Recent content by The Brain

1 Mhz seems to be a little low to be causing problems just because of the solderless breadboard. I would look for either poor wiring (ie longer wires then necessary), or maybe incorrect measurement technique. It is important that you minimize all current loops as much as possible. A long wire...

That should work alright but there is better ways of hooking the different shift registers together. The easiest way is to connect all the clocks together and all the latch wires together and then connect the parallel port to the serial in pin of the first 74HC595. You can then connet the...

There seems to be two seperate issues here. First I'll address the power mosfet issue. Yes it is a power MOSFET, but why argue symantics. Technically a mosfet is a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor. This means that the both the power transistors and the tiny transistors...

That’s a confrontational message but I’ll answer it anyways. What you describe, a MOSFET and amplifier and some diodes, is a simple method of creating a linear regulator. This is what you would typically find in a LM317 or other type of 3 terminal regulators. The problem with this type of...

What your problem comes down to is one of ground current loops. The answer really depends on what type of power supply your are using. If your power supply is NOT isolated, that is the +/- 20v is referenced to the wall plug's ground then you should probably not use it, since your "ground"...

Speaking as someone who has designed power distribution networks in the past, I feel that I am qualified to answer your question. There is really two different answers to your question. The first answer assumes that the larger capacitor has the exact same properties as the original capacitor...

The answer may not be as simple as just a broken relay. SSR are not all created equal. Some require very specific voltages to turn on, if they are optically isolated for example. What model of SSR are you trying to use?

It is true that rapid switching does result in a dimmed light, most household lighting dimmer switches do just this. The trouble is that you can't reliably use a relay to perform the switching. A typical semiconductor based dimmer performs pulse width modulation directly on the AC itself...

I don't believe that he wants a circuit to simply turn the lights on or off. I would imagine he wants it to pulsate along with the song. This would be more complicated then just a relay. He would probably need an SCR circuit to operated directly on 120v (not exactly safe to play around with).

You can directly hook an LED upto 110VAC, provided you use the proper resistor to limit current. However, as you have identified this would be a little more dangerous then some other solutions. I would recommend you just get a little 12v power brick and use that to drive your LEDs and...

Sorry for the slow reply but I have been busy else where. This no voltage result is actually promising. Now I just need to clarify if there might be power coming off the board from other wires. From your pictures I can identify the 10 pin header and what looks to be the AC supply wires...

Although al Mac already replied to this I thought I would just try to save my honour by saying that I'm quite sure I am correct. The trouble with running two LEDs in parallel is that the "turn-on", or threshold, voltages will be slightly different. Even it they are the exact same LEDs one...

No.. Don't do the first one. If you have two LEDs in parallel only one will light to full brightness. You really either need to run them in series, as in the second diagram, or have a resistor for each.

From that picture it is clear that it is not a fuse or a resistor, since a fuse needs to be in series, not in parallel, and a resistor wouldn't make any sense. Typically motors use a filter capacitor across its terminals and that is what your blue component is. From the markings it appears...

It is possible to do what you want with a small digital logic circuit. What you need is a J-K flipflop. Basically a J-K flip flop can be wired up such that its output will toggle everytime a pulse is provided to its clock pin. I.e. One pulse -> Output goes high Another pulse ->...