Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Engineer's Corner
Business Corner
Daily News
Login
Yellow Pages
Jobs
Advertise
Register
About Us
Contact Us
Circuits
Lighting
Careers
Solar
Videos
Features
Technical Articles
Automotive
Special
Consumer Electronics Medical Power
Automation
Communication
C IRC UIT
LAB
Related Circuits
Automatic 3-Phase Induction Motor Starter Mains Operated C hristmas Star Water Level C ontroller Using 3-Phase Starter Electronic Motor Starter Single Phase Electronic Starter
Email Address
Go
Fig. 1 shows the circuit of the flashing Xmas star. At the heart of the circuit is a diac that controls charging and discharging of an electrolytic capacitor and thereby flashing of the star. The rest of the circuit functions as a solidstate AC relay for lighting the bulb fitted inside the Christmas star. When switch S1 is in on position, mains voltage is rectified by diode D1 and capacitor C1 charges through resistor R1. When the voltage across C1 exceeds the breakdown potential of the diac, the diac conducts and the capacitor discharges through LED1, resistor R2 and the internal LED of optocoupler MOC3041 (IC1). This discharge of energy results in a brief flash of light.
Use of a zero-crossing optocoupler (IC1) to drive triac BT136 virtually eliminates radio frequency interference. Every time the optocoupler receives a pulse, the triac fires and the bulb glows. This circuit operates directly from mains, so be careful to avoid lethal shock. Use of a low-leakage, good-quality capacitor rated more than 63V is recommended. Changing the capacitors value alters the speed of flashes. Before assembling the circuit on a general-puspose PCB, refer Fig. 2 for the pin configurations of MOC3041 and triac BT136. Use IC base for MOC3041.
Related Circuits
Automatic 3-Phase Induction Motor Starter Views: 2153
Electronic Motor Starter Views: 77287 Mains Operated C hristmas Star Views: 43415 Single Phase Electronic Starter Views: 48481 Water Level C ontroller Using 3-Phase Starter Views: 24542
Post Comment
| 0 Comments
Electronics Buzz
NEC Technologies India wins SAP Ace award for customer excellence Green Energy C orp asking for 300 acre land for solar plant Govt to promote use of solar powered motors among farmers Kolkata Special Scheme offers Rs 15 mn to set up test labs
Magazines
Electronics for You LINUX for You Facts for You Electronics Bazaar
Portals
Directories
Electronics Annual EFY EXPO Guide EFY Awards EduTech Expo OSIWEEK Expo
Events
News Verticals
Electronics Infotech Linux & Open Source Consumer Electronics Science & Technology BPO
Educational Institute
Copyright 2012 EFY Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. A ll rights reserved. R e production in whole or in part in any form or m e dium without writte n pe rm ission is prohibite d. Usage of the conte nt from the we b site is subje ctT e tor m s and C onditions