A to D Parallel Comparator (FLASH)

This is quite a simple way of making an analog to digital converter, but it can require a lot of component if you want it to be high resolution. but it is very fast, and is sometimes call a Flash ADC.

Here is the Schematic so you can see how it works.

So V ref goes to a resistor divider network and at different sections of the network are comparators (opamp), and the comparator only turns on if the input to is non inverting input is greater than the voltage at the inverting input which is set by the divider network.

The Schematic is not that well laid out but it gets the job done.

With this for of ADC the output is nearly instant, but the output is not in binary form. It comes out as steps which then need to got through a logic network to become binary (I'm working on this).

Here is what the output look like.

On the Left is a Pot with its output going to the input of the ADC

In the Middle is the ADC.

On the Right are 3 buffered LED to view the output.

By turning the pot from Min to Max you can see the LED's come on in steps.