There are several applications at home or industry for long delay timers (ON or OFF delay). Time delays on the order of seconds can be generated using 555 timer circuits, provided the timing capacitor values do not exceed the limit specified by 555 ...
Psychologists tell us that frustration increases drive. I was driven to produce the circuit in this design idea by my increasing frustration with a collection of digital thermometers, all of which claimed accuracy to within 0.1 C but the readings ...
An excerpt from Christopher Paul’s “Parsing PWM (DAC) performance: Part 1 Mitigating errors” ( Ref. 1 ): “I was surprised to discover that when an output of a popular µP I’ve been using is configured to be a ...
The 0- to 20-mA current loop is a reliable means of data communication in industrial applications. These circuits use a precision shunt in the receiver to convert the current signal into a voltage signal. Accidentally connecting the precision ...
Despite the title, this DI does not describe a gadget to tell you when to don your shades, but instead features a useful add-on to (analog) audio kit. Built into a mixer, for example, it will show when the output of any stage is approaching ...
When the Sun is shining and illumination is needed inside a dimly lit interior space, a popular, proven, and highly efficient solution is to utilize the energy of available sunlight in the simplest and most sustainable fashion conceivable: Opening ...
Battery-operated instrument benefited from auto-power shutdown A handheld, battery-operated “fiber finder” measures the light escaping from an optical fiber when clamped in a V-shaped block under slight pressure. A pair of photodiodes ...
All thermal anemometers work by inferring air speed from measurements of thermal impedance (Z) between a heated sensor and the surrounding air: (1) where P is the power dissipated by the sensor and T is the temperature difference between the sensor ...
In Part 1 ( Ref. 1 ) of this article, we briefly looked at the Wien bridge oscillator before homing in on the bi-quad filter as our best candidate for an oscillator capable of giving 0.0001%/ 120 dB distortion, and showed its full circuit. Treating ...
Over the years, the Design Ideas (DI) column has featured many interesting oscillators, but none that I can recall was specifically designed to produce a really clean sine wave. Putting that omission together with the need to rebuild my old ...