my recent reads..

Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters; From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima
Power Sources and Supplies: World Class Designs
Red Storm Rising
Locked On
Analog Circuits Cookbook
The Teeth Of The Tiger
Sharpe's Gold
Without Remorse
Practical Oscillator Handbook
Red Rabbit

Friday, August 26, 2016

LittleArduinoProjects#222 Stair-step Generator

Once again I'm inspired to go and build a circuit by yet another great tutorial from w2aew.

This circuit generates a stairstep waveform by an ingenious combination of 3 circuit elements:
  • a "high" (265Hz) frequency pulse (555 timer) provides the charge to step-up the output
  • the step pulse feeds an OpAmp pulse integrator/accumulator
  • a low frequency pulse generator (OpAmp oscillator) provides the reset pulse that clears the accumulator and resets the 555

As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub.



Friday, August 05, 2016

LittleArduinoProjects#221 XOR with Resistor-Transistor Logic

Exclusive OR (XOR) operation is true only when the inputs are different.

An XOR may be constructed using combinatorial logic: an OR ANDed with a NAND. But can it be done with even more basic discrete components?

This circuit uses a diode-bridge and a single transistor - quite neat. It does mean however that there is no output buffer, in fact the output is powered from the inputs. I'm using an Arduino to drive the circuit and capture the output plot.

As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub.