I'm trying to convert a voltage that is between -5V and +5V to the range of 0…5V. These voltages can be found in "euroracks"/"doepfer a100"-systems which are modular synthesizers for music.
This conversion is possible with the schematics found at https://masteringelectronicsdesign.com/design-a-bipolar-to-unipolar-converter/
With a TL074 opamp this works fine on my breadboard.
Now there is a problem with that: the input-voltage for my use-case (eurorack/a100 modules) can be -12…12V in some cases. In that case (e.g. anything that is outside -5…5V) I would like to clamp it to -5…5V.
Limitting to +5 I can do with a LM336Z-5.0 I think but how can I protect against voltages lower than -5V? (or less than 0V after conversion)
The signal I'm converting is a voltage that represents a frequency. E.g. 3.250V is note C4 see wikipedia
The output will be send to an arduino adc pin.
Best Answer
simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab
No Amp required. This attenuates to Vin/2 with a 5.0V offset to centre the output to V+/2
Anything |Vin| >5.2V clips with low current from 10k//10k effective series resistance.
Otherwise if |Vin| < 5V diode is high impedance (off).
If input impedance is 1M then the actual signal is attenuated 5k/1M*100%=0.5% which is less than 1% tolerance of R1,R2