(4 Reviews)
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Frequency coverage in two bands: 50 - 500 and 500 - 5000 Hz. Suggest purchasing HRICS-14 socket for IC cuz that's just best practice. Says it requires 12-15 volts, but works at 9 volts too. Cool little signal generator at a low price.
I second the first review. Easy to put together, and now that I have an oscilloscope, a bit more fun. Blew the 220u capacitor after assembly but this was easily replaced; safer to use the lower voltage range.
The frequency here is astonishingly sharp. With a few careful, slow, delicate turns of the smaller pot, I can get those N.000xyz readings to stay put for at least 1000 counts on the scope, standard deviation below one hz (i.e. 0.01 %). Square, sine, and ramp all agree, easy to use any one of them to trigger the others. Square wave has at least double the voltage of the others.
Two notes on the body parts here.
1) Pink ceramic capacitors have the wrong color--use some blue ones instead (LCR or DMM will give a color-blind reason for this).
2) This board uses the currently-exterminated ICL8038 chip. Google for "ICL8038 replacement" and make sure you have some strong substance to help you cope with the sad, sad news. But at least it may still be found in the wild shipped with a kit, like this one here.
For less than $10.00, you can't beat this little AF Generator kit. Since it's a kit, if you don't like it, you could always modify it to make it better. This can be used for any tests, like 1kHz test tone, 19kHz fake FM stereo pilot carrier, whatever. Just a few other components, like a 12VAC wallwart, bridge rectifier, filter CAP's and an LM7812 regulator, and you can still have less than $15.00 into this. I've mounted mine in a metal tea container. A must-have for any test bench. Just be sure that the DC supply to this is as clean as possible.
