MP

I think that this is a different subject and should be discussed in it's own thread - not as an add-on to this thread... MP

I still see many posts each week that I have to move to the correct area. This area is NOT for discussion of Projects you are looking for. It is NOT a general discussion area of Projects you have found somewhere on the web. It IS an area to discuss the Projects that are found on our website. You can find these projects that are on our website by clicking on the blue link button titled "PROJECTS" near the top of the page. MP

Gogo, You are correct. Rason's method will get the job done sufficiently. Try it on the workbench and you will see. MP

You are sending him away to Google? How rude! Paris, Welcome to Electronics-Lab. DAB is exactly what is says. It is a digital broadcast method for audio signals. I am sure you are looking for more regarding this than a definition, though. What information do you need, exactly. There are many experts on this site. I am sure someone can help you here in the Electronics-Lab Community. MP

Do you need 1 X 16? As mixos has published, 2X16 displays are fairly cheap. Also 4x20 display prices are not bad. One thing that makes a big difference is which Continent you live on. You do not want to pay some of the high International shipping charges. Depending upon where you ship to, I have seen these get pretty ridiculous. Earth LCD has a large selection. This is a US based company. You can find their prices at http://store.earthlcd.com As an example, they have "Vikay 2035TNLD 2X16 Character Display for $7.00 each; Hantronix HDM20416L-1-L30F 4X20 Character Display for $25.00 each; Very popular Sharp LM24022 240X160 Graphic Display for $39.00 each. Note: I am not affiliated with this company. Just a customer. Also, if you can use a US based company, www.allelectronics.com has some of the best prices on LCDs in the world. 1X24 is $1.85, 240X64 at $11.00 each, etc. Again, I must warn that these prices are pretty good as long as you don't add big shipping charges to them. Always calculate shipping charges when you are shopping around for an item. MP

Regarding ante's mention of solution, I wanted to add into the discussion that for safety, some etchants should not be heated. Some can be heated, but not above a certain temperature. This also depends upon the etchant used. Ferric Chloride, Ammonium Persulfate, Muriatic Acid, homebrew mix? A little work in your pc board lab goes a long way. You should always dedicate a few boards to research and ruin them in a few tests that will give you benchmarks. MP

Thanks sarma, I think we are already past this. It is good to have you back. Hope all is well. MP

There is another thread in this section (Projects Q/A) that is much longer. Some members did not want to go through that long thread and started this one. Unfortunately, some of the same questions are being asked here. I highly recommend that you read through the pages of the other thread. There you will find discussions of laying out the voltmeter and also comments about making it work with AC voltage. MP

I have had no luck in finding a metric horse ;D MP

MXR probably made the easiest one to copy. The SAD1024 might be a little hard to come by these days, but I know there are websites that carry this stuff. Let me know if you need help to find it. Here is the schematic by MXR. Click on the link to get a better picture. MP

Hi Rod, Glad to hear you are still here. As a new member, you might want to save the bag ante posted. You will need it from time to time... ;D ;D It is true, however, that knowing your motor type is really needed to go on with a solution for you. MP

You can apply a higher voltage at the motors, connected to pins 2 and 7. Look at the data sheet I have attached for an example. MP UCN5804B.pdf

Is this using the schematic in our projects section or a different design? Please provide a link or post the schematic if it is not the one in our project section. We just need to know for sure which layout you are using. A 5 wire stepper is usually the same as a 6 wire stepper with only one wire provided to supply the voltage to the center tap of both sets of windings instead of individual wires provided to the center tap of the windings as in a 6 wire stepper. MP

Since you are using an effect that is not even meant to be used with your instrument, you will need a little experimentation to get by with the least amount of changes. If you would like to experiment with the values, I would start with changing the value of C2 and C3 to 1 micro farad or even to 2.2 micro farad. Then try the effect again. This might be all that you need. If you still need amplification, the next step is to change R13 to 470K. Again, you should try the effect before going further. If you are still not there, tell me what you have resolved and what you have not. For example, you might have good amplification with not much effect. In this case, you would need to fix the amplification values in the threshold and attack part of the circuit. MP

...or it can also cause damage to the circuit. Uncontrolled or uncalculated overloading is actually harmful and might sound great for a few minutes.....then poof! :'( LM386 is not an input stage. It is a power amp chip. It has no place in the input stages of effects or amplifiers. Connect a speaker to it and use as a practice amp if you must use it for something. MP

The data sheet is here: http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tlc5904.pdf The answers to your questions are in the datasheet. Dout is described somewhere around page 17. 1MHZ clock should be ok. It will just transfer data much slower. MP

ReCoC, You don't want to use the LM386 output to go into the input of your BASS amp. The overload is not good for the input section of the amp. The LM386 also does not make a good distortion unit. It clips too much. Just increase the value of the input cap on your effect pedal so that it is allowing the low frequencies to pass. This is where you are losing some of the amplitude. If you still need amplification, change the feedback resistor on inverter a2c in the effect circuit. The R13 and R7 ratio determines amplification. If this does not help, add an amplification stage like a2c right after a2f. Note that this will invert your signal again, so you will want to add two if this is a problem. You can use a larger ratio between the input resistor and the feedback resistor to increase gain. MP

Here is also a PIC to Unipolar design that uses darlingtons. Of course, if you are running your circuit from the parallel port of a PC, you can connect the parallel port at points RA0, RA1, etc and not use a PIC. Hope these are helpful to someone. The URL for the original site is at the bottom of the page on this pdf, so you can go there to get more information. MP PIC_to_Unipolar_Steppers.pdf

Here is a schematic that will allow you to use 4 wire bipolar or 6 wire unipolar in the same circuit. It is also an example of using 5 volts for the digital circuitry and a larger voltage for the stepper motor as I described above. MP Bi-Polar_Stepper_Driver_ck1406.pdf

Hi Nikolas, From the drawing it looks like he has a board. Not sure. Did you know that you can change bipolar to unipolar on the 8 wire motors easily? You just connect the two center wires. I have attached a basic drawing in case anyone is interested. MP

You won't be able to supply 12 volts to the stepper in this configuration. Just connect to the board. In a configuration where you use 12 volts for the stepper, you usually use a different stepper. Aren't your steppers 5 volt ones? I thought this was the case. In a setup where you would use both the 5 volt and the 12 volt tap of the power supply, you would have your digital circuitry running from the 5 volt source and the motor circuit running from the 12 volt source. MP

Stath, I am not clear why you are using an adjustable regulator, then you have an additional adjustment pot after the regulator. This can cause some loading on the other circuit. Also, this depends a lot on the schematic of the voltmeter. If you must have an isolated ground, you can use a higher voltage regulator and lift the ground up from common with a resistor. I have also seen a post from ante where he coils a piece of wire and puts it on the transformer to make an isolated tap. Then rectifies it as an isolted small voltage supply. MP

nikolaw, Here is a good site that can help you with this: http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/doc/stepper/ MP

gaeasNavel, I have sent you a file by email at your yahoo account. MP

agreed! MP