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‘Hello… HELLO! Are you deaf? Do you have disco ears?’ If people ask you this and you’re still well below 80 , you may be suffering from hearing loss, which can come from (prolonged) listening to very loud music. You won’t notice how bad it is until it’s too late, and after that you won’t be able to hear your favorite music the way it really is – so an expensive sound system is no longer a sound investment. To avoid all this, use the i-trixx sound meter to save your ears (and your neighbor's ears!). With just a handful of components, you can build a simple but effective sound level meter for your sound system. This sort of circuit is also called a VU meter. The abbreviation ‘VU’ stands for ‘volume unit’, which is used to express the average value of a music signal over a short time. The VU meter described here is what is called a ‘passive’ type. This means it does not need a separate power supply, since the power is provided by the input signal. This makes it easy to use: just conne...

The test beeper generates a sinusoidal signal with a frequency of 1,000 Hz, a common test  frequency for audio amplifiers.  It consists of a classical Wien- Bridge oscillator (also known as  a Wien-Robinson oscillator). The network that determines the  frequency consists here of a series connection of a resistor and  capacitor (R1/C1) and a parallel connection (R2/C2), where  the values of the resistors and  capacitors  are  equal  to  each  other. This network behaves, at  the oscillator frequency (1 kHz  in this case), as two pure resistors. The opamp (IC1) ensures  that the attenuation of the net- work  (3  times)  is  compensated  for.  In  principle  a  gain  of  3 times should have been sufficient to sustain the oscillation,  but  that  is  in  theory.  Because  of tolerances in the values, the  amplification ne...

In this article we will discuss how can you make PCBs using Eagle Layout Editor 5.6 Freeware (PCB design). First of all Open Eagle , under Projects right click and then left click to New Project . Give a name to the new Project , for example ‘ example’ and then click Enter . Right click the example , you created, and select New and then board. We will design a simple led chaser using PIC16F84a micro-controller. Add the component needed for this circuit by clicking on ‘ADD’ icon from tool panel in left. After arranging the components we get the figure like this: You can also assign the name to the component by selecting ‘name’ icon and then chose the component which is to be named. Now select the ‘wire’ icon, and the color for wire (normally I chose red). After tracing select the ‘polygon’ icon and draw a polygon (across the whole circuit), after doing this click on ‘Ratsnest’ and you will get this: Now give the name to the polygon (for example Vcc,Vss et...

  Whereas it's traveled 11.6 billion miles to interstellar space, Voyager 1's software isn't as high-tech as you may believe. In detail, it has less than 40 KB of recollection. To put that in viewpoint, your 16 GB iPhone 5 has about 240,000 times the recollection of a Voyager spacecraft. NASA developed Voyager in the 1970s in a pre-computer era when scientists had to rely solely on pencil, paper, chalkboards and their own mathematical abilities. While that appears unimaginable in a time when we contain decades' worth of computational power in our pouches, Voyager 1 is one of NASA's most thriving missions, and project researcher Edward Stone states he wouldn't have changed a thing. "It's astonishing it's continued as long as it has," pebble notifies Mashable. "I don't know how we could have done things much better than they were finished. I mean things do wear out, and we've had to swap to some of our backup schemes, but luckily we ...

If you're in the market for a new auto sound system you might want to seriously take a moment and consider whether or not you would be benefited by subscribing to either Sirius or XM Satellite Radio. Both of these subscription-based services have something wonderful to offer their subscribers and both of them require specialized equipment in order to operate. This means if you are going to wish to use either service, you will need to have decided which service before you have your auto sound system installed. It really doesn't matter which of these you choose they each have different features that will appeal to a wide variety of audiences. You will find some wonderful competition among the two not only by way of music radio but also talk radio. If you really love talk radio you really need to subscribe to one of these in order to find a treasure chest of talk radio gems. You will find everything from the mundane to the controversial. From Oprah to Howard Stern exist in the rea...

Problems can arise with USB hubs that are powered from a PC when gadgets plugged into them draw too much current. This is often the case with devices fitted with USB cables that are too long or too thin, causing voltage drop. There’s no need to scrap your old USB hub, however, if you upgrade it using this little circuit and an external power supply. Just cut the 5-V power wire of the USB cable inside the hub and solder a diode (D1) in the pass-through direction. Now connect the 5 V wire from the external power supply to the cathode of this diode. D1 prevents any current from the power supply from flowing back into the PC.

SAVING ENERGY IN YOUR HOME 100 Tips To Save Energy !  SAVING ENERGY 1. It begins with your commitment. If you want to save energy, you have to be committed enough in doing the necessary things for it. Without your commitment, you may not become mindful of you actions, which can directly or indirectly affect your overall energy consumption. Thus, you have to be committed, so that you can see results on it.  2. Make it a practice to turn off the lights in your room. Lots of people today leave their bedrooms without turning the lights off. Although lights do not consume much electricity, lots of energy would be wasted if you constantly left them turned on for the most parts of the day, even if you are not inside the room. Thus, make it a practice to turn off the lights, so that you can save energy.  3. Replace your filters regularly. Most heating and cooling equipment require clean filters, in order for them to run clean. The filters can also help them in becoming more en...

Here’s a blog post that will show you the setup you’ll need to make your own do-it-yourself radio controlled (RC) tankbot from the ground up. This example uses a few kits from Solarbotics to build your own RC controller, communication link, and tankbot using minimal parts. We even managed to get 250 feet of range out of the deal! For this exploit we invite you to move over to the dark side, as the heart of the project isn’t Xbees but instead 2.4GHz IEEE 802.15.4 Radio Frequency Network modules from Synapse Wireless which are actually super simple to use and configure. This post will merely get you started with building a general RC platform, feel free to modify/hack the system to suite your own diabolical requirements.

The 17 mm square MM7150 Motion Module from Microchip Technology is a complete, small form-factor board containing a 3-axis accelerometer, 6-axis digital compass and gyroscope sensors pre-programmed with integrated calibration and sensor fusion algorithms. Connections to the board include I2C, power and ground. The board operates at 3.3 V and consumes about 7.68 mA in active mode and around 70 µA in deep sleep. Features: Read position & motion data over I2C Small size 17×17 Pre-programmed and calibrated Single sided – can be soldered down SSC7150 motion coprocessor with integrated sensor fusion 9-axis Sensors (accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope) [ ]

This is a project of Protection For Your Electrical Appliances Circuit Diagram. Here is a very low-cost circuit to save your electrically operated appliances, such as tv, tape recorder, refrigerator, and other instruments during sudden tripping and resumption of mains supply. Appliances like refrigerators and air-conditioners are more prone to damage due to such conditions. The simple circuit given here switches off the mains supply to the load as soon as the power trips. The supply can be resumed only by manual intervention. Thus, the supply may be switched on only after it has stabilised.  Protection For Your Electrical Appliances Circuit Diagram Protection For Your Electrical Appliances The circuit comprises a step-down transformer followed by a full-wave rectifier and smoothing capacitor C1 which acts as a supply source for relay rl1. Initially, when the circuit is switched on, the power supply path to the step-down transformer X1 as well as the load is incomplete, as the rela...