Practical
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Matt Pulzer
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Louisa Pulzer
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ercial e ui ent or the incor oration
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Projects and circuits
Volume 51. No. 5
May 2022
ISSN 2632 573X
Editorial
Fancy an analogue challenge?
These days, it’s rare to find a purely analogue project as large
and as interesting as Jake Rothman’s Analogue Vocoder, which
concludes this month. Pretty much every design we cover has
a PIC, an LCD or some kind of digital component, but not Jake’s
magnificent Vocoder – it really is strictly analogue.
Audio might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is certainly a
wonderful way to learn electronics and has the great advantage of
offering something for all levels of ability and experience – from
the simplest amplifier to the most esoteric levels of high fidelity.
So, even if you’re not quite ready to build this challenging project,
it’s well worth exploring the design over recent issues. Filters,
power supplies and amplifiers are basic building blocks that go
into many projects and there is much to be learnt from Jake’s
hands-on approach to practical design.
For those of you who do want to take up the challenge, all the
PCBs are now available from the PE PCB Service. You can buy
them individually and build one board at a time, or you can buy
the full set at a discount of 30%.
If you do build the Vocoder, we’d enjoy hearing your thoughts
and feedback.
Digital FX project
Next, we move on to an extremely digital project – the Digital
FX Unit – which also concludes this month. The difficulty of
programming the EEPROM has been raised by a few readers, so
we have for sale a few of this IC preprogrammed (as well as the
project’s accompanying PIC). Please see page 25 for full details.
A number of projects and circuits published in Practical Electronics
employ voltages that can be lethal. You should not build, test,
modify or renovate any item of mains-powered equipment unless
you fully understand the safety aspects involved and you use an
RCD (GFCI) adaptor.
Unusual oscillator
One column that I especially enjoyed this month is Circuit
Surgery. Ian Bell’s topic for this issue is the ‘Royer Oscillator’, a
design I’d not heard of before. It’s a simple, but clever and elegant
arrangement based around a transformer. Have a read or better still,
have a play with the LTspice files provided by Ian, and available
for download from the May 2022 page of the PE website.
Component supplies
Lots to keep you busy!
All reasonable precautions are taken to ensure that the advice and
data given to readers is reliable. We cannot, however, guarantee
it and we cannot accept legal responsibility for it.
We do not supply electronic components or kits for building the
projects featured, these can be supplied by advertisers. We
advise readers to check that all parts are still available before
commencing any project in a back-dated issue.
Advertisements
Although the proprietors and staff of Practical Electronics take
reasonable precautions to protect the interests of readers by
ensuring as ar as ractica le that advertise ents are ona fide
the magazine and its publishers cannot give any undertakings
in respect of statements or claims made by advertisers, whether
these advertisements are printed as part of the magazine, or in
inserts. The Publishers regret that under no circumstances will
the magazine accept liability for non-receipt of goods ordered, or
for late delivery, or for faults in manufacture.
Keep well and stay healthy
Matt Pulzer
Publisher
Transmitters/bugs/telephone equipment
We advise readers that certain items of radio transmitting and
telephone equipment which may be advertised in our pages
cannot be legally used in the UK. Readers should check the law
e ore uying any trans itting or tele hone e ui ent as a fine
confiscation o e ui ent and or i rison ent can result ro
illegal use or ownership. The laws vary from country to country;
readers should check local laws.
Practical Electronics | May | 2022
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