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Stepped Volume Control

Louder music, sirens or speech in response to higher ambient noise levels? This simple circuit has the answer, and it may enable your robot to be at least as noisy or loud-mouthed as the others in an arena. The circuit consists basically of a microphone, a level detector, a 4-state counter and four analogue switches connected to a resistive ladder network. Looking at the circuit diagram, the signal from electret microphone M1 is amplified by...

Converting a DCM Motor

We recently bought a train set made by a renowned company and just couldn’t resist looking inside the locomotive. Although it did have an electronic decoder, the DCM motor was already available 35 (!) years ago. It is most likely that this motor is used due to financial constraints, because Märklin (as you probably guessed) also has a modern 5-pole motor as part of its range. Incidentally, they have recently introduced a brushless model. The...

DRM Direct Mixer Using an EF95/6AK5

This hybrid DRM receiver with a single valve and a single transistor features good large-signal stability. The EP95 (US equivalent: 6AK5) acts as a mixer, with the oscillator signal being injected via the screen grid. The crystal oscillator is built around a single transistor. The entire circuit operates from a 6-V supply. The receiver achieves a signal-to-noise ratio of up to 24 dB for DRM signals. That means the valve can hold its own against...

Negative-Output Switching Regulator

There are only a limited number of switching regulators designed to generate negative output voltages. In many cases, it’s thus necessary to use a switching regulator that was actually designed for a positive voltage in a modified circuit configuration that makes it suitable for generating a negative output voltage. The circuit shown in Figure 1 uses the familiar LM2575 step-down regulator from National Semiconductor (www.national.com). This...

Two-Cell LED Torch

It sometimes comes as a bit of a shock the first time you need to replace the batteries in an LED torch and find that they are not the usual supermarket grade alkaline batteries but in fact expensive Lithium cells. The torch may have been a give away at an advertising promo but now you discover that the cost of a replacement battery is more than the torch is worth. Before you consign the torch to the waste bin take a look at this circuit. It...

Temperature Reference

It is often difficult to properly calibrate a temperature sensor since there is no suitable aid for doing so available. This article, which describes a temperature reference source, aims at putting this right. Since the source is made variable, the reference temperature may also be used for adjusting thermostats correctly. This may prove useful in the case of the recently published Titan 2000 audio power amplifier. The diagram shows how a Type...

Mains Voltage Detector

The detector is intended to sense and signal to another circuit that an appliance is connected to the mains voltage. For this purpose, an optocoupler, IC1 in the circuit, is used. The light-emitting diode in this device is connected across the mains voltage rectified by bridge B1. The mains voltage is applied to this bridge via potential divider R1-C1-R2. When the capacitor has a value as specified in the diagram, the current through the diode...