Author name: john

Test & Measurement Circuits

Quartz crystal tester circuit

Description. This a very simple and inexpensive circuit that can be used to test quartz crystals.Here a Colpitts oscillator is wired used the transistor T1.When the crystal is connected between terminals A and B the circuit will produce high frequency oscillation.The oscillations will be generated only if the crystal is a good one.The diode OA91 […]

Power Supplies

5V power supply with overvoltage protection.

Description. For circuits using TTL ICs the supply voltage is a great concern and a slight increase in supply from the rated 5V may damage the IC. Using fuses alone does not solve the problem because a fuse may take several milliseconds to blow off and that’s enough time for the IC to get damaged.

Power Supplies

Adjustable regulator using L200

Description. Here is the circuit diagram of an adjustable voltage regulator using IC L200. L200 is a monolithic integrated adjustable voltage regulator IC having features like current limiting, thermal shut down, power limiting, input over voltage protection etc. Here the regulator is designed to produce an output adjustable between 2.85V to 15V at 1A.The resistors

Power Supplies

Blown fuse indicator circuit

Description. Here is a simple scheme for adding a blown fuse indicator to your existing power supply circuit. This is done by just adding a resistor and LED to the existing circuit. The LED and resistor are connected in series and this combination is connected in parallel to the existing fuse. When the fuse is

Fun & Game Circuits, Tone generator circuits

Canary chirp generator

Description. This is a simple electronic alarm circuit that imitates the chirping of a canary. The circuit is nothing but a Hartley oscillator with few more passive components added. As the capacitor C1 charges through the resistor R1 and the transistor Q1 is driven to cut off. This makes the oscillations to stop. As the

Audio Circuits

3 Band graphic equalizer circuit

Description. Here is the circuit diagram of a simple 3 band graphic equalizer circuit using a single IC and few components. The IC used here is LF 351 which is a wide bandwidth single JFET operational amplifier. The high input impedance of the IC makes this circuit compatible with most of the audio signal sources.

Sensor Circuits

Electromagnetic field sensor circuit

Notes. This is a very simple circuit that can be used to sense electromagnetic radiations. The circuit can even detect hidden wrings. A 1mH inductor is used for sensing the electric field. The electric field will induce a small voltage in the sensor inductor and this induced voltage is amplified by the opamp.The headphone connect

Audio Circuits, Conversion Circuits

Speaker to microphone converter circuit

Description. This circuit is a simple approach for converting a loud speaker into a microphone. When the sound waves fall on the diaphragm of a speaker, there will be fluctuations in the coil and there will be a small proportional induced voltage. Usually this induced voltage is very low in magnitude and useless. Here in

Audio Circuits, Transmitters

Simple IR audio link

Description. Here is a simple IR audio link that can be used to transmit audio signals up to 4 meters. The signal to be transmitted is applied to the base of Q1 via resistor R4.The transistor Q1 drives the IR transmitting diodes D1 and D2.The audio input will be modulated to the IR signals transmitted.

Lighting Circuits

4W Fluorescent lamp driver.

Description. This is a simple 4 W fluorescent lamp driver circuit that can be operated from a 12 V supply.The first part of the circuit includes a NE555 timer IC wired as an astable multivibrator.The output pulses from the IC are amplified by the transistor Q1.The transformer steps up the collector voltage to around 1KVto

Home Circuits, Lighting Circuits

LED torch using MAX660

Description. This is a simple LED torch circuit based on IC MAX660 from MAXIM semiconductors. The MAX 660 is a CMOS type monolithic type voltage converter IC. The IC can easily drive three extra bright white LEDs.The LEDs are connected in parallel to the output pin 8 of the IC. The circuit has good battery

Fun & Game Circuits, Sensor Circuits

Single chip metal detector circuit

Description. This is a simple single chip metal detector circuit based on IC CS209A from the Cherry Semiconductors. A 100uH coil is used to sense the presence of metal. The IC CS209A has a built in oscillator circuit and the coil L1 forms a part of its external LC circuit which determines the frequency of

Light Related

Photo relay circuit

Description. A photo relay or light activated relay is a circuit which opens and closes the relay contacts according to the light.Here a photo diode is used to sense the light.The photo diode offers a high resistance when there is no light falling on it.Here the photo diode is connected in reverse biased condition.The only

Home Circuits

Battery operated heater

Description. Here is a simple heater circuit that can be operated from a 12V battery. The first part of the circuit is an astable multivibrator build around the two transistors Q1 and Q2 .The ON time of transistor Q2 is set to 0.5 S. The ON time of transistor Q1 can be varied by using

Lighting Circuits

Mains operated LED lamp

CircuitsToday has introduced an online bookstore where 4 books on basic electronics are reviewed in detail. These books are written by renowned authors like Forrest M Mims, and other famous personnels. Please go through the reviews and buy them from here:- 4 GREAT BOOKS TO LEARN BASIC ELECTRONICS Description. This is a very simple and cost

Lighting Circuits

Two star flasher circuit.

Description. A circuit that can be used to flash two Christmas stars alternatively is given here. The IC1 NE 555 is wired as an astable multivibrator here. When there is a positive pulse from the output of IC1, the transistor Q1 conducts and the relay K1 gets activated. The lamp L2 connected via the N/O

Sensor Circuits, Switching Circuits

Touch switch using CD4011.

Description. A simple touch switch circuit using CD4011 is given here. The IC CD4011 is wires as a flip flop here. The 9, 13 pins of the IC works as the set and reset contacts respectively.CMOS ICs like 4011 require requires a very low current for controlling its gates. Since the pins 9 and 13

Timer Circuits

Selective timer alarm.

Description. A timer circuit using IC 4060 is given here. The IC 4060 is a 14 stage binary counter with a built-in oscillator.R2, R7, C1 are the components that determine the frequency of the oscillator and the outputs will become high one after other and only one at a time. The last five outputs are

Audio Circuits

100 Watt sub woofer amplifier.

Description. This is the circuit diagram of a fully transistorized sub woofer amplifier that can produce an output of 100W.There are seven transistors including four in the output stage. The transistors Q1 and Q2 form the preamplifier stage. Transistors Q4 to Q7 form the output stage. Since no ICs are used the circuit is very

Tone generator circuits

Touch controlled musical bell.

Description. This circuit produces a musical tone whenever someone touches the touch point designated as TP in the circuit. The circuit works from two AA cells and produces enough sound. The circuit uses IC UM 3481 commonly used in musical circuits. The IC contains a ROM with 512 musical notes, tone generator, rhythm generator, modulator,

Light Related, Lighting Circuits

Flashing LED unit

Description. The circuit given here is designed as an LED flasher which produces a rotating effect when the LEDs are arranged properly. The circuit has very low current consumption and can be operated from even 3V button cells. The IC 1 (CMOS NE555) is wired as an astable multivibrator wired at a duty cycle of

Home Circuits

Plant moisture level monitor

Description. Here is a simple circuit that will give a visual indication when the soil water level inside your flower pot goes low below a certain limit. The U1C and associated components are wired as an oscillator producing a 2KHz square wave. This square wave is given to one gate input of U1D via a

Switching Circuits

Intelligent trailing switch.

Description. This is a very simple yet effective circuit in which the equipments connected at the so called trailing sockets will run only if the equipment connected at the control socket is switched on. For example, let’s connect a motor is connected to the control socket and a lamp is connected at the trailing socket.

Radio Transmitters, Telephone Related

Telephone transmitter

Description. This is a simple, but very useful circuit that can be used to transmit telephone conversations. When the telephone receiver is on hook the voltage across the lines will be about 48 volts. The preset R7 is so adjusted to obtain a 24.7 V across between the cathode of D2 and ground. At this

Radio Transmitters

Long range AM transmitter.

Description. Here is the circuit diagram of an easy to build long range AM transmitter circuit based on three transistors.With correct tuning and a matching antenna, the transmitter can deliver signals up to a distance of 2 kilometers. The audio signal to be transmitted is given to the base of the transistor Q1 via the

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