Circuits & Schematics Measurement

Engineers have long known how to test a cable for continuity by simply connecting all conductors in series and checking with an ohmmeter. This method is sometimes impractical, however, because it cannot check for short circuits. The method shown in ...

The original application for the circuit in Figure 1 was to check the number of revolutions of an engine with only one LED as an indicator. The measurement of the number of revolutions usually involves sensors with a frequency output proportional ...

Light sensors find use in a host of important applications, spanning from consumer electronics, such as ambient-light measurements and exposure control for cameras, to scientific instruments, such as optical-absorption spectroscopy, IR (infrared) ...

The absolute-value amplifier is a basic building block in test-and-measurement and signal-processing applications. The addition of a DPP (digitally programmable potentiometer) adds another dimension, G (gain), to this key circuit. Because the gain ...

The circuit in Figure 1 serves as a variable, current-sink load for testing voltage sources. You use digital commands to set the load current of the device under test over a wide range, independently of the device under test's output voltage. ...

The circuit in Figure 1 uses the LM358 dual op amp running as a comparator, plus a few other inexpensive components, to make a TTL (transistor- transistor-logic)/CMOS-logic probe. The circuit gets its power from the circuit under test, which lets ...

The thermocouple is a popular sensor for industrial temperature measurement because it's accurate, cost-effective, widely available, and suitable for a wide range of temperatures. It consists of two wires of different metal or metal alloys, ...

Instrumentation amplifiers serve in a variety of applications that need to extract a weak differential signal from large common-mode noise or interference. However, designers often overlook the potential problem of RF rectification inside the ...

This Design Idea presents a low power short circuit finder that capitalizes on the ear’s sensitivity to changes in frequency. The heart of the circuit is a voltage-to-frequency converter (based on Ref. 1, Figure 13), which converts ...

The Texas Instruments IVC102 precision integrator has high-quality internal capacitors. The circuit in Figure 1 allows you to measure very-high-resistance values of R X . A precision difference amplifier, a TI INA105 , applies a reference voltage ...