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Contactless DTMF switch

This is contactless DTMF ( Dual Tone - Multi Frequency ) switch to control 16 channel relay boards. This module can turn ON/OFF relays based on DTMF singles which captured from its microphones. This project is building using 4 commonly available ICs which including TL084, TL081, CM8870, and 74LS154. TL084 is used as microphone preamplifier and LPF. TL081 act as combiner and CM8870 is used to decode the DTMF inputs. 74LS154, the demultiplexer is used as line selector. In this circuit TL084 and TL081 and replace with any compatible operational amplifier IC. During our prototyping, we replace TL084 with LM324, TL074, and TL081 with TL071 and got identical results. For the microphones, it is highly recommended to use omnidirectional condenser microphones. In our tests, we get good results when both the microphones are in the 90⁰ plane. This circuit is design to work with single rail 5V DC power source and its output terminal ( SV1 ) is compatible with most of the 16 channel relay bo...

UC3844 base motor speed controller

UC3844 is a popular current mode controller which is commonly found on DC-to-DC converter circuits and switch mode power supplies. This motor speed controller is also based on UC3844 and it is specifically designed to drive 20V - 24V DC motors. In this given configuration UC3844 produces (approx.) 50kHz to 240kHz PWM output and this range can be adjusted by changing the value of C2 timing capacitor. As per the datasheet, UC3844 is capable to produce PWM output frequency up to 1MHz. This circuit is quite sensitive to the noises, and to get the accurate output to construct this circuit on PCB. As per our observations, long wires on the oscillator circuit may change the stability of the output signal. According to the ON semiconductors , UC3844 has now discontinued product but it is still commonly available in the market for less than Rs. 40.00 (LKR). For this circuit either DIP (UC3844N) or SMD (UC3844D1) version of UC3844 can be used but the PCB design available with this arti...

EAGLE BOM generation script

This is a quick post about EAGLE parts list generation script which I was written to replace existing " part2html.ulp ". This script generates a more organized and detailed BOM HTML file and it can directly replace " part2html.ulp ". This script is tested with EAGLE 6.6.0, but it can also work with older versions of EAGLE software. This script is available to download at http://github.com/dilshan/bom-gen with usage details.

FlashProg - USB serial flash memory programmer

FlashProg is USB base flash memory programmer to work with 3.3V serial flash memory devices. This programmer is specifically design to read, program and configure 25x series, serial flash memory devices which are commonly used to store BIOS in PC mainboards. Originally we design this project to read and program BIOS of Foxconn G31MXP mainboard. Our version of G31MXP contains Macronix MX25L8005 8M-Bit serial flash memory and we use this programmer to load some of our custom BIOS to this serial memory. MX25L8005 SPI flash memory on Foxconn G31MXP mainboard FlashProg programmer is built around Atmel ATmega8A microcontroller with standard through-hole type components and it support for both 32 bit and 64 bit Windows and Linux operating systems. All the compiled binaries for both the platforms are available at project home page at flashprog.sourceforge.net . This programmer use very few components and it can be easily constructed on breadboard or on PCB. Both EAGLE and PDF...

CD2003 - yet another simple FM radio receiver

In the last few days, we are looking for some simple FM radio receiver to integrate into one of our ongoing projects. For that, we try several FM radio receiver ICs including TDA7000, CD2003/TA2003/TA8164, CXA1019, and KA22429. Out of all those chips we select CD2003 (or TA2003/TA8164) based receiver for our project because of its simplicity and outstanding performance. Except to CD2003, Sony CXA1019 also perform well but we drop it because of its higher component count. We design our receiver based on Toshiba TA2003 datasheet and later we try TA8164 and CD2003 with the same circuit. Either CD2003 or TA8164 can directly replace TA2003 IC, and as per our observations, TA8164 gives excellent results out of those 3 chips. A prototype version of CD2003 FM radio receiver The PCB design and schematic which we used in our prototype project are available to download at google drive (including pin-outs of crystal filters and inductors ). Except for CD2003 IC, this receiver consist...

3A Power supply for USB devices

This is 5V 3A power supply to drive two USB based devices simultaneously. This power supply is design around LM2576-5.0 switching regulator IC and the main reasons to choose this IC is its low parts count, small heat sink requirements and its inbuilt current limit protection feature. Prototype version of 3A USB power supply We specially design this power supply to work with development boards / single board computer (SBC) platforms such as Raspberry Pi , Banana Pi , BeagleBone , etc. This power supply can also be used to provide power to USB OTG peripherals over USB Y cables. We test this setup and got successful results with Huawei Ascend P6 mobile phone.

Low cost DC millivolt source

DC millivolt sources are often used for thermocouple simulations, DMM, ADC, and analog circuit calibrations and fault findings, etc. Most of the DC millivolt circuits are based on expensive (and sometimes hard to find) operation amplifier like OP7, LT1077, etc. In this article we introduce low cost DC millivolt source based on commonly available LM308 precision operational amplifier, ICL8069 low voltage reference and 78L05 voltage regulator ICs. This millivolt source is design to obtain 200mV - 700mV DC output with 100Ω impedance. At the time of writing we spend Rs.800.00 ( LKR ) to complete this project. Finished view of DC millivolt source. The most expensive component in this project is Bourns 10K linear multi-turn potentiometer. We use Bourns potentiometer because of its reliability and durability, but any 10K linear multi-turn potentiometers can be used with this circuit. The output impedance of this millivolt source is set to 100Ω to work with most of the high impedan...