Mechanical push-pushbutton switches (also known as alternate-action or push-on/push-off switches) can be bulky and expensive. As an alternative, an electronic version uses a cheaper, NO (normally open), momentary-on switch (Figure 1). Figure 1. ...
Linear voltage regulators offer a simple method of producing a constant current by connecting a fixed resistor between the regulator's output and ground nodes. The regulator's constant output voltage produces a constant current through the ...
Professional electronics designers often use peak-detector circuit sin such applications as amplitude measurement, automatic gain control, and data regeneration. You can build a simple and fast peak detector from a serial diode and a shunt ...
A common problem that arises when you design lowpass filters for signal conditioning is the filters' effect on the system's time-domain response. Because pushing the cutoff frequency lower slows the step response, the system may fail to ...
A 4- to 20-mA current loop consists of a power source and a current-measuring device at the control end and a field transmitter that senses process-variable information, such as temperature or pressure, and converts it to a current (Figure 1). Most ...
As Moore's Law plunges us into the realm of multigigahertz processors and PCs with gigabytes of RAM, engineers face the task of removing the heat that these state-of-the-art components produce. Cooling such systems poses a dilemma. If you ...
Sometimes, the need arises for a short-circuit tester that supplies a low current to the device under test (DUT) and also uses voltages lower than 100 mV to prevent conduction of semiconductors. The circuit in Figure 1 meets these requirements. R 1 ...
ADCs need adequate signal-acquisition analog interfaces to perform at their best. The classic general-purpose ADC front end includes multiple channels of differential input, digitally programmable gain, and track-and-hold capability. This Design ...
The circuit of Figure 1 includes a PIN photodiode that detects individual photons of gamma radiation. The reverse bias on the photodiode sometimes creates a depletion region. When such a photon strikes this depletion region, a small amount of ...
A simple circuit monitors the elapsed time over which a line-connected ac load energizes (Figure 1). You can then access the elapsed-time count over a standard one-wire protocol. When you energize the ac load, the optoisolator provides pulses at ...