delabs Schematics » Digital-Circuits

Electronic Shift Monitor

admin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:05:00 +0000

The Security Guard duty monitor below, shown in eight circuits at Digital Circuits – 1 are examples of logic circuits, i have converted them from the DOS Orcad to Orcad 9 and corrected some errors a few years back.

These circuits can be used for looking at the logic blocks or to learn. This product was built and sold to some firms many years back. Now these designs are best done with a PIC or Atmel chip. Here is the user manual Electronic Shift Monitor ESM9000

High Resistance Meter

admin — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 07:40:00 +0000

I don’t remember if this circuit worked properly. But a few were made and i might not have shown the modifications that were done to make it work. This was meant to be a portable, low cost, insulation tester for an electrician. If you try it out and debug it it may work well.

A negative voltage is derived by shifting gnd with two diodes, i feel this did not work very well. Two pins of CD4028 pins are also used to boost the reference to get two extra ranges as 4051 has a 100E on resistance.

From Schematics of delabs

The 555 clock makes 4029 counter count. But the clock can be clamped to gnd by a TL062 window comparator. The clock is frozen when the input value to comparator pin 5-2 is within a lower limit and upper limit “window” pin 3-6.

The 4029 counter BCD is decoded to decimal by 4028 which drives the LEDs, keep LED drive within 3mA or chip will be loaded. Use high efficiency extra-bright LEDs.

The 4029 BCD also controls a shunt resistor array with CMOS switches 4051. The voltage across shunt is a sample of leakage current. This is compared in the window comparator to freeze the Clock and LED display to give a reading of the leakage current or Insulation Resistance.

Advanced Reading

RS232 with Opto-Isolation

admin — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 11:07:00 +0000

I had to once interface an high voltage circuit to PC, The uC had to communicate thru RS232–Comm port–Serial Port.

Even though i had isolation at the sensors and actuators to make doubly sure the PC also has been isolated. There are chips that are available for this purpose, The circuit above is built with discrete and passive components except for the opto 4N35. You can use MCT2E and CNY17-3 Optos too. For MCT2E some tweak may be needed as current transfer ratio is 20, for the other two CTR is 100 so above design will work.

The circuit derives power from PC but does not load the PC supply. Any voltage above 5V applied to the PC connectors may lead to damage of motherboard in PC. Old PCs were more vulnerable but PCs today maybe a bit rugged at the Ports. Due to internal current limits and clamping.

The VCC, VDD and Agnd are derived from PC no other power needs to be applied on PC side of opto. On uC side of opto the uC power supply lines +5 and gnd has to be used. There is no copper link between the two sides and depending on opto a 1KV isolation is possible if PCB is well designed. The PCB should show the visual isolation above and components should be laid on separate areas of PCB to prevent creepage.

The LEDs are to indicate the port activity Rx and Tx, they are not required once testing is over. The circuit can be simpler, but this worked for me and it is not tested at very-high buad rates.

The levels of RS232 are not TTL like 0-5 we have both polarities +10 and -10. The circuit has to change that to drive the Opto Leds. Read more about serial port here.

And some RS232 software. here.

Single Digit Voltmeter with LM311

admin — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 04:45:00 +0000

I wanted to design a logic probe as a tutorial, but there were many good ones in the web so i have tried to design a single digit voltmeter. This circuit is a design, i am unable to test it now, later if i test it and find mistakes i will update this page. You can help me by pointing out the errors.

First bear it in mind that it is a single digit voltmeter which is 0-9 counts only on the positive side, that is it can measure +0 to +9V DC +/- 1V error. That may not be practical for the cost of the components above. It may be used as a toy logic probe. The reason for the circuit is not for usage, but to give design ideas. The methodology used is Gut Feel – Thumb Rule method.

First i explain the simple part, D1 a seven segment common cathode LED display is chosen as CD4511 is a sourcing driver. 4511 can be latched so it has been used here, it decodes binary 4 bit decade info to seven segment output. The four bits are derived from CD4029 up-down clock pulse counter. LM311 is a analog comparator with single supply capability which is the A-D interface.

To avoid resistors for each of the LEDs the LEDs are turned ON-OFF at 10KHz 50% duty cycle. The Nand Schmitt Trigger CD4093 is used as in IC4D as a 10KHz Clock which drives T1 transistor with a resistor R5. On turn on IC4D one input is high which is pin 12 pulled up to +5 and another Pin 13 is Low as C4 is in discharged condition in NAND gate both inputs high, gives a low output, the other combinations the output is high. So the output goes high, this starts charging the cap C4 which soon makes both inputs high, which in turn makes output low starting the discharge of C4. This is now evidently a endless loop, hence it is a oscillator. R*C = T …. 0.01uF * 10K = 100uS or 10KHz as F=1/T approx or better still multiply by 1.1 ?. I am not good at formulae but i manage with a calculator.

The supply and ground pins of CMOS chips have not been shown, see datasheet or earlier circuits.

IC4A is also a oscillator but slower which is good enough, it is slow so that a measurement can be made nearly every second. The IC4A slow clock is read by 4029 which produces a count-down binary nibble at Q1….Q4, This is converted to crude analog with R1…R4. The voltage generated is compared with the voltage you are measuring by LM311 which generates a Latch pulse to 4511 to freeze the reading where both voltages match.

Method of Operation :

IC2 is a Counter in Decade-Down mode and IC3 is a BCD to Seven Segment Decoder which Drives the Display D1. The Circuit is wired in such a way as to keep counting the Pulses from the Clock IC4A. The IC4A which is wired as Schmitt Nand Oscillator Clocks the Counter. Now to understand how this Counter and display works see this Interactive Tutorial Simple Digital Counter. For every pulse at Pin-15 of 4029 the Counter Counts down from 9-8-7-6…. and so on. But the Display is Latched by IC4C, So the Display is static even when counter is running. So while testing counter you can remove IC4C and keep LE Pin-5 of 4511 low to ground. For testing this Circuit you can use the manual clock with a pushbutton (single step) or a slow clock rate 1 Hz as in the Tutorial Simple Digital Counter.

The Transistor T1 and Oscillator IC4D is to chop the power to display at a fast rate, this avoids the adding of seven resistors. This is not required, but it saves power and reduces parts count. IC4B is is like a ON indicator, it is a spare gate.

The BCD value at output of 4029 Q1-Q4, four bits, a nibble, is converted to an analog mV value across R6. The resistors R1-R4 which are connected to Q1-Q4 have weighted resistor values for the BCD 1-2-4-8. By ohms law you can understand that the analog value across R6 is approximately proportional to the BCD value. This circuit is just a single digit A-D converter, not even as good as 4 bit converter. Which means approximate value of analog at R6 will do.

Now lastly LM311 is a Comparator, it compares the Analog BCD reference at Pin-3 and the Attenuated Input signal at Pin-2. Output Pin-7 goes high when Pin-3 voltage becomes less than Pin-2. This is made to a narrow latch pulse by C2-R12-IC4C. The latch pulse freezes the BCD data to display till the next latch pulse. R8-R9 attenuate the 0-9 V DC input to a 1/100 value. The zener Diode Z1 is for protection.

I guess the LM311 circuit should work off a single supply, but a dual supply may be required as voltage levels may be near zero. You must be able to see a staircase waveform or ramp across R6. Narrow Latch pulses at Pin-5 4511 on every ramp cycle.

Simple High speed data switch

admin — Mon, 16 May 2005 23:31:00 +0000

This circuit is a small representation of a very low cost printer sharer i made very long ago. This is as much i can remember of the basic ideas behind the product.

I used to pot the product in epoxy with a black dye and sold a few, they sort of served the purpose. Output impedance of this circuit is high, sink is 220K source is 3.9K+ so use some buffers or drivers at Output.

when Enable A is at float-high impedance or low the output O1-O4 is not influenced by A1-A4 inputs. If Enable A is made logic high or 5V then A1-A4 is available at O1-O4.

By turning Enable A or Enable B high, you can route the data A1-A4 or B1-B4 to the output O1-O4, you can also mix data and you can expand to any number of input sets or data width. 1N4148 is fast, 4nS, that makes this data switch quite fast. This circuit cannot drive long printer cables without drivers. They will load the output.

Sample and Hold with Standby CD4053

admin — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 06:10:00 +0000

A, B, and C are the Digital Control for x, y and z input and output pairs.The voltage at Vinx is stored in C1 when A goes high, when A is low the voltage stored in C1 is read by buffer U2A.

The stby or standby input should be low when sample and hold is operating. If stby is taken high then C1 Cap is isolated and leakage is minimum. The supply of +/- 7.5V is chosen as OFF resistance of 4053 is high at this supply.

Monostable Multivibrator CD4538

admin — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 03:54:00 +0000

CD4538 is a dual Monostable Multivibrator. When you trigger the chip the output sends off one single pulse or one high-low event.

The T+ pin 4 of U1a is the positive edge trigger or raising edge trigger input, the T- pin 5 is falling edge or negative edge trigger input. Now see the image of the single pulse above which shows both the edges, If this is the input pulse at pin 5 then the falling edge turns the output pin 6 from low to high, this output remains high for time T = R2 * C1 and then goes low again, The output Q at pin 6 also looks like the image of pulse above.

The Output pin 7 is the complementary state of pin 6, it is the reverse state or inverted form of pin 6 output.

Now why is a slope shown in the edges, this i have exaggerated a bit so that it can be explained. But then there is a slight slope due to gate input and output capacitance.

In fact if you had a wire or twisted track coming to the input and the R2C1 was in nano seconds, then you would see a ringing at the edges, a tiny peak or spike, which will have giga hertz frequency components, in fact a square way may be many sine waves put together, this you know from a spectrum analyzer.

CD4538B can give an output with pulse width of 1uS and above. 74HC4538 gives 120nS to 60 Seconds pulses. The above circuit produces a pulse of width T = R3 * C2 after a delay of T = R2 * C1. Some Chips formula is T = 0.7 * R * C .

The pdf data sheet is here.