Ratiometric Measurements

12.16.1 Differential VREF

One application would be a system where the measurement and the ADC are on different grounds. Normally, you might have a voltage source that connects to a sensor, and the bottom of the sensor connects to the reference resistor. However, with two grounds, that can be different by more than 0.3V—that does not work. In such a case, you will need to connect the reference resistor from the power supply to the sensor, and then connect the sensor to GND2. Now you can still use the reference resistor to set the reference voltage, even though the voltages are between 2.5V to 4.5V.

The differential reference inputs, however, can be used for both grounded and non-grounded applications. For example, you might have a sensor that must be grounded (because of mechanical mounting). In that case the excitation could go through the reference resistor before the sensor.

Analog-to-Digital Converter

12-25

 

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Texas Instruments MSC1210 manual Differential Vref