Should you scale the FFT bins by $1/N$ where $N$ is the number of points in a transient signal?

1. How many points do you need for FFT?
2. What is scaling in FFT?
3. How is FFT bin width calculated?
4. How many frequency bins are generated by the FFT?

How many points do you need for FFT?

Because the FFT function uses a base 2 logarithm by definition, it requires that the range or length of the time series to be evaluated contains a total number of data points precisely equal to a 2-to-the-nth-power number (e.g., 512, 1024, 2048, etc.).

What is scaling in FFT?

The Fast Fourier Transform Product guide (PG109) explains that scaling is used to avoid bit growth in the output as a result of the arithmetic operations used to implement the FFT algorithm.

How is FFT bin width calculated?

FFT bins and bin width

The bin width is stated in hertz. The bin width can be calculated by dividing the sample rate by the FFT length; or by dividing the bandwidth by the number of bins (which is equal to 1/2 the FFT length).

How many frequency bins are generated by the FFT?

FR = Fmax/N(Bins)

With a 1024 FFT size, we divide this band into 512 bins.