Galvanometer

A galvanometer is a type of ammeter: an instrument for detecting and measuring electric current. It is an analog electromechanical transducer that produces a rotary deflection of some type of pointer in response to electric current flowing through its coil in a magnetic field. The term has expanded to include uses of the same mechanism in recording, positioning, and servomechanism equipment.

Operation
The most familiar use is as an analog measuring instrument, often called a meter. It is used to measure the direct current (flow of electric charge) through an electric circuit. The D'Arsonval/Weston form used today is constructed with a small pivoting coil of wire in the field of a permanent magnet. The coil is attached to a thin pointer that traverses a calibrated scale. A tiny torsion spring pulls the coil and pointer to the zero position. When a direct current (DC) flows through the coil, the coil generates a magnetic field. This field acts against the permanent magnet. The coil twists, pushing against the spring, and moves the pointer. The hand points at a scale indicating the electric current. Careful design of the pole pieces ensures that the magnetic field is uniform, so that the angular deflection of the pointer is proportional to the current. A useful meter generally contains provision for damping the mechanical resonance of the moving coil and pointer, so that the pointer settles quickly to its position without oscillation. The basic sensitivity of a meter might be, for instance, 100 microamperes full scale (with a voltage drop of, say, 50 millivolts at full current). Such meters are often calibrated to read some other quantity that can be converted to a current of that magnitude. The use of current dividers, often called shunts, allows a meter to be calibrated to measure larger currents. A meter can be calibrated as a DC voltmeter if the resistance of the coil is known by calculating the voltage required to generate a full scale current. A meter can be configured to read other voltages by

putting it in a voltage divider circuit. This is generally done by placing a resistor in series with the meter coil. A meter can be used to read resistance by placing it in series with a known voltage (a battery) and an adjustable resistor. In a preparatory step, the circuit is completed and the resistor adjusted to produce full scale deflection. When an unknown resistor is placed in series in the circuit the current will be less than full scale and an appropriately calibrated scale can display the value of the previously-unknown resistor. Because the pointer of the meter is usually a small distance above the scale of the meter, parallax error can occur when the operator attempts to read the scale line that "lines up" with the pointer. To counter this, some meters include a mirror along the markings of the principal scale. The accuracy of the reading from a mirrored scale is improved by positioning one's head while reading the scale so that the pointer and the reflection of the pointer are aligned; at this point, the operator's eye must be directly above the pointer and any parallax error has been minimized.

Types
Extremely sensitive measuring equipment once used mirror galvanometers that substituted a mirror for the pointer. A beam of light reflected from the mirror acted as a long, massless pointer. Such instruments were used as receivers for early trans-Atlantic telegraph systems, for instance. The moving beam of light could also be used to make a record on a moving photographic film, producing a graph of current versus time, in a device called an oscillograph. Today the main type of galvanometer mechanism still used is the moving coil D'Arsonval/Weston mechanism, which is used in traditional analog meters.

Tangent galvanometer

Tangent galvanometer made by J.H.Bunnell Co. around 1890. A tangent galvanometer is an early measuring instrument used for the measurement of electric current. It works by using a compass needle to compare a magnetic field generated by the unknown current to the magnetic field of the Earth. It gets its name from its operating principle, the tangent law of magnetism, which states that the tangent of the angle a compass needle makes is proportional to the ratio of the strengths of the two perpendicular magnetic fields. It was first described by Claude Pouillet in 1837. A tangent galvanometer consists of a coil of insulated copper wire wound on a circular nonmagnetic frame. The frame is mounted vertically on a horizontal base provided with levelling screws. The coil can be rotated on a vertical axis passing through its centre. A compass box is mounted horizontally at the centre of a circular scale. It consists of a tiny, powerful magnetic needle pivoted at the centre of the coil. The magnetic needle is free to rotate in the horizontal plane. The circular scale is divided into four quadrants. Each quadrant is graduated from 0 to 90. A long thin aluminium pointer is attached to the needle at its centre and at right angle to it. To avoid errors due to parallax a plane mirror is mounted below the compass needle. In operation, the instrument is first rotated until the magnetic field of the Earth, indicated by the compass needle, is parallel with the plane of the coil. Then the unknown current is applied to the coil. This creates a second magnetic field on the axis of the coil, perpendicular to the Earth's magnetic field. The compass needle responds to the vector sum of the two fields, and deflects to an angle equal to the tangent of the ratio of the two fields. From the angle read from the compass's scale, the current could be found from a table.[2]

The current supply wires have to be wound in a small helix, like a pig's tail, otherwise the field due to the wire will affect the compass needle and an incorrect reading will be obtained.

Uses
Past uses A major early use for galvanometers was for finding faults in telecommunications cables. They were superseded in this application late in the 20th century by time-domain reflectometers. Probably the largest use of galvanometers was the D'Arsonval/Weston type movement used in analog meters in electronic equipment. Since the 1980s, galvanometer-type analog meter movements have been displaced by analog to digital converters (ADCs) for some uses. A digital panel meter (DPM) contains an analog to digital converter and numeric display. The advantages of a digital instrument are higher precision and accuracy, but factors such as power consumption or cost may still favor application of analog meter movements. Galvanometer mechanisms were also used to position the pens in analog strip chart recorders such as used in electrocardiographs, electroencephalographs and polygraphs. Strip chart recorders with galvanometer driven pens may have a full scale frequency response of 100 Hz and several centimeters deflection. The writing mechanism may be a heated tip on the needle writing on heat-sensitive paper, or a hollow ink-fed pen. In some types the pen is continuously pressed against the paper, so the galvanometer must be strong enough to move the pen against the friction of the paper. In other types, such as the Rustrak recorders, the needle is only intermittently pressed against the writing medium; at that moment, an impression is made and then the pressure is removed, allowing the needle to move to a new position and the cycle repeats. In this case, the galvanometer need not be especially strong. Galvanometer mechanisms were also used in exposure mechanisms in film cameras.

Modern uses Most modern uses for the galvanometer mechanism are in positioning and control systems. Galvanometer mechanisms are divided into moving magnet and moving coil galvanometers; in addition, they are divided into closed-loop and open-loop - or resonant - types. Mirror galvanometer systems are used as beam positioning or beam steering elements in laser scanning systems. For example, for material processing with high-power lasers, mirror galvanometer are typically high power galvanometer mechanisms used with closed loop servo control systems. The newest galvanometers designed for beam steering applications can have frequency responses over 10 kHz with appropriate servo technology. Examples of manufacturers of such systems are Cambridge Technology Inc. (www.camtech.com) - now part of General Scanning (www.gsig.com) - and Scanlab (www.scanlab.de). Closed-loop mirror galvanometers are also used in stereolithography, in laser sintering, in laser engraving, in laser beam welding, in laser TV, in laser displays, and in imaging applications such as Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) retinal scanning. Almost all of these galvanometers are of the moving magnet type. Open loop, or resonant mirror galvanometers, are mainly used in laser-based barcode scanners, in some printing machines, in some imaging applications, in military applications, and in space systems. Their fat-free bearings are especially of interest in all applications that require a vacuum. A galvanometer mechanism is used for the head positioning servos in hard disk drives. These are all of the moving coil type, in order to keep mass, and thus access times, as low as possible. Galvanometer mechanisms are also used for the head positioning in CD/DVD players. Especially in automotive versions, these mechanisms allow a better stability against external vibrations. The e-meter, a device used by Scientologists during Auditing, is a modified variant of the galvanometer.