This is yet another project born of necessity. It's a simple circuit, but does exactly what it's designed to do - dim LED lights or control the speed of 12V DC motors. The circuit uses PWM to regulate the effective or average current through the LED array, 12V incandescent lamp (such as a car headlight bulb) or DC motor. The only difference between the two modes of operation is the addition of a power diode for motor speed control, although a small diode should be used for dimmers too, in case long leads are used which will create an inductive back EMF when the MOSFET switches off.   Photo of Completed PWM Dimmer/Speed Control The photo shows what a completed board looks like. Dimensions are 53 x 37mm, so it's possible to install it into quite small spaces. The parts used are readily available, and many subsitiutions are available for both the MOSFET and power diode (the latter is only needed for motor speed control). The opamps should not be substituted, because the ones u...

The circuit diagram of the filter and polarity guard for the wall AC/DC adaptor is shown in the figure. It is built around a bridge rectifier (BR1), two inductors (L1 and L2), three LEDs, and a few capacitors and resistors. The circuit has input polarity indicators LED1 and LED2, input fuse F1, input high frequency filter, bridge rectifier BR1, output LC filter and output voltage indicator LED3. Input polarity indicators show the polarities of input AC or DC power connections at connector CON1. LED1 indicates reverse polarity, whereas LED2 indicates correct polarity of the input signal. Irrespective of input connections, polarities of output voltage at CON2 will not change. LED3 is on when output voltage is present at CON2. Input filter is built around capacitors C1, C2 and C3 to stop the high frequency noise at input of the device. BR1 is used to ensure that output voltage does not depend on input polarity and, consequently, has fixed polarity. At output of BR1, there is a set of capa...