[Scott Harden] has been working through a design for a variable inductor to use as a PTO, or permeability tuned oscillator. What you see above is the most recent fruit of these efforts. The variable inductor is made up of the green coil of wire with a threaded bolt in the core. Turning that bolt moves the tip in or out of the coil, affecting its inductance.

Traditionally, tuning RF oscillator circuits has been a function of an adjustable capacitor. But capacitance is only part of the circuit, with inductance being the other important portion. Since variable capacitors that are capable of affecting a large change on the frequency of a circuit can be quite expensive he set out to find another way. This is what prompted the development of his first PTO project.

[Scott] produced a demo video of the hardware seen above which we’ve embedded after the break.

Continue reading “Experimenting With A Permeability Tuned Oscillator” →