Interface

Perpetual Candle – White LED Lamp on Ni-Cd

This is a easy to build LED lamp circuit for Learning and building skills. This is the first draft schematic V 1.0. It will need improvements for Higher Power Lighting.

From Schematics of delabs

I will give a short summary, The LM317 here configured for around 6.4V DC. The Q3 BC547 limits the current, you can select R3 to suit, make it 1/2W. The Ni-Cd battery pack 1.2 * 4 will not get Over-Current or Over-Voltage due to this circuit.

The IRF540 Mosfet or any other equivalent you have around, along with Q2 BC547 forms a current source for the parallel 12 LED array. Ultra-bright White LED at 20mA each or use a 1W ready LED Chip. R4/R6 can be selected for the Max LED current. The voltage of LED is around 3.1 and 20mA * 12 = 240mA is the max current. You can Tweak the design for even 5A or more but then you will need a DC/DC High frequency converter in place of LM317. The Current source also needs to switch to improve efficiency. A PWM on the mosfet gives brightness control. The entire solution (switching) can be found in many chips with semiconductor vendors today.

From Hobby Hound

One Single High Current LED may work well. 12 Matched LEDs also can be used. In LED Array some are dim, put min. resistor (3.9 ohm) for all 12 for current sharing. The resistor addition will impar the ability of Candle to work at lower battery voltages. Also resistor is less green, It wastes power, so use PWM and Single Die high current LED. Ni-Cd system may last over 5 Years if Candle is allways on Mains. Sealed Lead Acid system may go upto 2-3 years life but will have more punch. A SuperCap system may last more than 12 Years, i feel.

Source in Cadsoft Eagle format – candle.zip

October 15th, 2009 | Category: LED-Circuits, Lighting-Circuits | Leave a comment

Interface a uC to PC RS232 with MAX232A

This is the standard configuration on how to Interface a uC like 8051 to PC RS232 with MAX232A. The UART or Serial port was not present in 8049/8749 chips which were the ancestors of 8051/8031. Pages of code were needed to make a software UART in MCS-48. The 8051 integrated the hardware UART and short commands made it tick. The most important innovation which made uC popular was the C in 80C31. C is for CMOS. This made the chip work cooler and work on even batteries and small power supplies.

The 8749 and 8751 are the UV EPROM type of uC. With limited erase/write cycles. The FLASH revolution changed every thing, you could update firmware over a phone line modem. Even without Ethernet, the firmware could be updated by making every embedded device a node on the EPABX. Now TCP/IP and Wi-Fi makes it all very easy.

Interface a uC to PC RS232 with MAX232A

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October 8th, 2009 | Category: Embedded-Systems | Leave a comment

Resistance Measurement Analog LED Meter

This is a LED Analog Meter, This can be used as a Resistance Meter and Low Impedance Voltmeter for Battery Levels. To measure battery voltage, the R5-R12-R17 etc. part of the Reference Resistor Divider Network can be modified to suit. Shown here is for 4 LEDs, Use Three LM324 for 12 or More LEDs and Cascade as shown.

Resistance Measurement Analog LED Meter

This cannot Measure Voltage levels from High Impedance Sources, will work for Battery Voltage Tests. To make it into a Continuity tester. R27 must be a short and R23 5 Ohms. The Black probe should have a Built in Resistance of 2 Ohms. If you want it to be a dedicated voltmeter, remove R3, The Probe has to be a 10X Attenuator with 10M Ohm and The Resistor Divider Steps in 100mV per Step. The R27, R23 etc. is 20K. A Leakage Tester a Mains Voltage Monitor are other possibilities. Use LM3914 for a easier solution. A nice book for your Design Library – Measuring Circuits By Rudolf F. Graf

February 21st, 2009 | Category: LED-Circuits, Opamp-Circuits, Test-Measurement | Leave a comment

Analog Level by BCD Thumbwheel Switch

BCD Thumbwheel Switch is used to input-set data in digital form, this can be read by digital circuits, uC and uP systems and PLC-SCADA Interfaces.

In the early transition of analog to digital, before uP became acceptable, Digital systems without uP were made, it even had printers, RAM and displays. The uP systems were coming in, uC had not yet come and uP systems had to still win the confidence of the Prudent Industrial Design Engineer.

The drawbacks of uP based systems used in Computers, in those days were.

  • Power Consumption was very high, needed SMPS.
  • Many chips, a CPU had a Retinue of many chips.
  • Large Board, Double or Multi Sided due to Bus.
  • Fussy, Hangs on minor Power Glitches or Resets.
  • Needs Firmware Development and Tight Testing.
  • Investment in all these areas, Tools and Manpower.

These made Industrial Automation with uP a challenge. CMOS digital and mixed devices and custom application devices were more easy to implement and affordable.

The coming of Low power CMOS uC changed everything and embedded systems became smaller and robust. These were packable in DIN standard and DIN Rail Mounting enclosures.

Coming back to inputting digital data. CMOS uC and Ni-Cd Battery backed up RAM with keyboards made thumb-wheels and other methods less attractive for digital data inputs. Then the Li-Ion Battery, Flash Memory in Combination with Application Specific uC and SOC have made inputting, retaining digital data very easy and affordable.

Thumbwheels are mechanical memory like DIP switches, but have limited number of operations. Flash is Mechanical Noise immune, vibration will not shake the bits out of it. Thumbwheels are Electrical Noise Immune, data will not be corrupted due to Spikes, Glitches, EMI, RFI and Power Supply Failures. Yet thumbwheels cannot input or store an entire page of data.

Here is a Circuit that will help you understand or learn practically Digital to Analog Conversion. Practical Learning is very important for Technical Education. So you can easily wire this up and learn. This is an Inverting Op-Amp where Ri is varied using TWS. Vref can be from LM336 (-2.5V).

Analog Level by BCD Thumbwheel Switch

Ignore the DIP Switch part, When a 10 Turn Bourns Pot is used in place of Thumbwheel for Setting the Value, the DIP switch settings are changed.

(Information above is presented for edutainment purpose only, to create an appetite for learning – Cross Verify your learning acquired, from other Sources – delabs)

February 20th, 2009 | Category: Opamp-Circuits | Leave a comment
 
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