How Does a Capacitor Resistor Oscillator Work?
Electronic designers have created many basic oscillator circuits. One of the simplest uses the time constant produced by a resistor-capacitor (RC) network. This is called a relaxation oscillator. The values of the resistor and capacitor determine the oscillator’s frequency. The RC network triggers an electronic switch which discharges the capacitor and creates a repeating charge-discharge cycle. Wave shapers can be added to this circuit, making a variety of waveforms available from the same oscillator.
