Arduino Pulse-Width Modulation Digital to Analog Conversion

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Here we will discuss the operation of pulse-width-modulation to DC conversion and use the idea to construct a variable Arduino based DC power supply.

Fig. 1 illustrates using a LM358 in conjunction with a low-pass filter (10uF cap, 4.7K resistor) to produce a 0-5V output proportional to the duty cycle from DP11. The 10K potentiometer connected analog pin 0 is read, divided by 4, then written with analogWrite() to digital pin 11.

The reason we divided the ADC value by 4 is because the PWM as used with Arduino is 8-bit and not 10-bit. This same circuit works with a Microchip PIC as 10-bit with better resolution. The resolution is 5V / 255 = 19.61mV per step.

Fig. 2 show using the other half of the LM358 as a voltage amplifier whose gain is based in 1 + R2/R1. With the 10K potentiometer connected between output pin 7 and fed back to the inverted input we can adjust for a gain of 1 to 2. The output with a 12-volt supply is 0-10V or 2-volts below Vcc.

In Fig. 3 we take the same circuit in Fig 2 but use a single LM358 as a voltage amplifier, boost Vcc to 24-volts, and change the 10K to 50K giving a gain of 1 to 6. We have also added a TIP41 NPN power transistor to boost output current.

First adjust the 10K pot on ADC0 for 5-volts at TP1, then adjust R2 for a maximum voltage out between 5 and 20-volts. While this is showing an Arduino NANO it will work with any Arduino.

Below is a sample program and if one wants to use an I2C LCD display that connection is illustrated below.

Out next project is to use the above in conjunction with a LM311 comparator to measure voltages up to 20-volts.

See Arduino Analog to Digital Conversion Voltmeter.

#include <Wire.h>
#include <LiquidCrystal_I2C.h>
// set the LCD address to 0x27
// 2-lines 16-char numbered 0-15
LiquidCrystal_I2C lcd(0x27,16,2); 

int potValue;

void setup(void) {
  lcd.init(); // initialize the lcd
  lcd.backlight();
}

void loop(void) {

  potValue = analogRead(0) / 4 ;
  analogWrite(11, potValue);
  lcd.print("potValue =       ");
  lcd.setCursor(11,0);

  lcd.print(potValue);
  lcd.home();
  delay(200);
}

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