How many remote controls do you have in your home? Don’t you wish all these things were better integrated somehow, or that you could add remote control functionality to a random device? It’s a common ...

Last week I explained how to use a motion sensor to trigger an event with an Arduino. The event we triggered was a simple blinking of an LED. You can do a lot with a bunch of LEDs if you use your ...

This is a simple flashing led circuit with 2 leds and 2 NPN transistors. It illustrates the behavior of transistors and capacitors and if you use an oscilloscope it will be very easy to determine what ...

Relays usually are driven using optocouplers, which offer isolation between analog and digital grounds to ensure that switching currents in the relay coils do not affect the noise margin of the ...

An RC circuit in series with the coil allows full-current turn-on for reliable relay operation, then reduces the current to save power. Fellow engineer Sanjay R. Chendvankar of Mumbai, India, recently ...

Transistors are tiny switches that can be triggered by electric signals. They are the basic building blocks of microchips, and roughly define the difference between electric and electronic devices.