my recent reads..

LEAP#465 Mr BiJuT

Mr BiJuT is what I’m calling my freeform realisation of a simple NPN/PNP transistor testing circuit.

This is a nifty little design that I found in the Radio and Electronics Cookbook. It is one of those circuits that is the height of simplicity but is also quite tricky in it’s own way! Whether you immediately “get” how it works depends very much on how you draw the schematic;-)

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

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LEAP#461 The Goblin

I remember lusting after an Ibanez Tube Screamer back in the day - they really were the stuff of legend. The most famous is perhaps the TS-808. After researching the original circuit and examining how it works in detail. I decided to build one with only a few modifications to the original circuit. I’m calling it The Goblin, owing to the custom stippled-green paint job I gave the 1590B enclosure.

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

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I’m really impressed with the sound it produces. Here’s a quick soundcheck and smoke test:


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LEAP#460 The CANary

Wilf’s Bird is a pretty famous “bird chirp” sound effect by Wilf Rigter. I last saw it used in Kelly Heaton’s wonderful bird sculpture, a Hackaday Circuit Sculpture contest winner.

The CANary is my little experiment with the sound effect.

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

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LEAP#456 Pease-out Audio Voltage Probe

The Boldport Pease-out is another tribute to Bob Pease and the classic LM331. As the last of the “classic series” monthly projects, it fittingly takes us full circle to compare and contrast with first project - “Pease”.

the Boldport Club continues - just not at the harrowing pace of 1 a month for the past few years (I seriously don’t know how Saar does it!).

The standard circuit in this kit demonstrates a stable frequency circuit and is adjustable with a variable resistor. I decided to hack it around a bit and convert it into an audio voltage probe:

  • cut the voltage lock and add a voltage probe
  • replace the LED visual indicator with a piezoelectric audio output
  • switch some capacitors to tune the frequencies for an audio range

The probe runs on 5V USB and does a decent little job of providing an audible indication of voltage - with frquency corresponding to voltage level.

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

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Here’s a quick demo..


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