Simple Theremin with Inverter Gates

This simple but complete Theremin circuit is constructed using only two inverter chip plus one regulator IC. This Theremin circuit consist of five functional blocks: power supply regulator, hand controlled oscillator, null oscillator, mixer, and filter The power supply regulator consist of LP2950 regulator IC, which stabilize the voltage from battery to 5V. You can use more popular 7805 IC for this, but since the power consumption of this Theremin circuit is very small, then you can use 78L05 which is smaller.  CR1 diode is used to protect from inappropriate battery polarity,  shorting the battery voltage together with R8 100...

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True Stereo Indicator Detects L-R Signal Difference

This true stereo indicator is different from what we usually find on FM radio receiver, which is usually a pilot tone detector. A stereo broadcast from FM radio station contain pilot tone, but a presence of pilot tone doesn’t necessarily a stereo broadcast signal since a mono FM transmitter ca broadcast pilot tone as well.  Since this circuit detect the difference between left and right channel, this circuit can detect a real stereophonic programs. When there is no difference between R and L input signals, the output A1 and output A2 is at the same potential. That will make a a virtual ground rail at half the supply voltage. The A1...

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53 dB Stereo Preamp for Tape or Phonographs

With the circuit shown in the following schematic diagram, both channels of this stereo preamp is constructed using  RCA CA3052 quad AC amplifier.  this pre-amplifier circuit is featured with tone control (bass – treble). Make a similar circuit to complete the other channel, since the circuit for left and right channel are similar. To be high-fidelity, total harmonic distortion should be kept minimum, this circuit gives less than 0.3% distortion level at  at 1-kHz testing signal with 1-V amplitude.  Gain or amplification at 1 kHz is 47 dB,  and the tone control will curve the response with 11.5-dB boost at 100...

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Simple 9V Wireless Microphone FM Transmitter

This FM transmitter circuit can be used as a wireless microphone,  can be received by an ordinary 88- to 108-MHz FM broadcast receiver. For the power supply, this transmitter circuit is powered by a 9 V battery. To comply with the radiation limit of FCC rules, keep the antenna length under 12 inches. L1 is 6 turns of #24 wire wound around a pencil or a 1/4″ form, with turns spacing of 1 wire diameter. C6 is a gimmick capacitor which has value about 1 pF...

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LM380, Simple 2 Watts Audio Amplifier

Small audio amplifier is useful for audio troubleshooting or simple audio projects. It should be a low cost and easy to build. Using integrated circuit for this purpose is the right choice. With LM380  audio amplifier integrated circuit, 2 Watts power can be delivered. For better thermal endurance, a large copper track can be printed in the board to provide heat sinking, this copper track should be soldered to pins 4, 3, 10, 5, 12 and 11...

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Direct High Voltage DC Regulator

This regulator circuit stabilize the output voltage at 200V directly (without a transformer). Although the output voltage is high, this circuit only suffer a tension of the voltage drop (Vinput-Voutput), which is suffered mainly by the transistors. The op-amp suffers even less tension, since it regulate the applied voltage at their pins around the level of transistor’s bias voltage level...

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Discrete Sliding Tone (Frequency Ramp) Doorbell

This doorbell circuit produces a low tone that will slide up to higher frequency. The equivalent total resistance connected between the base of Q1 and ground (Rbg) , and coupling capacitor  C1  determines the AF oscillator’s frequency. The resistance (Rbg) is equal to (R2+R1)R3.  The R2 is used to set the initial bias condition, adjusted to produce a pleasant low starting frequency doorbell tone. D1 will start to conduct when Capacitor C3 charge through R6 until it reaches D1 bias  voltage level. Then the value of Rbg is paralleled by R4 and D1, and R5-D2-D3, and the values of diode’s equivalent resistance is gradually...

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LM3900 Audio Mixer

This audio mixer circuit doesn’t use a low impedance input to mix no ideal  sources, but use many amplifiers to provide  ideal sources before mixed through simple resistors. Ideal source means a sources with low impedances, make the interaction between signals in the output doesn’t affect the input.   Please note that this mixer circuit has high impedance output, so you’ll need an next processing equipment with appropriate  input specs. This audio mixer circuit is designed around an LM3900 quad op amp and combines 2 line and 2 mike inputs and sums them at the output terminal. To vary the gain (around +23 dB),...

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Power Saver for Relays

Relays are normally operated at current level where it can initiate the mechanical metal contactors movement. After contacts has been established, the current level needed to keep the conductor plates stay attached is actually smaller than the current to initiate it. This power saver circuit seems to have opposite mechanism of surge protector. This circuit provide surge current to initiate mechanical movement, but after that, this circuit throttle the current to save the power, provide lower current level just to keep the contacts stay attached The mechanism of this circuit is similar but done in opposite way with current surge protector....

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TDA7056 3W BTL Mono Audio Power Amplifier

For mono output amplifier application,  TDA7056  IC can be your option. Compact but powerful, this integrated circuit is contained in a 9 pin medium power package. This device is designed for battery fed portable equipments such as mono recorders, radios and television. To attract the market, TDA7056 has many features such as low power consumption. For more reliable operation, TDA7056 also has short circuit proof and ESD (Electro Static Discharge) protected on all pins.  Designing application with this IC should be easy since no external components is needed. To make sure you’ll love this chip, this device also has no switch...

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Compressor Circuit with 570/571 Compandor IC

Compressor circuit provide high gain for low amplitude input and provide low gain for high amplitude input. This action, in effect, produce a nearly constant amplitude even though the input has very high dynamic range (very high amplitude variation from time to time). The action of compression like this is needed in some situation, such as in maximizing modulation depth in broadcasting, or sustaining electric guitar signal which has very high variation between the plucking time and fading out.  The following circuit has complementary input/output characteristic and unity gain at 0.775 VRMS input. Voltage gain through compressor...

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Sound-Activated Lamp (Relay/Switch)

This simple circuit shown int the schematic diagram actives the switch using sound. We can use this circuit for various applications, such as automatic (sound-controlled) disco light or car’s LED light show.  The Q1 amplify the audio from mic. The R1 is used to adjust the peak of signal to greater than about 0.7 volts, act as sensitivity adjuster. A certain level, the signal coming from microphone, after amplification by Q1, will trigger the SCR and light lamp I1. If we change the lamp with a relay, then we can get a sound-activated relay/switch, which can be used to control more powerful / high wattage high voltage lamps. If we use...

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Basic Complementary (Push-Pull) Power Amplifier Circuit

This amplifier circuit is very popular audio power amplifier circuit type. We call it a complementary since the final transistors is an NPN-PNP pair, each with the same characteristics. This circuit produce an AB class amplifier, since each transistor works in slightly more than half cycle of the signal. There is overlap area when both transistor conduct a current, and this area will be around its stationary current (when the input signal is zero). This circuit is also known as push-pull amplifier circuit since each transistor in the pair is working alternative...

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LM3900 Audio Mixer

This audio mixer circuit doesn’t use a low impedance input to mix no ideal  sources, but use many amplifiers to provide  ideal sources before mixed through simple resistors. Ideal source means a sources with low impedances, make the interaction between signals in the output doesn’t affect the input.   Please note that this mixer circuit has high impedance output, so you’ll need an next processing equipment with appropriate  input specs. This audio mixer circuit is designed around an LM3900 quad op amp and combines 2 line and 2 mike inputs and sums them at the output terminal. To vary the gain (around +23 dB),...

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Ni-Cad Battery Zapper, A Rechargeable Battery Reconditioner

Ni-Cad (NiCd, NiCad) battery, sometimes doesn’t work as expected, gives no power and cannot be recharged. In this situation, the battery need to be reconditioned. It’ is possible that the battery is internally shorted, and we can get the battery into life again by recondition the Ni-Cad battery using a zapper circuit. This circuit restore the Ni-Cad battery from shorting by forcing a high current flow to burn the internal dirt. The current stored in the high capacitance capacitor is heavy discharged by the SCR when zapping, and the SCR is used to disconnect the battery connection when charging the capacitor. A 120 ohm 10W resistor is used...

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Main Power-Battery Backup Switcher

The schematic diagram shown below is a battery backup regulator circuit, useful for memory or other low power (battery operated) but critical circuit (must continue operation on powerline failure). The one LT020 will not conduct in under line-powered condition, made possible by means of of feedback string’s arrangement. In case of main power failure, the battery-driven LT1020 will turn on and maintain the load, when the line LT1020 go off because the line goes do...

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High-Voltage Generator with HEX FET

The schematic diagram below show a circuit of high voltage generator. This circuit uses a 4049 hex inverter as an oscillator, and you can use ignition transformer from automotive engine. A fly-back transformer is possibly usable too. The 4049 will drive the IRF731 HEX FET. The Q1 must be heatsinked. Here is the schematic diagram of the circu...

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Voltage-Controlled Attenuator (Volume Control) Using FET

Using the circuit shown in the schematic diagram below, we can control the low-level audio signals with ±3V variable DC voltage. This attenuator circuit uses a field effect transistor (FET) to shunt the signal to ground. The R2 is used to control the output level (the attenuation level), but you can use other source of voltage signal to control the grid of the FET, such as DAC output, just remember that this voltage is a negative going signal (you can use with DAC which uses symmetric power supply system). The minimum output of this circuit is when gate bias is zero. When the gate bias is set close to pinchoff value, the circuit will produce...

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60-dB Range Compressor For Audio

A compressor circuit shown in the schematic diagram below can produce consistent output of 1.4V P-P over entire 60dB range that is very useful for audio level/volume stabilization.  As the main components, this circuit uses a 741 opamp and JFET. With input range of 20mV to 2oV, this circuit has delay time of 0.4s (decay time)  and response time of 1.2ms (attack time). The JFET is used as  voltage-controlled resistor in peak-detecting control loop of 741 opa...

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Three Cells Produce Regulated 3V – 3.3V

Three NiCad and NiMH batteries can be used to produce 3V/3.3V supply voltage. This can be done by this linear regulator circuit. This circuit uses an ICL7611 micropower op amp and MAX872 voltage reference. This regulator can be used to replace the charge pump or a switching regulator. The dropout characteristics of this circuit depends on the characteristics of Q1. The Q1 must have a gate-threshold voltage below the lowest battery voltage when this circuit is used with low voltage like a three-cell battery. Here is the schematic diagram of the circuit: This circuit requires input voltage from 3V to 15V. This circuit has two mode, high power...

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TLC497CN Negative Supply Generator

Negative supply from positive supply is needed if the circuit need both positive and negative supply while we have only positive supply. The circuit shown in the schematic diagram below is a negative supply generator, built using a TLC497CN integrated circuit. The TLC497CN is used as the main switching  circuit, and it can provide negative supply of up to 150mA. With an input supply of 10V, this circuit has efficiency about 50% but it is decreased under 50% when the input voltage is 5V. This circuit use resistor R1 to protect the IC1 from damage by limiting the current at the input to IC1 because this circuit is often be fed from...

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