University of San Carlos

Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering

EE413NL-Electronics 2
4:30-7:30pm/W

Operational Amplifier Applications

Experiment no.10

Submitted to:
Engr. Gene Fe P. Palencia
(Instructor)

Submitted by:
Neil John R. Perez

I. Introduction:
Operational Amplifiers have a variety of applications. The application ranges from a
simple signal inverter to more complex systems like line-follower robots. In the
experiment, 2 applications of operational amplifiers were studied; namely: Wave
converter circuits and comparator circuits.
Wave converter circuits, as the name suggests converts the output signal from one
waveform to the other. One of which is the Sinusoidal to Square converter circuit.
This circuit simply converts our input sinusoid waveform into a square wave output
waveform. This is made possible by an open loop amplifier with its operation
switched between two saturation points (the +V o and Vo) The + cycle of the input
signal will cause the op-amp to reach the positive saturation point while the cycle
of the input signal will cause the op-amp to reach the V o saturation point.
Comparator circuits compare the relative magnitude of the input voltage to a
certain reference voltage. In this experiment, we studied 3 types of comparator
circuits namely: inverting comparators, non-inverting comparators and window
comparators.
Inverting comparators will yield a + VoSAT when our input voltage lesser than the
reference voltage while a VoSAT is produced when the input voltage is greater than
the reference voltage.

Non-inverting
comparators, on
the other hand, are the opposite of the inverting comparator. Non-inverting
comparators yield a + VoSAT when our input voltage greater than the reference
voltage while a VoSAT is produced when the input voltage is lesser than the
reference voltage.

Window
Comparators detect
whether the input voltage is within the two limits set by the design of the circuit.
These are the Lower Threshold Voltage (LTV) and the Upper Threshold Voltage
(UTV). When LTV is achieved, the output will shift to +V oSAT from VoSAT. UTV is

obtained when the output will shift to VoSAT to +VoSAT Hysteresis is a feature of the
circuit when it changes from the first state to the second state at some input signal
value and shift back to the first state at a different signal value. The following
values can be achieved through the following equations:
R1
UTV =V ref + ( +V OSAT V ref )
R1 + R2
LTV =V ref + (V OSATV ref

(
)(

R1
R 1+ R 2

)
)

Hysterisis voltage=[ +V OSAT (V OSAT ) ]

R1
R1 + R2

One type of window comparator is the Schmitt Trigger. Schmitt Trigger is a window
comparator whose output reaches +VOSAT when the input voltage is less then the
LTV and will shift to -VOSAT when the input voltage is greater than the UTV.

II.Circuit Diagram
a.) Waveform Converter

b.) Non-inverting comparator

c.) Schmitt

Trigger

III.Data and Results

Table 1: Range of input voltages using 2k
Input voltage
ViMIN

LED ON
1.994 V

LED OFF
0.3mV

ViMAX

11.86 V

1.926 V

Table 2: Range of input voltages using 5.6k

Input voltage
ViMIN

LED ON
4.30 V

LED OFF
0.6mV

ViMAX

11.86V

4.16 V

Table 3: Data for Schmitt Trigger

Voltage
Computed
Measured
UTV
5.5
5.87
LTV
3.5
3.51
Hysteresis
9
9.36
Chart 1:Input-Output Waveform of the Wave Converter

% difference
6.27%
0.28%
4%

From what is seen in chart 1, a sinusoid input wave signal generates a square
wave output signal when a waveform converter is used. It is then seen that our
+VOSAT is 10V while the VOSAT is -11V. When we have transferred the probe tip to T2,
we then have a triangular wave output which is caused by out op-amp integrator
circuit. In Tables 1 and 2, we can see the different voltage range of input voltages in
our non-inverting comparator. We can also see in our range that at any input voltage
below our reference voltage, our LED turns off yet it turns on at any input voltage
above the reference voltage. Table 3 shows the data collected from our Schmitt
Trigger. When our potentiometer is in the fully CCW position, we can see that the
green LED is lit white the red LED is off, this means that our input voltage exceeded
the upper threshold voltage thus giving us a V oSAT meanwhile, putting the
potentiometer to fully CW will have the opposite effect thus our voltage is below LTW
and we will have +VoSAT
IV.Conclusion
From the experiment, we were able to observe some applications of opamps. One of which is a waveform converter which converts our sinusoid input
into another waveform depending on the circuit design. The waveform converter
makes use of the two saturation points in order to produce the converted output
signal. Comparator circuits compare the input voltage from a reference voltage.
Depending on the type of comparator (e.g. inverting, non-inverting, window
comparator), each will have different saturated voltage output.