:02 pm
content: Quote from: miro123 on February 19, 2023, 10:13:56 amCan you share a link? I seem to have missed it

author: m k
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2023, 04:51:43 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on February 15, 2023, 06:22:03 pmIs insulating/delaying only one leg a normal thing?Then you could at least test how 5 deg tilt is different, if any.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 04, 2023, 06:14:41 pm
content: Here are the data from the experiment with tilting the box just a little (~ 5 degree). Depending on the orientation more of the heat from the regulator ( ~ 30-50% of the total heat) reaches the sensor that is nearly in the opposite corner. So after a tilt there is some dirft in the overall temperature. After a chane it takes some time for the oscillation to come up.

author: dietert1
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2023, 09:22:42 am
content: I found this paper:https://ar5iv.labs.arxiv.org/html/0705.1198.From what i understood the mechanism starts with unstable horizontal layers (inversion = heat on top, cold at the bottom). They break up spontaneously and mix. The flux caused by this triggers the next breakup when it returns to the layer separation after completing its convection path. I think layering will be more with the heater at the top.In order to confirm that you see a thermal wave emitted by unstable convection you could place a second NTC on the opposite side of your box. It should detect a similar oscillation yet of opposite sign (180° phase shift).Regards, Dieter

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2023, 10:45:21 am
content: A hot layer on the top would be a stable situation. The problem is getting a hot area on the bottom, especially pockets of hot air traped under horizontal PCB or chips and cooler at the top. For some time this may not be enough to start the convection, but once going it can move for some time.The other possible problem that I see is that the ideal, steady state convection cells have a given lateral size of some 1.5 (AFAIR) the hight. But the lateral size may not allow the ideal sizes and it may not take much to move the boundery between 2 convection cells. Moving the boundery can effect the local temperature quite a bit.In my case I don't think it is a single convecion cell and thus simple phase relation. On how it reacts on added shilds / cloths, it is more like an oscillating part near the regulator and than small parts of this still reaching the NTC, more like a wave effecting a 2nd convetion cell more over the main PCB. Shielding more around the NTC had limited effect (similar frequency, less amplitude), changing things around the regulator made a larger difference, especially effecting the frequency.For me the lesson learned for future designs is to subdivide the case / shilding boxes and if possibly mount strong heat sources directly to the case instead of relying on conveciton. A smaller case probably also helps. In many cases it could be hard to avoid convetion all together, as it is just needed to get the heat away from even a relatively low power PCB. After all a fan may not so bad.

author: doktor pyta
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2023, 11:32:49 am
content: 1. Are You sure that diode excitation current is free from these oscillations?2. Are You sure that diode is not demodulating some nearby WiFi/GSM signal / maybe neighbor just behind the wall?3. Air conditioning influence or other temperature regulator ?

author: dietert1
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2023, 11:46:52 am
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on March 05, 2023, 10:45:21 amThe measurement you presented starts without oscillation. This section is labeled "NTC side up". As you wrote the heat source is on the opposite side, this means it is below the NTC. So this is the situation without inversion and with steady convection (no oscillation).Then you tilt the other way and oscillation happens. This is with the heat source up.Regards, Dieter

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2023, 02:16:05 pm
content: Quote from: doktor pyta on March 05, 2023, 11:32:49 amThe diode current comes with a resistor from the 14 V reference to the ADC. So that should be pressy stable. The NTC also showed the same (or at least similar) frequency.No air conditioning (it is winter anyway) and the heater system is way slower than 0.2 Hz to make any difference across the room.The circuit is inside a mainly close metal box - though with an USB cable coming in and the PC using WLAN. Still I don't expect 0.2 Hz modulation from WLAN / GSM - that is usually faster. My initial suspect on low frequency oscillations was the DCDC converter as it uses some frequency modulation/ spread spectrum ( ~50 Hz range) that might hit a beat frequency with mains or the ADC integration time.The effect reacts quite a bit to changes to the thermal (e.g. tilting). The other indication was the test with more voltage and thus heat at the regulator increasing the amplitude. So I have no doubt it is thermal.The NTC side up, it still only a moderate tilt up. The actual regulator part of the heat source was still about the same hight overall. The temperature likely drifted up in that phase because the heat could spread out lateral better. Convection was for sure still active, just not oscillating. Even with the heat source side up, there is still air between the heat source and the top of the cause, so still room for convection, just with a different pattern. The overall temperature drops, as the warm air would not reach the other side that well.Why it still oscillated with tilt in one direction and not with the other, I don't know - my vague expectation was more of the opposite. The point is not so much how it changed, but that is changed significantly with only a small tilt.The convection can be stable, oscillating or with chaotic variations. The transitions are already hard to understand for a simple geomity like in the scientific papers.The geometry with the PCB is too complicated to fully understand or model it. Fluid dynamics is already tricky with a simple geometry.Especially in the chaotic case it only takes minute changes get quite different results. My system looks like is somethat oscillating, but not perfectly stable and possibly close to a chaotic range.

author: m k
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 07, 2023, 10:39:24 am
content: Late sides of to flat peaks are quite equal.Same with early side of start and end of NTC down, but up peak of tilt to flat has no obvious oscillation.Have you tried closed case without screws?