Schematics of delabs

This is a unregulated supply for low power circuits. You may be able to regulate the outputs with zeners or small regulators like 78L05.

The transformer can be hand wound in a mini ferrite pot core. you can use 2N2222 or any other fast transistor. The transformer should have 1KV isolation. The dot polarity of TR1 should be properly observed, else it may fail to oscillate or give output.





Diode should be fast recovery type, for less than 100mA use 1N4148. transformer, pri-20-20, sec-60-60, a SWG-AWG to suit the current you

Circuits using only  discrete devices

design for, any fast switching transistor would work, no regulation, use regulators like 78L12 if you want, circuit like multivibrator used for flashing LED lights.

74HCU04 is a chip that was made for this purpose, HCT may not work for such a circuit. C1 and C2 can go to upto 33pF and R2 can be increased to make R2 * C2 = t.

Time constant much less than the period T of the crystal T = 1/F . This is to remove higher frequency components in the Oscillator.

More on Piezoelectric Crystal Oscillator

The circuit above is a parallel resonant oscillator circuit. The Crystal works by the piezoelectric principle, piezo means pressure. The electric field causes the impedance of the crystal to change. The LP Record Player needle is the reverse of this, the bumps on the spiral groove of the record applies pressure to needle which generates electricity. Both are piezo-electric effects.

This is a simple charger circuit which will work for a light load like a DMM, the Battery can be a sealed maintenance free battery of 9V-2AH or better. The circuit will work best if the Unit is powered on many times daily on regular use, else battery will drain down.

The 555 Astable is used to generate a AC signal from which a negative voltage is generated, A 79L05 which is a low power TO92 equivalent of 7905 a negative -5 volts regulator is used as -5 volts load is less. A TO220 7805 is used for the +5V supply.


Many dual supplies are derived from one DC Source. A SMPS solution is the best. A Series Regulator is simple to troubleshoot in comparison to Switching Types, there is no EMI-RFI too.

Power supply with battery backup - DMM

This simple circuit is ok only for Low Current gadgets, Whereas SMPS is green and efficient. In SMPS a greater care for Product Safety is required. In a Linear Supply with Step-Down Mains-Frequency Transformer. The Transformer is the only place, where you look into safety the most. In SMPS it is the PCB, the feedback components and also The High-Frequency (200 kHz) Mains Ferrite Transformer.

This a part of a complete Benchtop DMM that you can build to learn the internals of a Digital MultiMeter. This is oriented towards learning the measurement aspects and the protection of input circuits.

U2A opamp LF353 is used here as a constant current source, R10-D13-D14 is for protection in case you measure voltage in the ohms range. U1 4052 helps digitally select four different currents, the currents pass thru the unknown resistor to be measured and an voltage developed across the resistor is measured.

Build a DMM - LM3914 Analog display

U2B is a buffer which passes on the voltage measured to U5A for inversion of polarity as current source is a negative current (current sink). U5B amplifies to the level required for the LM3914 display circuit. U7 555 is used as a de-bouncing for switch SW1 so as to advance counter 4029 to change the range of resistance measurement.


Use any FET input dual opamp, TLO72 will work but LM358 will cause error as it is transistor input..

D1, D12 and R8 are to ensure that the FET can be turned off, as the opamp swings from +/-3.5V only, with some FET it needs to be tweaked. LF353 is a Wide Bandwidth Dual JFET Input Operational Amplifier.

CD4538 is a dual Monostable Multivibrator. When you trigger the chip the output sends off one single pulse or one high-low event.

Mixed Circuits Analog with Digital

The T+ pin 4 of U1a is the positive edge trigger or raising edge trigger input, the T- pin 5 is falling edge or negative edge trigger input. Now see the image of the single pulse above which shows both the edges, If this is the input pulse at pin 5 then the falling edge turns the output pin 6 from low to high, this output remains high for time T = R2 * C1 and then goes low again, The output Q at pin 6 also looks like the image of pulse above.



The Output pin 7 is the complementary state of pin 6, it is the reverse state or inverted form of pin 6 output.

Now why is a slope shown in the edges, this i have exaggerated a bit so that it can be explained. But then there is a slight slope due to gate input and output capacitance.


In fact if you had a wire or twisted track coming to the input and the R2C1 was in nano seconds, then you would see a ringing at the edges, a tiny peak or spike, which will have giga hertz frequency components, in fact a square way may be many sine waves put together, this you know from a spectrum analyzer.

Two Stage Sequential Timer

CD4538B can give an output with pulse width of 1uS and above. 74HC4538 gives 120nS to 60 Seconds pulses. The above circuit produces a pulse of width T = R3 * C2 after a delay of T = R2 * C1. Some Chips formula is T = 0.7 * R * C .