Volume control circuit for speaker 4 ohm or 8 ohm located in the another room far away. by using only passive components. This gives limited control and helps reduce volume when a conversation starts. The resistors are very low value.
Passive volume control
A simple circuit you can build at home at low cost it uses just a rotary switch and wire wound resistors. Add more resistors and a rotary switch with more contacts for finer control.
More Hobby Ideas and Projects at Hobby DIY Garage
U3 LF 356 is used as a constant current source (sink as the current is negative). R4, R5, R7 and R9 set the four resistance ranges by changing the constant current in decade steps. R2 is for calibration of resistance range. The A-B digital control of 4052 selects the range.
Resistance measurement - DMM Project
Let voltage current and resistance sockets be separate and of different color or use a high voltage electrical rotary switch or relays if you want the same sockets switched. D1, D2 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.
Here the 4053 selects or routes the voltage, current or resistance measurements to the A-D converter or display. It is selected with the mode selection when you want to measure Volts, Amps, Ohms and AC-DC. Some have to be polarity inverted and some signals just buffered this is selected and done by this circuit according to the digital control.
Analog Buffer and Inverter Switching
Now U1 OP07 circuit is a Buffer unity gain and low offset, U2 circuit is unity gain but polarity of output is opposite of input. D1-D2-R3 form a AND gate to select diode-buzzer test mode. The digital selection of 4053 Analog-Switch does not produce any errors in the analog-switching of even mV signals. But it works best at +/- 7.5V dual supply pin-16 is +7.5V, pin- 8 is digital ground and pin 7 alone should go to -7.5.
This was a common way LM317 was used to get a stable power for small devices. It is still useful for learning and some blocks of the circuit are still used today in modern industrial systems.
Before the SMPS took over as the default DC source in most systems; designers would use switchers to reduce thermal losses in Linear Supplies.
Power Electronic Circuits
Linear Supplies have practically no noise or EMI_RFI (generation) issues . It is clean but not green. The efficiency is low. Transformer loss, heat loss in devices.
This circuit uses a LM339, a quad comparator. LM339 can work on single or dual supplies, it has a open collector output that can drive 15mA, low power consumption. The circuit is an untested design but it should work.
Mains Voltage and Power Circuits - Similar circuits for Mains Voltage Monitoring.
There are many better circuits in the various circuit archives i have linked on the front page, you just have to look around. When you measure the open circuit voltage of a battery with a high impedance DMM (10M), the value may be a bit misleading. Apply a dummy load to bleed the battery a bit so that proper readings can be taken on Load. The load below is a 100 ohms wire-wound fusible ceramic resistor which will heat a bit when you test 12V batteries.