Dilshan R Jayakody’s Web Log

Few weeks back I got Victor SEA-50 stereo graphic equalizer from one of my friend. This is 10 band stereo graphic equalizer manufactured by Victor Company of Japan (now JVC Kenwood ) around 1970 - 1980. SEA-50 consist with 63 transistors and it provides ±12dB control range for 32 Hz, 63 Hz, 125 Hz, 250 Hz, 500 Hz, 1 kHz, 2 kHz, 4 kHz, 8 kHz, 12 kHz / 16 kHz / 20 kHz center frequencies. The SEA-50 which we got is not working properly and most of its controls may generate distortion above +8dB and below -8dB. Apart from that left channel of this receiver has low volume and distortion. Defective transistors in control board (next to 2SA493). After few hours of checkup we identify few defective transistors ( 2SC982 ) in control board and we replace those with 2N3904 NPN transistors. Subsequent to this fix, all controls of SEA-50 start to work again on its full range (±12dB) by without producing any distortion or clipping.

Mullard 3-3 is quite popular 3W tube amplifier introduced by Mullard Ltd in 1956. A schematic and design detail of this amplifier is available in " Mullard Circuits for Audio Amplifiers " book and in National Valve Museum article . This amplifier is based on EF86 , EL84 vacuum tubes, and EZ80 full wave rectifier tube. In this project, we decided to construct this original Mullard 3-3 Amplifier with some slight changes and commonly available electronic components. Top view of Mullard 3-3 amplifier with 6P14P and 6J8 tubes. In our prototype, we replace the EZ80 tube with 400V 5A bridge rectifier which is commonly available in many electronic spare parts shops. Also, we replace EL84 with 6P14P pentode and EF86 with a 6J8 pentode. Both of these valves can directly use with this circuit and those values are available for a lesser price than EL84, EF86 tubes.

This is a simple electronic project which we implemented for some local event to guide audience automatically with some prerecorded voice messages. The core component of this unit is ISD1820PY voice record/playback chip which is manufactured by Nuvoton Technologies . Except for ISD1820PY, this unit use commonly available low power LASER and LDR assembly to detect people. To drive the loudspeaker we use popular LM386 audio power amplifier. Thanks to ISD1820PY and LM386 this system can be implemented on a breadboard or on stripboard with a minimum number of external components. This circuit is designed to drive using 6V or 9V DC battery but it can also drive with 6V or 9V DC regulated power supply. To get 3.3V we use an LD1117V33 voltage regulator, but this can also be replaced with some commonly available 3.3V regulators such as LD33V, MC33269-3.3, etc. For the speaker, we use 4-inch 8Ω full-range speaker. A prototype version of electronic voice messenger. This unit can be u...

74181 is 4-bit arithmetic and logic unit introduced by Texas Instruments in March 1970 and it is known for being the first ALU in a single package. This chip is no longer in manufacturing but still, it is quite popular in CA ( computer architecture ) courses in many colleges. To test the behavior of this 4-bit ALU we decided to construct it on Altera MAX II CPLD. For this project, we choose EPM240T100C5 CPLD and logic design is implemented using Altera Quartus II . For logic design, we refer to Fairchild Semiconductor’s DM74LS181 datasheet. This setup is tested on basic EPM240 series development board with some mechanical switches and couple of LEDs. 74181 4-bit ALU test setup with the EPM240T100C5 development board. There are several test circuits available for 74181 ALU and our test setup is partially based on Electronics for Your (EFY) 1997 article. In another test setup, we use HEF4040 to drive, A and B operands of this ALU. The test setup attached to this article is t...

AN6877 is linear AF level meter IC produced by Panasonic and it is commonly found on much audio equipment. This chip is no longer manufactured by Panasonic and finding replacement chip for AN6877 is also quite difficult. The circuit described in this article is designed to replace AN6877 base LED drivers and it is based on commonly available components. This replacement LED driver is designed using 10, MMBT3904/2N3904 transistors and it can easily modify to get the necessary number of outputs. During the prototyping stages, we test this driver with a minimum of 7 LEDs (AN6877 configuration) and up to 12 LEDs. This LED driver is designed to work with 9V to 12V DC power source. With 7 LEDs and 9V power source, this module can directly replace AN6877 base LED driver modules. Schematic and PCB design related to this LED driver is available at google drive .

ZFM-20 is an optical fingerprint sensor module series developed by Zhiantec . Resolution of these fingerprint modules are 256×288 pixels and depending on the module it can be accessible over UART or USB interfaces. Other than capturing fingerprints this module has inbuilt DSP to process and verify captured fingerprints. This ZFM-20 fingerprint library is developed to capture and retrieve fingerprint images from the above sensor module. The main purpose of this library is to use ZFM-20 sensor with PC as a low-cost fingerprint capture unit and because of that, in-module fingerprint processing and verification functions are not implemented in this library. ZFM-20 fingerprint sensor test setup with CH340G serial to USB converter. ZFM20-LIB is x86 native shared library and it's implemented using Lazarus / FPC . This library is developed to use with most of the programming languages which including C , C++ , Delphi , FPC , Microsoft .net framework based languages, etc. Objec...

This is a single chip dynamic microphone preamplifier which is design to drive using commonly available 12V single rail power supplies. Preamplifier in this article is built around popular NE5532 dual low noise operational amplifier IC and this preamplifier is specifically constructed to drive professional 600Ω dynamic microphones. Internal view of a dynamic microphone preamplifier prototype. This preamplifier consists of two amplifier stages and the initial amplifier is designed to get 36dB gain and final preamplifier is used to get 16dB of gain. Preamplifier gain controller is placed in between those two amplifiers and this separation allows reducing clipping in the output waveform. In prototyping stages, we test this preamplifier with few 600Ω dynamic microphones with a TDA2050 power amplifier . According to our observations, this unit produces excellent output with all of these microphones. To get professional results to use this preamplifier with 12V battery or with regu...