Hi Randal,
On 11/15/2017 05:12 PM, CubeCentral wrote:
The results are shown here: [ https://i.imgur.com/0sMVMfk.png ] The
associated .TIM files are available upon request.
As mentioned before, the preferred way of doing this is to do a time
interval measurement between a start and a stop signal.
Typically you trigger on the GPSDO PPS output as a start signal and then
stop with another signal. That way the time-base for re-trigger does not
care as long as it is shorter than a PPS period.
So, now we get to the heart of the matter and the questions this test and
results have raised.
I am trying to understand what the data is telling me about the test, and
therefore the character of the counter.
1) Why are the plots a straight line from ~0.25s until ~100s?
The straight line slope, we call it 1/tau slope, is typically due to
white phase noise and the counter time-quantization. Without going into
details about how they mix, you often find that slew-rate limiting and
non-ideal trigger-point can push this limit upwards. One reason for
slew-rate limiting is low amplitude while the trigger point should be
somewhere with a high slew-rate, that is quick change of voltage per
time unit.
The starting-point of ~0.25 s is due to time-base setting in your setup,
and it would not surprise me if the different levels is due to slight
different time-base settings. Avoid using the time-base like that using
the trick above.
Also, one should make sure that one get all the samples, they can play
havoc with you.
The slope ends when other noise-formms become strong enough to reach
over the slope. We try to use better counters to push this slope
downwards, such that we can see the other noises for shorter
time-intervals. If you don't really care about ADEV until 100 s or so,
you are fine.
2) Why, after falling at the start, do the plots all seem to go back up
from ~100s to ~1000s?
That's where thermmal of A/Cs, house heating etc. starts to come in.
Also, the top part of the plot should not be too much trusted, it needs
to run for a time to average out other noiseforms that obstruct the
reading of a particular tau. Another way of saying this is that the
confidence interval is very high for the top taus, and decreases.
3) What do the "peaks" mean, after the plot has fallen and begin to rise
again?
4) Why is the period from ~1000s to ~10000s so chaotic?
These probably is a combination of thermal and lack of convergence
effects. I would try to redo the measurement as described above, you
should get more consistent results.
5) The pattern "Fall to a minimum point, then rise to a peak, then fall
again" seems to be prevalent. What does that indicate?
Cyclic disturbances such as a house heater or A/C can create such patterns.
6) Why does that pattern in question (5) seem to repeat sometimes? What is
that showing me?
You should be looking at the phase-plot, I expect you to see a few
cycles of some pattern there. As you look at different distances they
self-correlate or not at different multiples of time, as cyclic or
semi-cyclic patterns tend to do. ADEV was never made to handle such
systematic noises, so you need to cancel them out as they form an
disturbance to your measurement.
And finally, some general questions about looking at these plots.
a) Would a "perfect" plot be a straight line falling from left to right?
(Meaning a hypothetical "ideal" source with perfect timing?)
b) Is there some example showing plots from two different sources that then
describes why one source is better than the other (based upon the ADEV
plot)?
You can expect a 1/tau slpoe from the source, to can expect it to
flatten out and you can expect an sqrt tau slope up before hitting the
tau slope, which often is obstructed by the tau slope from linear drift
of oscillator. The later usually settles down.
The amplitude of these slopes represents the noise level of different
noise types, but can only be seen once systematics have been reduced to
negligable.
c) I believe that if I understood the math better, these types of plots
would be more telling. Without having to dive back into my college Calculus
or Statistics books, is there a good resource for me to be able to
understand this better?
The math behind these is kind of difficult if you are somewhat out of
tune, but look at the Allan deviation wikipedia article, I tried to give
some clues there.
Lastly, thank you for your patience and for keeping this brain-trust alive.
I am quite grateful for all the time and energy members pour into this list.
The archives have been a good source of learning material.
As it should be. Be patient, try to learn from mistakes and you will
pick up and learn tricks of trade. What you have in toys suffice to
learn a lot useful stuff and get hands on practice.
Cheers,
Magnus
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