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| Tinkering_Guy:
Over the years I've collected a lot of, er, 'stuff' basically because "I'm sure I can make something useful out of that one of these years." (The SBH and I have disagreements over whether 'years' is measured in single digits or in centuries.) One of the items was a sort of probe with a transparent tip; it looks like but with a clip lead out the backslide like The guts are missing, and the barrel is just the right diameter for an AA battery. The obvious use would be to simply add the battery and a LED and turn it into a continuity tester, but I'm thinking of using one of my red/green bidi LEDs with a pair of complementary current-limiting circuits on a PCB in the barrel to allow checking power in a live circuit. Sounds excessively complicated, perhaps, but I work with single- and bi-polar power supplies from 3V to 24VDC, plus low-voltage transformer secondaries (not to mention the unknown circuits I pick up because they're shiny, on sale, or in a piece of gear [like a printer] that I'm dis-integrating). 3V to 48V is a pretty wide range for a single current-limiting resistor. No pics nor schematics yet, sorry; I'm still noodling this. |
| Brass_Machine:
That would be an interesting and cool project. Keep us informed as you go. Question tho... is SBH like SWMBO? :scratch: Eric |
| Tinkering_Guy:
SBH == Significantly Better Half :thumbup: |
| 75Plus:
Perhaps a fixed voltage regulator IC in the input would reduce the wide range of voltage to a manageable level. They can stand up to 37 volts on the input. Joe |
| Tinkering_Guy:
--- Quote from: 75Plus on August 01, 2010, 01:51:12 PM ---Perhaps a fixed voltage regulator IC in the input would reduce the wide range of voltage to a manageable level. They can stand up to 37 volts on the input. --- End quote --- Good idea! I'll need to look through my stuff to see if I have any in DIP or TO-92 packages. The only ones I'm sure I have are TO-3 and TO-126.. Thanks! |
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