Electronic Circuits and Diagram-Electronics Projects and Design

Most of the electronic circuits used in Circuitstoday.com have different applications of the transformer. Therefore, it is important to know the working principle, construction and types of transformers used in different analog circuits. Transformer – Working Principle A transformer can be defined as a static device which helps in the transformation of electric power in one circuit to electric power of the same frequency in another circuit. The voltage can be raised or lowered in a circuit, but with a proportional increase or decrease in the current ratings. The main principle of operation of a transformer is mutual inductance between…

da Vinci console Artificial satellites placed in orbits are used for a variety of purposes like communication, GPS, military applications, TV broadcasting, and so on.  No matter how much time and money has been spent on building these hi-tech devices, satellites are basically just machines, and constant use can damage any machine. Every year NASA is spending millions of dollars just for the maintenance of these satellites, but they have not found a feasible way to repair a damaged one. Till present, there was only one option left for the researchers –completely blow–off the satellite!!They could not find any other…

 Global Positioning System (GPS) is accessible to almost everyone by the introduction of smart phones. We can know our position and can locate any place by using satellites. Currently, the device has some limitations, as if GPS is not available inside houses, poor signal reception in remote places, and so on.  GPS systems currently can track up to 10 feet. However, this height is more than enough for consumer applications, the defense personnel’s are in need of a more accurate system.   Lockheed Martin, a high-tech company, is developing the next generation GPS satellites, with a tracking accuracy of almost 3…

MP3302 MP3302 is a boost converter IC specifically designed for LED drive applications. The MP3302 can drive 27 LEDs (9 strings of 3 white LEDs in series) from a Lithium ion battery. The IC has internal power MOSFETs for driving the LEDs and has an efficiency of 88%. Switching frequency is 1.3MHz and the internal current limit is 1.33A. Other features of the MP3302 are open load shut down, thermal shut down, under voltage lock out etc. Applications of Mp3302 are LED back lights, LED based lighting gadgets etc.  Functional block diagram of the MP3302 is shown below (Fig1). The…

World’s Smallest Stirling Engine In this era of nanotechnology, from a transistor to a heat engine, everything is getting small. While reducing to micro size, we may think that the efficiency and performance of the device maybe compromised. However, researchers are trying their best to maintain the same ratings of a conventional device with its size being minimized.  Researchers from Stuttgart University and Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems have developed a micro particle that functions as a sterling engine (as small as 3 micrometers). A sterling engine is a heat engine in which gas expands and contracts there by…

CAT3603. CAT3603 is a three channel charge pump LED driver IC from Catalyst Semiconductors that can be operated in either LDO mode or fractional mode. The IC can deliver 30mA per channel and can be operated from an input voltage range of 3 to 5.5V DC. CAT3063 has a quiescent current as low as 0.1uA and this makes it suitable for battery powered applications. The operating frequency is 1Mhz  which makes it possible to use small capacitors. Another features are soft start, current limiting, high efficiency (90%)  and short circuit protection. Applications of this IC are hand held devices, LCD…

Lets begin this article with a simple question. “What is an addressing mode ?“. A simple question always has a simple answer too. Addressing mode is a way to address an operand.  Operand means the data we are operating upon (in most cases source data). It can be a direct address of memory, it can be register names, it can be any numerical data etc. I will explain this with a simple data move instruction of 8051. MOV A,#6AH Here the data 6A is the operand, often known as source data. When this instruction is executed, the data 6AH is…

Hi everyone, We are introducing a new author to CircuitsToday Well, here meet Anish.K, a student in engineering from Anna university. He will cover topics on Embedded systems and Robotics mainly. You can read about Anish in his bio page. Anish will publish his articles on every Tuesday. So stay tuned for your Tuesday column every week. Introduction to Embedded systems: Hai, this article pictures the very basics of embedded system for a beginner. Embedded System – What is it?     Whenever I hear the term “Embedded System”, what comes to mind is “A combination of hardware and software” as instructed at…

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have always had the legacy of doing things that were so called “impossible” by the rest of the world. Recently they came with an idea of a new imaging system that can capture photons at a rate of one trillion frames per second. Yes, you heard it right. Now we can capture the video of the fastest known particle in the universe, the photons. This virtual slow motion camera captures the video of photons traversing through space. This high-speed camera is more than enough to produce a slow motion video of light…

Amplifier is a circuit that is used for amplifying a signal. The input signal to an amplifier will be a current or voltage and the output will be an amplified version of the input signal. An amplifier circuit which is purely based on a transistor or transistors is called a transistor amplifier. Transistors amplifiers are commonly used in applications like RF (radio frequency), audio, OFC (optic fibre communication) etc. Anyway the most common application we see in our day to day life is the usage of transistor as an audio amplifier. As you know there are three transistor configurations that…