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Electronic Schematics



100 Seconds Duration On Switch with Touch Control

This is a touch control switch which keeps the circuit on about 100 seconds after touching the plate connected to the 2 numbered pin. At the end of this time duration, relay releases and the circuit gets to off position. The impedance of the trigger input of the 555 timer IC is very high and the inductive voltage on the human body is enough to trigger it. The circuit works based on this principle. You can use a piece of metal as a plate. The circuit can be used in toy circuits, buzzers or any project that is suitable. You can adjust the duration time by changing the R1 and C1 values.




100KHz Crystal Oscillator

There is a great deal of old amateur gear which many amateurs have decided to restore and bring back to life. While much of the early amateur transceivers work just fine they usually lack a digital readout and must rely on analog dials for tuning. The problem of dial calibration is complicated by the non-linear effects of tuning capacitors. This month's circuit is a 100Khz crystal calibrator using an inexpensive microprocessor crystal and CMOS IC's which are readily available at Radio Shack. The main problem with building a 100Khz oscillator is the unavailability of 100Khz crystals. Even if you find a vendor willing to cut such a crystal for you, plan on paying $20 or more not including shipping charges. The circuit uses an inexpensive 8MHz microprocessor crystal which can be easily obtained from most parts suppliers. Using a 74HCT393 binary counter IC, we can easily divide down the 8 MHz signal from our crystal into 100Khz or almost any frequency we need.




12V Fluorescent Light Inverter

This is a low voltage 12V fluorescent inverter for powering two 20W or single 40W fluorescent tube. It's a circuit you can put together from junk box components and is a very simple to build. The transformer is hand-wound on a ferrite rod from an old transistor radio and the winding wire can be salvaged from an old transformer. The cost of powering the circuit is about 22 watts and this will produce the same light output as 60 watt incandescent light bulb.




5 - 30 Minute Timer

A switched timer for intervals of 5 to 30 minutes incremented in 5 minute steps. Simple to build, simple to make, nothing too complicated here. However you must use the CMOS type 555 timer designated the 7555, a normal 555 timer will not work here due to the resistor values. Also a low leakage type capacitor must be used for C1, and I would strongly suggest a Tantalum Bead type.




A Simple BFO Metal Detector

A Very Simple "Beat Frequency Oscillator" type of Metal Detector. These are about the Simplest of all Metal Detector types, But still quite useful for many Detecting applications. And although this one is particularly simple, I find it works very well. For use outside on the ground the coil "MUST have a Faraday Shield", or it will not be of any use because of Ground Effects.




AC Power Meter

If you attempt to save power in the house thoroughly, you can not ignore the standby power consumption of appliances. We made a device to measure the power consumption of appliances. Actually, to say the AC power meters measure the 100V AC current is flowing in the power cord over do it. In general, the voltage is measured casually, is difficult to measure the current. To cut off a part of the circuit current flow from a current meter must be connected to it.




AC-AC Solid State Relay or SSR

This is a AC Control Input AC Output SSR Solid State Relay. When a Process Controller has an AC output or a system generates an AC signal of above 100V AC to signal the load to turn on, this device can be used. A BTA40-600 and MOC3041 are used in this. A high voltage plastic cap limits current to a bridge which generates a small DC from 230 V AC, this drives MOC3041. The rest is the same. It is better to use a DC control SSR where possible. This AC control SSR is used where only an AC control signal is available. The BTA series has the heatsink tab insulated from the Triac chip inside. The BTB needs electrical insulation to the heatsink.




Adjustable Delay Circuit

Build an adjustable auto power On Off delay timer circuit using CD4541 timer. This electronic timer circuit is helpful when you need to power On/Off any AC Appliances after a pre-defined duration. Delay time it can be adjusted from about 2 to 120 seconds.




Alarm Sounds When Refrigerator Door Remains Open Too Long

Not properly closing a refrigerator door will no doubt invite huge electricity bills. This gadget is an alert device that beeps if you leave the refrigerator door open for more than 20 seconds. When the door opens, the lamp illuminates and the IC (a 4060B counter/oscillator) starts counting down. After a preset delay of 20 seconds, the piezoelectric buzzer beeps intermittently for 20 seconds and then stops for the same amount of time. This cycle repeats until the refrigerator door closes.




Animated Christmas Star

The star is about 35cm across and designed to be displayed indoors in a window. I originally created the star three years ago using a 16F872 controller. The original version worked ok - but had no spare memory for adding more features. This new version uses a 18F2620 because I now prefer the 18F series and decided it would be a good general purpose 28 pin chip to use. It has more than enough memory (64K) so I can add as many features as I want now. (It should also work using a PIC18F2525 instead if you find it easier or cheaper to obtain) Since, I made the first version, brighter LEDs are now available and cost is much lower - this project currently uses a total of 60 comprising of 25 Blue, 15 Green and 20 Red.




Anti Theft Car Wireless Alarm

This is anti theft alarm with wireless connectivity ,called Anti Theft Car wireless alarm The FM radio-controlled anti- theft alarm can be used with any vehicle having 6- to 12-volt DC supply system. The mini VHF, FM transmitter is fitted in the vehicle at night when it is parked in the car porch or car park.




Arduino DCC Decoder

Modern model railroads are digitally controlled using a Digital Command Control (DCC) protocol similar to network packets. These data packets contain device address and instruction set that is embedded in the form of AC voltage and fed to train track to control locomotives. The great advantage of DCC over analog DC control is that you can independently control the speed and direction of many locomotives on the same train track as well as control many other lights and accessories using that same signal and voltage. Commercial DCC decoders are available on the market however their cost can add up pretty quickly if you have a lot of devices to control. Luckily you can build a simple Arduino DCC decoder yourself to decode DCC signal and control up to 17 LEDs / accessories per each DCC decoder.




Arduino Prototype

Arduino Prototype is a spectacular development board fully compatible with Arduino Pro. It's breadboard compatible so it can be plugged into a breadboard for quick prototyping, and it has VCC & GND power pins available on both sides of PCB. It's small, power efficient, yet customizable through onboard 2 x 7 perfboard that can be used for connecting various sensors and connectors. Arduino Prototype uses all standard through-hole components for easy construction, two of which are hidden underneath IC socket. Board features 28-PIN DIP IC socket, user replaceable ATmega328 microcontroller flashed with Arduino bootloader, 16MHz crystal resonator and a reset switch. It has 14 digital input/output pins (0-13) of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs and 6 analog inputs (A0-A5). Arduino sketches are uploaded through any USB-Serial adapter connected to 6-PIN ICSP female header. Board is supplied by 2-5V voltage and may be powered by a battery such as Lithium Ion cell, two AA cells, external power supply or USB power adapter.




Arduino Soil Moisture Sensor

This is a simple arduino project for a soil moisture sensor that will light up a LED at a certain moisture level. It uses Arduino Duemilanove microcontroller board. Two wires placed in the soil pot form a variable resistor, whose resistance varies depending on soil moisture. This variable resistor is connected in a voltage divider configuration, and Arduino collects a voltage proportional to resistance between the 2 wires.




Automatic Fan Controller Circuit

This circuit will turn on/off 12V DC fan or CPU fan when temperature above normal temperature.You can set turn on temperature by adjust VR1. This circuit use an NTC (Negative temperature coefficient)which is a thermistor is one in which the zero-power resistance decreases with an increase in temperature. So If temperature increase the voltage at pin 3 on LM311 will decreased .The resistance of NTC is about 10K at 25'c.




Automatic Garden Light

This circuit automatically turns on and illuminates the LEDs when the solar panel does not detect any light. It switches off when the solar panel produces more than 1v and charges the battery when the panel produces more than 1.5v + 0.6v = 2.1v.




Automatic Night Light

This circuit automatically turns on the light through a relay when daylight intensity falls below a preset level on the Light Dependent Resistor (LDR).




Cell Phone Detector

This handy cell phone detector, pocket-size mobile transmission detector or sniffer can sense the presence of an activated mobile cellphone from a distance of one and-a-half meters. So it can be used to prevent use of mobile phones in examination halls, confidential rooms, etc. It is also useful for detecting the use of mobile phone for spying and unauthorized video transmission.




Character LCD Displays

LCD character displays can be found in espresso machines, laser printers, children’s toys and maybe even the odd toaster. The Hitachi HD44780 controller has become an industry standard for these types of displays. This tutorial will teach you the basics of interfacing with a HD44780 compatible display using some DIP switches and a few other components.




CNC Machine

The electronics of a CNC machine is a simple but often confusing matter. In the picture (down) is shown the schema of a full system of four axes. Sometimes the breakout board is not present and the parallel port connected directly to the controllers. The main advantage of using single stepper controllers enable the user to connect different motors even in a mixed configuration (unipolar or bipolar steppers) tuning the CNC machine performances to the job to be done. A common and simple solution is the use of a board where the optoisolator (if any) and the controller/drivers are present in the same board, all-in-one. This solution allow a general quicker connection and a simple wiring but force the use of three or four identical (or similar) stepper motors.




Count Down Timer

Timer kits are an ever popular item with the hobbyist. One of the main methods used is the ever-popular 555 timer IC. In this circuit we use a 555, a counter IC and a transistor switch to activate a relay either on-to-off or off-to-on (mode selected by a jumper) as soon as the counting period is over. Let us look at the kit in more detail. The circuit consists of 3 parts: an oscillator, a ripple counter and two switching transistors.




Countdown Relay Timer

In this Countdown Relay Timer, a 555 IC, a counter IC and a transistor switch to activate a relay either ON/OFF (mode selected by a jumper) as soon as the counting period is over. The circuit consists of an oscillator, a ripple and two switching transistors. The 555 is configured in the standard astable oscillator circuit designed to give a square wave cycle at a period of around 1 cycle/sec. A potentiometer is included in the design so the period can be set to exactly 1 second by timing the LED flashes. A jumper connection is provided so the LED can be turned off. As soon as power is applied to the circuit counting begins. The output pulse from pin 3 of the 555 is fed to a the clock input pin 10 of the 14-stage binary ripple counter, the 4020 (or 14020.).




Current Sensor

High-wattage appliances like electric irons, ovens and heaters result in unnecessary power loss if left ‘on’ for hours unnoticed. Here is a circuit that senses the flow of current through the appliances and gives audible beeps every fifteen minutes to remind you of power-’on’ status. This is a non-contact version of current monitor and can sense the flow of current in high-current appliances from a distance of up to 30 cm . It uses transistors in the input to provide very high input impedance (1.5 T-ohms), very low input current (10 pA) and high-speed switching performance.




Digital ON-OFF Tactile Button Relay Switch

Small circuit, with which we can use to get rid of the standard switch and operate any type of load with a push of a tactile button. Voltage between 5 and 18 V DC ( depends on the operating voltage of the relay coil ) in terminal CN1. Output Current is 10A ( depends on relay contacts ) in terminal CN3 activated by external positive pulse or short-circuiting the terminal CN2. Circuit is protected against double pulses and rebounds.




Digital Potentiometer with Memory

Digital potentiometer with memory is a built around PIC 16F819 microcontroller that reads analog resistances, records them to memory and plays them back via digital potentiometer DS1267 chip. The memory buffer size and the playback speed can be adjusted.




Digital VGA Switch

Digital VGA switch for switching between two PC monitors with MAX465 IC.




Digital Video Selector 1.0





DIY Water Usage Meter

Working with the interaction design team, a bunch of us at Teague have been tinkering with measuring water, analyzing usage data in realtime to affect behaviors, and storing it to see patterns over time. At the heart of the exploration was a need to cheaply measure water from the tap. Water meters vary quite drastically in price (from $250+ for industrial grade sensors to $6 for garden hose attachments that limit total usage based on rough estimates). We settled on a $20 water meter used for PC cooling systems (the INS-FM17N by Koolance) due to its accuracy, low price, small size, and electronic sensing method that could be easily measured by a microcontroller (such as an Arduino).




Dome Light Dimmer With Delay For Cars

There are two stages: aboriginal one is dabbling and the additional one is fading. Back you accessible the aperture the ablaze turns on. You get central and abutting the door, but the ablaze stays on (delay stage) for an adjustable aeon of time (0-40 sec. for the ethics in the scheme, but you can calmly adapt that i.e. put a bigger capacitor) so you can see area to admit the key or do whatever you do back you get in the car, again fades abroad (fading stage) with an adjustable speed. If you affix the ACC wire (which is absolutely optional) back you about-face the key to ACC position the ablaze turns off (actually fades) alike if the dabbling date is not over (it cancels the adjournment stage).




Doorbell with 555 IC

Doorbell with 555 IC




Driving N-Channel MOSFETs with a Microcontroller

MOSFET transistors are excellent choice for driving high current devices such as motors or high power RGB LEDs. They offer very low switching resistance and very small heat dissipation compared to bipolar transistors. This guide is designed to explain how to drive N-Channel MOSFETs with a microcontroller such as PIC or ATMEGA. Transistors heat up when driving large loads because they have a voltage dropped over them (Vce), and Heat (Watts) = Voltage * Current. This leads to thermal runaway within the transistor, eventually driving the device to destruction if not handled carefully. FET's are like digital switches, capable of turning on and off between the Drain and Source via a voltage potential at the Gate. When a FET is on, it usually has a resistance of less than 0.01 ohm, and when off, its like an open circuit. Because of the low resistance during the FET's on state, it can allow large amounts of current to pass through it without heating up. FET's turn on by voltage potential, not an electric current, and in return they have a very high input impedance. With this in mind, you only need a voltage to turn them on, perfect for digital electronics.




Driving P-Channel MOSFETs with a Microcontroller

MOSFET transistors are excellent choice for driving high current devices such as motors or high power RGB LEDs. They offer very low switching resistance and very small heat dissipation compared to bipolar transistors. This guide is designed to explain how to drive P-Channel MOSFETs with a microcontroller such as PIC or ATMEGA. There are a couple of tricks to remember when using them. P-Channel MOSFETs are useful for switching positive supply of a target circuit on and off. Particular attention must be placed to the target circuit if the supply voltage is greater then the micro controller's logic voltages. If for example, your target device is being powered by 12 volts, and your logic high state from the micro controller is 5 volts, then the MOSFET will never turn off, as voltage will either be -12V or -7V (remember that this guide is designed for logic level MOSFETs). Anything over -3 volts will generally drive the logic level MOSFET on (varies between types of LL MOSFETs).




Electronic Mosquito Repeller

Here is the circuit diagram of an ultrasonic mosquito repeller.The circuit is based on the theory that insects like mosquito can be repelled by using sound frequencies in the ultrasonic (above 20KHz) range.




Electronic Thermometer LM35

As shown in the schematic, temperature sensor of our electronic thermometer is LM35DZ. There are some kinds of LM35 IC, since it is cheap and easy to find we used LM35DZ in our project. It measures from 0°C to 100°C with a very linear output graph.For one degree change, it increases its output 10mV. On the Electronic Thermometer Schematic other hand, this circuit measures temperature values only between +10°C and +39°C. 2 numbered (middle) pin of the sensor is connected to the 5 numbered pins of LM3914 ICs. So every IC determines how many leds of bargraph will bright due to the analog signal received from the sensor. 2.2 microfarad tantal capacitors are connected between the 2 and 3 numbered pins of LM3914. Resistors in the circuit have %1 tolerance values.




Finite State Machine Programmable Logic Controller

Finite State Machine based Programmable Logic Controller * 7 Inputs * 8 Outputs * Simple IF/THEN/ELSE based compiler language generates direct EPROM files.




Fire Alarm

The thermistor offers a low resistance at high temperature and high resistance at low temperature. This phenomenon is employed here for sensing the fire. The IC1 (NE555) is configured as a free running oscillator at audio frequency. The transistors T1 and T2 drive IC1. The output(pin 3) of IC1 is couples to base of transistor T3(SL100), which drives the speaker to generate alarm sound. The frequency of NE555 depends on the values of resistances R5 and R6 and capacitance C2.When thermistor becomes hot, it gives a low-resistance path for the positive voltage to the base of transistor T1 through diode D1 and resistance R2. Capacitor C1 charges up to the positive supply voltage and increases the the time for which the alarm is ON.




GPS Disciplined Frequency Standard

Using the GPS Satellite system offers the advantage of very accurate timing and by extension, frequency control. The long term error is to all intents and purposes zero, with time and frequency accuracy being comparable to the international standard. The traditional route is to use a relatively low cost GPS receiver module which outputs a 1 Pulse per second signal (1 PPS) aligned to UTC. Basic GPS modules such as the Garmin GPS25 and Motorola Oncore have been around for some years and are available at low cost. It is possible to phase lock a divided down crystal oscillator to this 1 PPS signal and transfer its long term stability to , say, a 10MHz reference which is subsequently used for deriving any LO and beacon frequencies. The subsequent PLL system is usually described as a GPS Disciplined Oscillator rather than locked, since it is not, strictly speaking, actually ‘locked’ to the GPS system at all; just controlled by it via the 1 PPS generated by software in the receiver module.




High Quality Intercom

A very high quality intercom, which may also be used for room monitoring. This circuit consists of two identical intercom units. Each unit contains a power supply, microphone preamplifier, audio amplifier and a Push To Talk (PTT) relay circuit. Only 2 wires are required to connect the units together. Due to the low output impedance of the mic preamp, screened cable is not necessary and ordinary 2 core speaker cable, or bell wire may be used.




Homemade Metal Detector

Nowadays, metal detection has become a hobby of many people. Besides as a funny and interesting hobby for them, they also wished indeed a treasure that is embedded in the soil when excavated. For this one hobby, you have to have a tool known as a metal detector. To undergo this hobby is quite expensive to buy. But for those of you who want to try to make yourself a metal detector, the following will be presented a simple schematic that relates to metal detection. The operation of metal detector is based on superheterodying principle, which is generally used in a heterodyne receiver. This circuit uses two RF oscillators. Both oscillator frequency is fixed at 5.5 MHz. The first RF oscillator comprises transistor T1 (BF 494) and 5.5 MHz ceramic filter commonly used in TV sound-IF section. The second oscillator is an oscillator Colpitt realization with the help of the transistor T3 (BF494) and inductor L1 (follow the details of construction) was driven by trimmer capacitor VC1.




Horsepower Monitor

This device is designed to measure the torque in an automobile drive shaft and provide an output to a vehicle data recording system or a portable computer via an RS-232 interface. The received data can then be combined with RPM measurements from the data recording system to calculate horsepower. It consists of the sensor unit, (Figure 1), which attaches to the driveshaft, and the receiver unit, , which provides the serial output signal. The sensor unit is battery powered and communicates with the receiver via a 433 Mhz RF data link.The receiver unit is powered by the vehicle electrical system. Circuit operation is shown in the diagram.




Importance of X10 Oscilloscope Probes

A scope probe is built to minimize ringing by adding resistance. A X1 is better than a piece of co-ax, but a X10 probe is more effective than a X1. A X10 probe has the effect of reducing capacitance by a factor of ten. The trade-off is that is also attenuates the signal by a factor of ten. That is, 1/10 the signal applied to the tip of the probe actually reaches the input of the oscilloscope.




LCD Display

LCD display consists of an array of tiny segments known as pixels that can be manipulated to present information. As a result of this technology, many types of this displays are used in applications like calculator, watch, messaging boards, clock, equipments, machines and a host of other devices that one can think of. Most of the Display types are reflective, meaning that they use only ambient light to illuminate the display. Even displays that do require an external light source consume much less power than CRT devices.




LDR & LED Smoke Detector

Smoke detectors are generally used in advanced alarm systems. Most of this professional devices use gas-detectors, ionization rooms or radioactive elements as sensors. In this circuit we are not using any of this complicated components. Instead of these, we are using two LDRs and one LED. LM1801 special-purpose IC ,which is designed especially for smoke detectors, provides us building this circuit by using the minimum number of components. It includes one internal zener supply, two reference voltage outputs, one voltage comperator, fixing diodes and one 500mA output transistor.




LED Bargraph Optical Tachometer

For the electric R/C enthusiast, a tachometer can be a very useful piece of equipment. When I first built this tach back in 1995, it was essential, as there were very few off-the-shelf electric R/C power systems that just worked. At that time, you had to experiment with batteries, speed controls or switches, connectors, and wiring, and a tachometer was a tool to help you measure the results.




Light / Dark Relay Switch

A simple light / dark activated relay switch circuit, suitable for many applications like the automatic switching of the lights in a shop window or a room according to the ambient light level. The circuit uses a light dependent resistor (LDR). A light/dark option has been incorporated. The term 'light/dark' is used because the circuit has a PCB-mounted switch on board. In one switch position a light-to-dark transition will activate the relay. In the other position a dark-to-light transition is required. So you can use the falling light on the detector to switch on a normally off circuit or switch off a normally on circuit. The relay is on when LDR uncovered and relay off when LDR covered. Adjust VR1 for light sensitivity. LED will turn on at the same time with relay.




Lightning Detector

This DIY lightning detector circuit is a very sensitive static electricity detector that can provide an early warning of approaching storms from inter-cloud discharge well before an earth-to-sky return strike takes place. An aerial (antenna) formed of a short length of wire detects storms within a two mile radius. The circuit emits an audible warning tone from a piezo buzzer, or flashes an LED for each discharge detected, giving you advance warning of impendig storms so that precautions may be observed.




LM386 Audio Probe Amplifier

LM386 audio probe amplifier is an essential tool for troubleshooting audio stages in audio related circuits such as amplifiers, oscillators, function generators, phone circuits, radios and lots of our other projects. It is a very handy piece of test equipment that can be built on pre-drilled board and will make a perfect addition to your electronic collection. There are lots of things that can go wrong with an audio stage. It can produce distortion or a “hollow” sound, go weak or simply fail altogether. Likewise tone circuits can present a number of faults and it is very handy to be able to “hear” what is going wrong. It is not sufficient to measure the DC voltages on these stages. This only gives a partial picture of the conditions and does not tell you the quality of the audio being processed. To determine this you need a piece of test equipment that will let you see or hear what is being processed. Some of the projects you can test with the Mini Bench Amplifier are tone circuits while others are audio circuits. Tone circuits and audio stages are surprisingly difficult to test unless you have an audio probe or a oscilloscope. Oscilloscope is an ideal piece of equipment but if your budget does not extend this far, the next best thing is an audio probe.




Microphone Amplifier with TDA7050 IC

Here's a simple microphone amplifier based around TDA7050 IC. There are many schematics, the choice fell on the amplifier chip TDA7050, the only downside was it that it was not appointed to the microphone. By adding a resistor R1 in the scheme by 4,7 kOhm - amplifier can no longer work with conventional condenser microphones. If you remove the resistor R3 - the alarm will be put on a small speaker with an impedance of winding 32 Om'a. Voltage amplifier is powered by 3 - 5 volts, but as the amplifier must be nourished from 12 in the scheme of linear stabilizer was added at 5 V. This scheme was checked with headphones (current consumption was 50 mA) and connect to the line input of your TV.




Mini Metronome

Linear scale - Small size 40 to 208 beats per minute




Motion Activated Camera

I made a relatively simple attachment to my Canon SLR to create a motion activated camera using Arduino. A lot of this was based on and inspired by the intervalometer project at The Honey Jar. I made some changes to his circuit to use a 4N35 optocoupler instead of reed relays.




One Button Digital On-Off Switch

The load is driven by the MOSFET IRFZ44 and 4093 AND gates are used in the circuit. The output of the 4093 IC drives the MOSFET. Only one button allows you to change the on-off state of the electronic circuits in which you use this switch. The circuit schematics is above. Click image to see the larger schematics diagram.




Oscilloscope Probe Schematic & Anatomy

Passive Probe are the most general used scope probe. As the name "passive" suggest, it is made from passive components resistor, capacitor & wires. The leading scope probe maker are LeCroy, Tektronix & Agilent. Passive probe usually comes with attenuation factor of 1:1, 10:1 and 100:1. Attenuation factor of 1:1 means whatever signal being probe at the probe tip will be shown exactly as it is at the oscilloscope input. So a signal of 1V at the probe tip will be detected as 1V at the scope input. Attenuation factor of 10:1 means that a signal of 1V at probe tip will be detected as 0.1V at the scope input.




PAL/NTSC Video Text Generator

Perfect low cost solution for: * New video security installations * SSTV transmitters * Amateur video * Existing installed security installations * Scientific experimentation monitoring * and any other application that needs the time and date recorded on an image!




Park Assist Circuit

Park Assist circuit was designed as an aid in parking the car near the garage wall when backing up. LED D7 illuminates when bumper-wall distance is about 20 cm., D7+D6 illuminate at about 10 cm. and D7+D6+D5 at about 6 cm. In this manner you are alerted when approaching too close to the wall. All distances mentioned before can vary, depending on infra-red transmitting and receiving LEDs used and are mostly affected by the color of the reflecting surface. Black surfaces lower greatly the device sensitivity. Obviously, you can use this circuit in other applications like liquids level detection, proximity devices etc.




Parrot Sounding AC door Bell

Here is a mains-operated doorbell that produces parrot-like sweet voice without requiring any musical IC. The circuit is cheap and easy to construct. The AC mains is fed to the circuit without using any step-down transformer.




PIR Motion Detector

Presented schematic shows how to build simple PIR motion detector sensor. PIR sensors allow you to sense motion, almost always used to detect whether a human has moved in or out of the sensors range. They are small, inexpensive, low-power, easy to use and don't wear out. For that reason they are commonly found in appliances and gadgets used in homes or businesses. They are often referred to as PIR, "Passive Infrared", "Pyroelectric", or "IR motion" sensors. PIRs are basically made of a pyroelectric sensor (which you can see above as the round metal can with a rectangular crystal in the center), which can detect levels of infrared radiation. Everything emits some low level radiation, and the hotter something is, the more radiation is emitted. The sensor in a motion detector is actually split in two halves. The reason for that is that we are looking to detect motion (change) not average IR levels. The two halves are wired up so that they cancel each other out. If one half sees more or less IR radiation than the other, the output will swing high or low.




Plant Water Alarm

This simple plant water alarm circuit indicates when the soil is dry and the plant needs watering. The circuit does not have a current-limiting resistor because the base resistor is very high and the current through the transistor is only 2mA. Replacing 220K resistor with 1M potentiometer will provide adjustment when the alarm should be triggered depending on the moisture left in the soil.




Rain Sound Effect Generator

Agreeable, relaxing effect, helping to fall asleep Small portable unit, 3V battery powered. Sound effects generators trying to imitate rain sound or sea surf are well known to hobbyists from many years: their purpose is to induce relaxation and sleep or to help in concentration and study. The sound generated is restrained to a background level and these devices are frequently kept on the night table.




Rotary Encoder for ATS Transceivers

This equipment is dedicated for an easier control of the popular mini-transceiver AT Sprint known by ham radio operators as ATS (series ATS-2, ATS-3, A, B, B.1 compatible). Originally the ATS has just four push buttons on the top cover and in combination with the paddle it is possible to send all commands to ATS including the tuning, scanning etc. After connecting the rotary encoder accessory module an easy tune, scan and other functions are available as same as on the big size desktop transceivers. Comfort and operation is much higher even with this mini transceiver.




Rotary Encoders

Rotary encoders are very versatile input devices for microcontroller projects. They are like potentiometers expect of digital nature and unlike analogue potentiometers they never wear down. Rotary encoders not only provide 360 degrees of rotational freedom they also allow digital positioning information to be gained without the use of analogue to digital converters (ADCs). When using rotational encoders in projects it's possible to use the same encoder to represent a number of different input types, however this requires some form of feedback display to let the user know what information he is inputting and the 'position' of the encoder. The project is based around a 24 position rotary encoder, 16 LEDs arranged in a circle around the encoder, an A6276 16 LED serial driver IC and the PIC182550 microcontroller. A rotary encoder has 3 pins usually called A, B and C. The C pin (which is normally the centre pin) should be grounded and both A and B should be connected to the microcontroller with individual pull-up resistors on each input. In this project I used RB4 and RB5 on the PIC to connect the encoder; this has 2 advantages, firstly you can use the PORTB internal weak pull-up (which means you do not need external resistors) and also the PIC provides an 'interrupt-on-change' which can be used to monitor the encoder.




Simple 300W Lamp Dimmer

This simple lamp dimmer uses only a Triac, a Diac and some other passive components to achieve power control on lamp . It is suitable for 230V incandescent lamps with a total power of up to 300 Watts. At first triac TR1 is not conducting; C1 is charged through R1/P1 until the trigger level of diac D1 is reached. When the diac trigger level is reached (about 30 V), D1 fires and Triac TR1 is switched on. The triac will remain in conductive mode until the mains current is lower than the triac hold current at the end of the half mains period. This works for both the negative and positive mains period because both the triac and the diac are bi-directional. R1 is added to protect the potentiometer in the case of a short circuit. The fuse is absolutely mandatory as the discharge arc in a failing incandescent lamp is virtually a short circuit.




Simple EMF Probe

There's something fascinating about electromagnetic fields. Thanks to the modern world and the prevalence of electronics and electricity, they're all around us these days. But because of the extremely limited array of senses that we humans have, we spend most of the time completely oblivious of them. Wouldn't it be cool to make something simple that could not just detect them, but would allow you look at the waveforms on an oscilloscope. An EMF probe in other words.




Simple MOSFET Switch

Constructing a MOSFET switch is one of the basic level electronics projects and could be useful for beginners to get a hang of the various FET transistors. The aim of this project is to make control a heavy duty DC load by constructing a simple switch. MOSFET transistors are capable of handling a large voltage and current. It is because of this feature that it is being much sought after for connecting heavy loads to a circuit or a microcontroller.




Sine Wave Synthesizer

Every group wants their final project to be something that will be remembered long after they're gone. Some do highly sophisticated and complex projects that entail upwards of a hundred hours to complete. Yet others go out of their way to develop something 'cool' and 'fun'. Luke and I decided that we wanted to be in this second category, because developing something that's 'cool' would also be fun to do. So in deciding what to design we tried to think of something that would catch the attention of the people in the lab. The easiest way of doing this is to create something that would make noise or play music so everyone in the lab could enjoy it. Realizing this would be the best way to go, we decided to create a synthesizer that could record and playback notes, 'teach' the user how to play a simple melody, and also play some prerecorded tunes. After all, don't you think being remembered as the group that played back the Imperial March theme from Star Wars is cooler than a paper tape reader? (no offense to those groups doing paper tape readers)




Soft Start for Power Supply

The circuit will limit the current through the supply wires to 5.5A for about 1.5sec. After that time the relay will close and the current flow won't be restricted anymore. This is a very interesting circuit if you have a large toroid with big electrolytic caps connected to the power supply, since these will act like short circuits for a small amount of time if they start charging. This unit is a delay unit that can be connected directly to the mains power supply. It´s not obligatory to use one but it is a good idea, specially if you have a big toroidal transformer larger than 300 VA. This unit has a delay circuit and for the delayed time the mains power is supplied through power resistors minimizing in this way the big inrush current due to big capacitors and big toroidal transformers in the power supply. When everything is stable it shorts the power resistors and supplies the mains power directly.




Solid State Relay

Solid state relay is a hybrid circuit, normally composed of an optocoupler which isolates the input, a trigger circuit that detects the zero crossing of the line current and a triac or similar device that acts as a circuit breaker. Its name comes from the similarity presents an electromechanical relay, this device is generally used for applications which has a continuous use of the contacts of the relay compared to a conventional relay generate a serious mechanical wear, besides being able to switch high amperage in the case of electromechanical relays in a short time would destroy the contacts. These relays allow switching speeds much higher than the electromechanical relays.




Strobe Light

Strobe lights are widely used by disco lovers to create wonderful visual effects in disco halls and auditoriam. The circuit of a battery operated portable miniature strobe light, which can be constructed using readily available inexpensive components, is described here. For convenience and simplicity, an ordinary neon lamp is used here in place of the conventional Xenon tube.




Switching 110VAC - Relays vs. Solid State

Solid state relays do the same thing (switch 110VAC), only electronically. They still have the "control pins" (where the coil would be if it were a relay) and the input and output pins of the switch. However, there isn't a coil inside. Remember we are talking about switching 110VAC here. Because of this, one has to select the solid state switch designed to accomplish this task. One can purchase these devices from many electronic parts stores. Remember to simply check the ratings and make sure you provide yourself with a safety margin. For example, if the part will handle up to 3 amps of current, don't run 3 amps. Instead run something like half that. This way no one will get hurt because of a device failure and the device will work longer than running it at it's maximum rating.




Table Lamp Circuit with LM555

If you want a Power Lamp Flasher at normal electric power, try out Table Lamp Circuit like this is. It uses the integrated circuit NE555 as the core component. It controls the blink rate of the lamp. Use the power transistor for about 20W or current 1.6A. The Q3 can be replaced by TIP41 or H1061 or MJ3055 or 2N3055.




Tan Timer

Six timing positions suited to different skin types Timing affected by sunlight intensity. This timer was designed for people wanting to get tanned but at the same time wishing to avoid an excessive exposure to sunlight. A Rotary Switch sets the timer according to six classified Photo-types (see table). A Photo resistor extends the preset time value according to sunlight brightness (see table). When preset time ends, the beeper emits an intermittent signal and, to stop it, a complete switch-off of the circuit via SW2 is necessary.




Temperature Control using a DS1621 Sensor and a ATtiny 2313 Micrcontroller

This circuit uses a Dallas DS1621 temperature sensor which indicates the temperature of the device. The temperature sensor has an thermal alarm output, which becomes high when the temperature of the device exceeds a user defined value. When the temperature drops below a user defined value, the alarm output becomes low. In this way any amount of hysteresis can be programmed. The values are stored in a special register of the device that is nonvolatile. The signal of the alarm output is amplified by a BC557 PNP transistor, that drives a relay that can switch a heater element or a blower on or off. The temperature settings and readings are communicated to/from the device over a simple 2-wire serial interface. An ATMEL 90S2313 microcontroller controls the serial communication to/from the DS1621.The microcontroller also controls three LED, only one of the LED's is on when the temperature is within a certain range. The range of the temperature in which the LED's are on can be set by the user in the program code. The circuit needs to be powered by a 5V power supply, which can be obtained from a wall-wart.




Temperature Controlled Fan

With this simple circuit you will be able to control the speed of a DC fan according to temperature measured by a temp sensor. It’s an ideal add-on for your PC cooling fans to eliminate produced noise. Requested by some correspondents, this simple design allows an accurate speed control of 12V dc fan motors, proportional to temperature. A n.t.c. Thermistor (R1) is used as temperature sensor, driving two directly coupled complementary transistors wired in a dc feedback circuit. An optional circuitry was added to remotely monitor fan operation and to allow some sort of rough speed indication by means of the increasing brightness of a LED.




Thermal Fan Controller

The controller uses one or more ordinary silicon diodes as a sensor, and uses a cheap opamp as the amplifier. I designed this circuit to use 12V computer fans, as these are now very easy to get cheaply. These fans typically draw about 200mA when running, so a small power transistor will be fine as the switch. I used a BD140 (1A, 6.5W), but almost anything you have to hand will work just as well.




Thermostat Controller with Relay using LM35 and TL431

Here is a simple yet highly accurate thermal control circuit which can be used in applications where automatic temperature control is needed. The circuit switches a miniature relay ON or OFF according to the temperature detected by the single chip temperature sensor LM35DZ. When the LM35DZ detects a temperature higher than the preset level (set by VR1), the relay is actuated. When the temperature falls below the preset temperature, relay is de-energized. The circuit can be powered by any AC or DC 12V supply or battery (100mA min.)




Transistor Tester

Here is a very simple circuit that can b e used to check the hfe of transistors. Both PNP and NPN transistors can be checked using this circuit. Hfe as high as 1000 can be measured by using this circuit.The circuit is based on two constant current sources build around transistors Q1 and Q2.The Q1 is a PNP transistor and the constant current flows in the emitter lead. The value of constant current can be given by the equation; (V D1 -0.6)/ (R2+R4).The POT R4 can be adjusted to get a constant current of 10uA.




Ultrasonic Parking Assistant

The basic theory behind the Parking Assistant is the Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR) technique that is used for finding the distance and direction of a remote object underwater by transmitting sound waves and detecting reflections from it. First, a series of short ultrasonic pulses are transmitted using a transducer that changes voltage into sound waves. The transmitted pulse is reflected off an object, and the reflected wave is then received by another transducer that converts sound waves into voltage. The transmitted signal is also known as the ‘ping’ and the received signal is known as the ‘pong’. By counting the elapsed time between the ping and the pong, the distance between the device and an object can be easily calculated by multiplying the elapsed time with the speed of sound.




Ultrasonic Pest Repellent

It is well know that pests like rats, mice etc are repelled by ultrasonic frequency in the range of 30 kHz to 50 kHz. Human beings can’t hear these high-frequency sounds. Unfortunately, all pests do not react at the same ultrasonic frequency. While some pests get repelled at 35 kHz, some others get repelled at 38 to 40 kHz. Thus to increase the effectiveness, frequency of ultrasonic oscillator has to be continuously varied between certain limits. By using this circuit design, frequency of emission of ultrasonic sound is continuously varied step-by-step automatically.




USB Servo

The USB-Servo is a device to control a servo via USB. A servo is a motorized device that is commonly used in remote controlled cars and planes. I built this device to activate a toy puppet. The puppet has a button on its bottom, if you press the button the puppet collapses. When the computer is able to press the button, I can use the puppet to signal information like someone's online-state in the Jabber-network: when my friend goes online, the puppet stands up, when he logs off it collapses.

Servos are connected with three-wire-cables. A red and a black one for the power, and a yellow one for the signal. Power has to be between 4.8 and 6 volts, so the 5 volts from the USB-port is in the range. The signal doesn't take much current, so you can connect it directly to the controller. The angle of the servo is controlled with pulse width modulation (PWM). It gets a signal of about 50Hz (one pulse every 20ms), the length of the pulse tells the servo the angle to adjust.




Using an Optocoupler

An opto-coupler is a device that can be used to electrically isolate two circuits, so that a voltage spike or other problem on one side will not destroy the circuit on the other side. A common use for them is when you want to interface a computer to an AC-powered device, such as a light or a motor. Usually, the opto-coupler will not be used to control the device directly, and instead will just transfer a signal from one circuit to another.




Using HSR312 / HSR412 Solid State Relays

The HSR312 and HSR412 devices consist of a AlGaAs infrared emitting diode optically coupled to a power MOSFET detector which is driven by a photovoltaic generator. The devices are housed in a 6-pin dual-in-line package. The HSR312L and HSR412L employ an active current limit circuitry enabling the device to withstand current surge transients.




Video Amplifier

Circuit Video Amplifier by transistor BC547 & BC557




Water Alarm

This is a simple water alarm. At the heart of this circuit is a small water sensor. For fabricating this water sensor, you need two foils—an aluminium foil and a plastic foil. You can assemble the sensor by rolling aluminium and plastic foils in the shape of a concentric cylinder. Connect one end of the insulated flexible wire on the aluminium foil and the other end to resistor R2. Now mount this sensor inside the water tap such that water can flow through it uninterrupted. To complete the circuit, connect another wire from the junction of pins 2 and 6 of IC1 to the water pipeline or the water tap itself.




Water Drain Pump Controller

A hole needs to be digged at the lowest place in the celler that have water incomming problems. The hole is about 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 meter, at the bottom a large water pump is mounted. Then the different water levels was measured, so we know how to make the sensors.




Water Level Indicator with Alarm

This circuit not only indicates the amount of water present in the overhead tank but also gives an alarm when the tank is full. The circuit uses the widely available CD4066, bilateral switch CMOS IC to indicate the water level through LEDs.




Water-level Indicator

The whole project was developed on a friend's request. Its purpose was to remotely monitor the water-level in a metal tank located in the attic by means of a very simple control unit placed in the kitchen, some floors below.




Wiper Speed Control Circuit

A continuously alive wiper in a car may prove to be a nuisance, abnormally back it is not aqueous heavily. By application the ambit declared actuality one can alter across-the-board amount of the wiper from already a additional to already in ten seconds. The ambit comprises two timer NE555 ICs, one CD4017 decade counter, one TIP32 disciplinarian transistor, a 2N3055 ability transistor (or TIP3055) and a few added detached components.




Wireless Security Alarm

Alarm circuit is functioning as a car wireless security alarm. Yes, this is an FM radio-controlled anti-theft alarm. This alarm can be used on any vehicle that has a DC power supply 6-12V. Alarm circuit system is divided into two parts, the transmitter unit and receiver unit. Transmitter unit is working on the range of VHF Band II, exactly at a frequency of 88-108 MHz. This transmitter is a miniature FM transmitter that is installed in vehicles at night while parked in the car porch or car park.




X10 Remote Temperature

I became interested in the ATtiny85 processor recently. Up till now, my projects were based on the ATmega328 or the ATmega644. The ATtiny85 is just that, tiny - only 8 pins vs. 28 on the ATmega328. The photo on the left shows the new X10 temperature transmitter, with the DS1621 temperature chip on the left and the ATtiny85 on the right.




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