The Blocking Oscillator

Yet another oscillator, one that is not commonly seen these days, but which is quite interesting

The blocking oscillator is closely related to the two-transistor or two-tube astable circuit, except that it
uses only one amplifying device. The other is replaced by a pulse transformer, which provides strong
positive feedback at all frequencies. As a monostable, it was useful in the 1950's for producing what were
then short pulses, in the microsecond range. It was much faster than the Abraham-Bloch monostable. It
the transistor era, however, it fell from grace because it could not be miniaturized, since it requires a
transformer, and was also rather hard on transistors. It is an interesting circuit, however, and is worth
study. Its theory, which is difficult and not exceptionally enlightening, will not be explained here. We
shall be satisfied by observing its actions in the laboratory.

A transistor blocking oscillator is shown at the right.

The transformer is phased so that any increase in
collector current pulls the base up, further increasing the
current. The transformer seemed the most appropriate of
those I had on hand, but may not be optimum. The 10k
resistor biases the transistor on, so that any fluctuation
in the collector current is fed back and reinforced. The
base is eventually driven strongly negative, and the
transistor is cut off. Periods of conduction and cutoff
then succeed automatically. A pulse-shaping circuit is
shown at the output. The series resistor and Zener limit
the maximum value of the wave to +12V (inductive effects make it considerably larger at the ouput, up to
20V and starting with ringing). Study the circuit with the oscilloscope to understand how the base and
collector voltages vary.

Two components are in this circuit to protect the transistor from harm. The more necessary is the Zener
diode across the emitter junction. Without it, the base would be driven to -8 V in this circuit, which soon
destroys the emitter junction. This is a disadvantage of transistors, one of the few. The emitter must be
heavily doped to ensure that the injected carriers of one type predominate, so that a high beta can be
achieved. Unfortunately, at the same time this reduces the reverse breakdown voltage of the junction to
only about 5 V. The Zener does not improve the action of the circuit--in fact, it makes the duty cycle
depart from 50% and has other deleterious effects, but these are not serious.

The 4.7k resistor is to damp the oscillations when the transistor is turned off at
the end of a period of conduction. A particularly atrocious waveform at the
collector when the circuit is used as a monostable is shown at the left. There is a
nice, sharp leading edge as the transistor turns on. When the transistor turns off,
however, there is a strong ringing. Without the 4.7k resistor, and with a 10k
resistor between base and ground, the first oscillation was from +30 V to -8 V. A
high-voltage transistor (such as the MPSA06) avoids any problem with collector
breakdown, but the strong ringing is not desirable. A smaller value of the base
resistor also helps; 1k gives only moderate ringing. In the circuit above, the Zener in the ouput clipper
also clips off the ringing. The usual cure for turn-off transients, a diode across the offending inductance,
does not work here because it destroys the necessary inductive action.
A blocking monostable is shown at the right. The
10k resistor pullup has been removed, so the normal
state of the transistor is "off." A positive pulse at
node "a" will start conduction, and the transformer
will do the rest. After the brief excursion of
conduction, in which the output falls to near
ground, the transistor will again be turned off (by a
hefty negative pulse to the base). In this circuit, the
trigger pulses are provided by an RC differentiating
circuit, which produces narrow pulses, alternately
positive and negative. The monostable responds
only to the positive pulses, which need only be about 1V high. For every positive pulse, the circuit will
produce one low-going pulse of brief duration. If the circuit is followed by a phase inverter, the pulses
will be a normal string of positive pulses. No effort has been made to make the pulses as short as
possible; these will be 100-200 s wide.

A vacuum-tube blocking oscillator is shown at the left. No extra

components are necessary, since the tube can tolerate large negative
swings of the grid with no difficulty whatever. This circuit does not
"block" strongly; perhaps a different transformer would produce a
stronger effect. The oscillation is very stable, the grid swinging
from 0 to -15 V, and the plate only 8 V peak-to-peak. The
maximum plate current is a most a milliampere or two, so nothing
is being pushed to excess in this circuit. There are several
possibilities for further investigation. By changing transformers,
can the plate excursion be made larger? How does the frequency
depend on the component values? [Changing the capacitor from
.002 to .001 altered the frequency from 1.34 to 1.65 kHz.] What
happens if a low- triode (such as a 12B4) is used instead of the high- 6SF5?

To make the circuit monostable, the bottom of the 100k resistor should be connected to a C supply and
brought negative enough to turn off the tube. For a 6SF5, only a couple of volts will do. Then the circuit
can be triggered just as in the case of the transistor monostable. This will work better if you can get the
circuit to block more strongly.

An audio oscillator that can be made quickly and cheaply is shown at the
right. The transformer is a small 6.3 V filament transformer (Radio Shack
273-1384), but any audio output transformer could be used if you have one
handy. The transformer must be properly "phased." If the circuit does not
oscillate when you try it, interchange the secondary connections. Circuits
like this were once common in "code-practice" oscillators for amateur radio
operators, giving an audio note similar to that of a beat-frequency oscillator
in a radio receiver. My circuit oscillated at about 400 Hz, but the exact
frequency will depend on the components. The 0.1 F capacitor has the
most influence on the frequency, and can be increased or decreased to vary
the frequency. The 0.01 F capacitor eliminates very large spikes that occur
in its absence when the transistor is switched off. If you use a high-voltage
transistor, such as the MPSA43, instead of the 2N4124, you can investigate
these spikes and the waveform. The output voltage at the collector is about
twice the supply voltage in this circuit, and anything from +5 to +12 V gives reasonable loudness.