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This circuit, enclosed into a small box, is placed in the fridge near the lamp (if any) or the opening. With the door closed the interior of the fridge is in the dark, the photo resistor R2 presents a high resistance (up to 200K) thus clamping IC1 by holding pin 12 high. When a beam of light enters from the opening, or the fridge lamp illuminates, the photo resistor lowers its resistance (less 2K), pin 12 goes low, IC1 starts counting and, after a preset delay (20 seconds in this case) the piezo sounder beeps for 20 sec. then stops for the same lapse of time and the cycle repeats until the fridge door closes. D2 connected to pin 6 of IC1 allows the piezo sounder beeping 3 times per second.... [read more]

This circuit was developed since a number of visitors of this website requested a timer capable of emitting a beep after one, two, three minutes and so on, for jogging purposes. As shown in the circuit diagram, SW1 is a 1 pole 9 ways Rotary Switch. Setting the switch in position 1, the Piezo sounder emits three short beeps every minute. In position 2 the same thing happens after a 2 minutes delay, and so on, reaching a maximum interval of 9 minutes in position 9.... [read more]

Short circuits or broken pcb tracks can be easily recognized by means of a Multimeter, but this tool can give wrong results when testing the efficiency of a transistor or diode, unless the device under test is unsoldered and removed from the pcb. A further shortcoming affecting such way of testing is the necessity to keep firmly the probes on the pins of the device under test and at the same time to turn the head continually to read the Multimeter display.... [read more]

Turns-off your amplifier when idle for 15 minutes... [read more]

The normal telephone bell, at times (specially during night when one does not want to be disturbed), appears to be quite irritating. The circuit shown here converts the loud sounding bell into a soft and pleasing musical tone.... [read more]

In this circuit a LM339 quad voltage comparator is used to generate a time delay and control a high current output at low voltage. Approximatey 5 amps of current can be obtained using a couple fresh alkaline D batteries. Three of the comparators are wired in parallel to drive a medium power PNP transistor (2N2905 or similar) which in turn drives a high current NPN transistor (TIP35 or similar).... [read more]