# Is there a way to measure the deadtime between switches in a phase leg on the RT-BOX?

**URL:** <https://forum.plexim.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-measure-the-deadtime-between-switches-in-a-phase-leg-on-the-rt-box/1612>\
**Category:** RT Box\
**Tags:** plecs-blockset, rt-box\
**Created:** [December 12, 2024, 10:04pm UTC](https://forum.plexim.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-measure-the-deadtime-between-switches-in-a-phase-leg-on-the-rt-box/1612 "2024-12-12T22:04:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chutson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@chutson](https://forum.plexim.com/u/chutson)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2024, 10:04pm UTC](https://forum.plexim.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-measure-the-deadtime-between-switches-in-a-phase-leg-on-the-rt-box/1612/1 "2024-12-12T22:04:30Z")

</div>

As part of my EOL testing I’d like to get a measurement of the deadtime to check for any issues. Is this something that can be output by the half-bridge block in sub-cycle average mode?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bryan\_Lieblick](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex006/user_avatar/forum.plexim.com/bryan_lieblick/32/10_2.png) [@Bryan\_Lieblick](https://forum.plexim.com/u/Bryan_Lieblick)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2024, 5:52pm UTC](https://forum.plexim.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-measure-the-deadtime-between-switches-in-a-phase-leg-on-the-rt-box/1612/2 "2024-12-16T17:52:32Z")

</div>

The half-bridge block does not output the dead-time. It may be possible to estimate the dead-time by looking at the PWM Capture output signals if they have an appropriate resolution.

The simplest approach to get an estimated dead-time (assuming a constant frequency and constant dead-time) would be to look at the average of the summed half-bridge gate signals. See the attached screenshot for a suggestion.

If there is a variable frequency or variable dead-time element then one could implement a C-Script to detect the the turn-on and turn-off signals to compute the dead-time. This is more involved than the simple approach suggested above.

 ![image](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/flex006/uploads/plecs/original/2X/f/f744b18c39cbc2d01df545b35ae8c2d7617ae849.png)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chutson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@chutson](https://forum.plexim.com/u/chutson)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2024, 8:42pm UTC](https://forum.plexim.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-measure-the-deadtime-between-switches-in-a-phase-leg-on-the-rt-box/1612/3 "2024-12-16T20:42:27Z")

</div>

Thanks Bryan, this works good enough for my purposes.