Electronic – How to condition a signal with an op-amp that needs a negative rail where one is not provided

operational-amplifiersensor

I am working on a water monitoring system that needs to read ph in ADC of microcontroller(0-3.3V)

I understand how ph sensors work…just -.41V(0ph) to +.41V(14ph)…

I have an understanding of designing the circuit to amplify and scale this so that the microcontroller can read it.

  1. Is there a significant advantage using a 5V microcontroller to get a larger voltage range? The micro I want to use is 3.3V with max 3.6V on the ADC, 12 bits. If I chose a 5V micro or off chip ADC, would I get more accurate results? Obviously the amp circuit will be a factor here, but consider it the same circuit with different gains etc…

  2. How can I supply negative voltage to the op amps? This will be in an embedded system and will have access to 120VAC input. Are there negative voltage regulators that supply enough power for an opamp and that can get me negative voltage w.r.t ground?

Best Answer

The accuracy of the ADC is determined by the number of bits. A higher voltage range for the ADC would stretch the bits out reducing the resolution, or rather increasing the step voltage.

You don't need a negative voltage for the op-amps if you offset the input by Vcc/2 with a simple voltage divider. This could be in the form of a false ground reference to the input of the op-amp, as shown in this schematic:

enter image description here

On a 3.3V system that would off-set the input voltage by 1.65V making it from 2.06V for 0PH to 1.24V for 14PH.

Increasing R_F by a factor of 2 would increase the gain to 2:1 making it a +/- -.82V swing - 2.47V to 0.83V thus increasing your precision.

A further increase of R_F could increase your precision more, until you hit the top/bottom end of the output headroom. A "Rail-to-Rail" op-amp would give you more headroom than a normal one.