Vol.9, No.1

16 Bit GPIB Controller for BOP

Talk-listen support for Kepco's BOP through the GPIB (IEEE 488.2) using SCPI is afforded by two plug-in cards, BIT 4882 and BIT 4886. The 4886 is new. It provides 16 bit control with a resolution of 1/2¹⁶. These cards allow a BOP, 4-quadrant operational power amplifier, to communicate as a stand- alone instrument with a host controller on the GPIB. 16 bits compared to 12 bits represents an increase in resolution from 0.0244% to 0.00152%. This is smaller than the anticipated stabilization and ripple/noise figure for the BOP and so does not represent realizable absolute voltage setting, but does allow for small relative changes in the setting for a finely graded output.

BOP are high speed power operational amplifiers that can be used to provide dynamically agile voltage for test and simulation. They do not have any energy storage, noise discriminating output capacitors. To realize their high speed potential, their loads should be mainly resistive. Special terminals are provided to slow the response in current mode for optimum current-mode stability into inductive loading for driving electromagnets.The BIT 4882 (12 bit) and BIT 4886 (16 bit) cards are available factory installed in the BOP by appending suffix 4882 or 4886 respectively. Also available are cards for interfacing with Kepco's multiple instrument bus, for VXI control and for simple RS232 control.