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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Your drawing is a little confusing. Here’s what you need:

    There’s nothing special about a setup with a light in the button. It’s literally just an incandescent bulb across the button. If you connect your circuit across the button terminals, it’ll work fine.

    The 4 diodes in a loop is a “full bridge rectifier” that gives you DC from AC. The 5V regulator could be something like an LM7805.

    The “large capacitor” is to keep power applied while the button is pressed, though you might be better off in that case with some small onboard battery. You just have to make sure that your battery charging circuit doesn’t draw too much power.


  • So a doorbell transformer steps 120VAC down to a lower AC voltage. That’s what you’re measuring (surprised you can’t tell if it’s AC. Your multimeter should have an AC/DC setting).

    The circuit puts the transformer, the button, and the bell (classically an electronagnet that accelerates the hammer) in series. When you close the switch (push the button) the hammer strikes the bell.

    An electromagnet is just a coil of wire, and it is possible to pass a small amount of current through it without activating the hammer. If you’ve ever seen a doorbell with a light up button, the light bulb is placed in parallel with the button. That way it’s always on drawing a small amount of current. It also explains why the light switches off when you press the button. You’re shorting across the bulb, so it’s voltage is zero.

    If you want to use this power for an electronics project, you’ll need to find a way to draw just a small amount of power from the transformer. It has to be very small or you’ll activate the hammer.

    Drop a full bridge rectifier in parallel with the button, then a bunch of caps to give you a steady-ish voltage and then some kind of voltage regulator to make it useable.

    Just remember that you can’t draw too much power, and you’ll lose that power whenever the button is pressed.












  • That’s just my response to the argument that you can choose to not tip because waiters will make minimum wage regardless. Minimum wage is not an appropriate salary for that line of work.

    However, yes, I agree that laws should be changed to remove tipping or at least to require restaurant owners to pay an appropriate wage for the work with optional tips on top for exceptional service.