This Idea for Design provides a visual indication of an input voltage’s relationship to upper and lower threshold values and can be used as a quick pass/marginal/fail tester...
Visual Voltage Tester Uses Single Op Amp
Circuit provides linear resistance-to-time conversion
Resistance-based transducers, such as strain gauges and piezoresistive devices, find common use in the measurement of several physical parameters. For applications in which digital processors or microcontrollers serve for data acquisition and signal processing, the transducer's response must assume a form suitable for conversion to digital format...
Error compensation improves bipolar-current sinks
You can improve a current sink's accuracy by at least two orders of magnitude by adding two standard 1%-tolerance resistors. As a bonus, you also compensate for errors that a low-current-gain pass transistor's base current introduces...
Inrush limiter also provides short-circuit protection
For containing large amounts of bulk capacitance, controlling inrush currents poses problems. The simplest approach involves placing an inrush-limiting resistor in series with the capacitor bank, but a resistor wastes power and adds a voltage drop...
High-Power White LED Driver Runs Battery-Operated Portable Lighting
Many people consider white LEDs to be the future of lighting. Strung together, several LEDs can replace an incandescent lamp or a compact fluorescent lamp. High-power white LEDs need a dc voltage of about 3.6 V at a current of about 350 mA to achieve full brightness...
Single-wire keypad interface frees microcontroller-I/O pins
If you use a microcontroller to detect a key closure, checking the states of (x+y) lines requires an equal number of I/O pins. Occupying only one free I/O pin, the circuit communicates with a microcontroller...
Reversed Capacitor Causes Motherboard Fires
Asus has recalled many of the company’s ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboards after reports that the boards could catch fire due to a capacitor that was aligned wrongly...
Reduce voltage-reference output noise by half
Reducing low-frequency (1/f) noise generated by an IC voltage reference can prove difficult. In theory, adding a lowpass filter to a reference's output reduces noise. In practice, a lowpass RC filter...
Germanium Dual-Boost Starts At 260 mV
No matter what portable power source you use, the lower the starting voltage your circuitry operates at, the better. A lower startup voltage also maximizes runtime...
Low cost, high-performance signal generator board
MikroElektronika has launched the Waveform 4 Click board – a member of its +1000-strong Click family of peripheral development boards – that operates as a signal generator for high-speed, high-dynamic-range, multichannel complex waveforms...
