Circuits by Tomi

Replacing flashlight bulbs with LEDs

One day I had an old flashlight that had burned light bulb on it. It was a small cheap model powered with two AA batteries. I could fix it with new light bulb, but going through the trouble of trying to find exactly suitable replacement light bulb felt like more than the value of the

TDR kit built

My Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR) circuit has been available as kit made by Far Circuits. The kit consists only of circuit board and components needed to build the circuit in a small plastic bag (you need to download the building instructions). The original circuit design is from my web page and Far Circuits added 5V

TDR circuit kit available

My Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR) circuit is now available in kit form. Far Circuits has made a TDR kit that consists of circuit board and components. The Far Circuits version is a slightly modified circuits, the modification is that the circuit board has a 5V regulator IC in it. With that regulator the circuit power

TDR circuit modification idea

You might know my Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR) signal source circuit published on ePanorama.net many years ago. It has worked well for me many times. Some years ago I made a modification to my own TDR unit. This simple modification allows me to use the same box also as a signal source with a wide

LED light ring for macro photography

For good macro photography you need to have good light. Getting nice light nicely to location near camera lens can be sometimes hard. Some photographers use special Macro Photo Studio. Some macro photographers use two flashes mounted on opposite sides of the lens. Some prefer to use ring lights. After some experimenting I thought that

Digital audio isolation

Isolator for digital audio is needed in cases where coaxial S/PDIF digital audio link forms a ground loop in your audio system. Typically in coaxial S/PDIF connections the coaxial cable shield is connected to equipment cases. This arrangement easily creates ground loops which can cause noise problems in various places in audio system. A suitable

Build video isolator

Video isolation transformers are primarily used in CCTV application in fields of security, manufacturing, avionics and display. The video isolation transformer is an extremely broad bandpass 1:1 isolation transformer. Its hum isolation is very good and it can sustain very high noise voltages without degradation. Isolation decreases with increasing noise frequency. Video signals can transformer

Build humbugging transformer

Ground loop elimination in video systems does not always ask for a complete isolation of the grounds. There are passive hum suppressor transformers that will very effectively remove the hum from the video signal, but do not affect the video signal otherwise. Those special transformers act like a common mode coils, which stop the annoying

Scene Quiz Show lights

Assembly TV broadcasts TV program from Assembly computer festival starting Thursday 6. August 2009 in many channels (Internet, cable TV, DVB-H mobile television, 3G mobile video etc.). The broadcast has for many years contained Scene Quiz Show (the name has varied somewhat over years). It involves three contestants answering questions related to the event, demoscene

Use an old Nokia charger to power 1W LED

Here is one useful trick I invented when looking around the transformers/power supplies I had. NOKIA ACP-7 Europe Standard Charger (Original) has a specification of 230 V, 50 Hz, 4.8 VA. Output 3.7 V, 355 mA. A normal 1W white LED is driven with 350 mA maximum continuous current and typically 3-3.8V voltage drop over