Go to: 101 - 200 Circuits 
                 Go to: 100 IC Circuits 
  
 
                        
 
                                                               See TALKING ELECTRONICS WEBSITE 
 
                                           email Colin Mitchell:   talking@tpg.com.au 
  
INTRODUCTION 
This e-book contains 100 transistor circuits. The second part of this e-book 
will contain a further 100 circuits.  
Most of them can be made with components from your "junk box" and 
hopefully you can put them together in less than an hour.  
The idea of this book is to get you into the fun of putting things together and 
there's nothing more rewarding than seeing something work.  
It's amazing what you can do with a few transistors and some connecting 
components.  And this is the place to start.  
Most of the circuits are "stand-alone" and produce a result with as little as 5 
components.  
We have even provided a simple way to produce your own speaker 
transformer by winding turns on a piece of ferrite rod. Many components can 
be obtained from transistor radios, toys and other pieces of discarded 
equipment you will find all over the place.  
To save space we have not provided lengthy explanations of how the circuits 
work. This has already been covered in TALKING ELECTRONICS Basic 
Electronics Course, and can be obtained on a CD for $10.00 (posted to 
anywhere in the world) See Talking Electronics website for more details:  
http://www.talkingelectronics.com 
Transistor data is at the bottom of this page and a transistor tester circuit is 
also provided. There are lots of categories and I am sure many of the circuits 
will be new to you, because some of them have been designed recently by 
me.  
Basically there are two types of transistor: PNP and NPN.  
All you have to do is identify the leads of an unknown device and you can 
build almost anything.  
You have a choice of building a circuit "in the air," or using an experimenter 
board (solderless breadboard) or a matrix board or even a homemade printed 
circuit board.  The choice is up to you but the idea is to keep the cost to a 
minimum - so don't buy anything expensive.  
If you take parts from old equipment it will be best to solder them together 
"in the air" (as they will not be suitable for placing on a solderless 
breadboard as the leads will be bent and very short).  
This way they can be re-used again and again.  
No matter what you do, I know you will be keen to hear some of the "noisy" 
circuits in operation.  
Before you start, the home-made Speaker Transformer project and 
Transistor Tester are the first things you should look at.  
If you are starting in electronics, see the World's Simplest Circuit. It shows 
how a transistor works and three transistors in the 6 Million Gain project will 
detect microscopic levels of static electricity! You can look through the 
Index but the names of the projects don't give you a full description of what 
they do. You need to look at everything. And I am sure you will.  
KIT OF PARTS 
Talking Electronics supplies a kit of parts that can be used to build the majority 
of the circuits in this book.  
The kit costs $15.00 plus postage. 
 
In many cases, a resistor or capacitor not in the kit, can be created by putting 
two resistors or capacitors in series or parallel or the next higher or lower value 
can be used.  
Don't think transistor technology is obsolete. Many complex circuits have one 
or more transistors to act as buffers, amplifiers or to connect one block to 
another. It is absolutely essential to understand this area of electronics if you 
want to carry out design-work or build a simple circuit to carry out a task.  
  
CONTENTS    circuits in red are in 101-200 Circuits 
 
Ammeter 0-1A  
Automatic Garden Light 
Automatic Light 
Battery Monitor MkI 
Battery Monitor MkII 
Bench Power Supply 
Bike Turning Signal 
Beacon (Warning Beacon 12v) 
Beeper Bug 
Book Light 
Boom Gate Lights 
Boxes 
Buck Converter for LEDs 48mA 
Buck Converter for LEDs 170mA 
Buck Converter for LEDs 210mA 
Cable Tracer 
Camera Activator 
Circuit Symbols Complete list of 
Symbols 
Clock - Make Time Fly 
Clap Switch 
Colour Code for Resistors - all 
resistors 
Colpitts Oscillator 
Constant Current 
Constant Current Source 
Continuity Tester 
Dancing Flower 
Dark Detector with beep Alarm 
Decaying Flasher 
Door-Knob Alarm 
Dynamic Microphone Amplifier 
Electronic Drums 
Fading LED 
Flasher (simple) 
Flashing Beacon (12v Warning 
Beacon) 
Flashing LED - and see 3 more in 
this list 
Fog Horn 
FRED Photopopper 
Gold Detector 
Guitar Fuzz 
Hartley Oscillator 
Hex Bug  
 
Power Supplies - Adjustable 78xx 
series 
Power Supplies - Adjustable from 
0v  
PWM Controller 
Quiz Timer 
Railway time 
Random Blinking LEDs 
Resistor Colour Code 
Resistor Colour Code 
Resistor Colour Code - 4, 5 and 6 
Bands 
Reversing a Motor 
Robo Roller 
Robot 
Robot Man - Multivibrator  
Schmitt Trigger 
SCR with Transistors 
Second Simplest Circuit 
Sequencer 
Shake Tic Tac LED Torch 
Signal by-pass 
Signal Injector 
Simple Flasher 
Simple Logic Probe 
Simple Touch-ON Touch-OFF 
Switch 
Siren 
Siren  
Soft Start power supply 
Solar Engine 
Solar Engine Type-3 
Solar Photovore 
Sound to Light 
Sound Triggered LED 
Speaker Transformer 
Spy Amplifier 
Strength Tester 
Sun Eater-1 
Sun Eater-1A 
Super Ear 
Ticking Bomb 
Touch-ON Touch-OFF Switch 
Touch Switch 
Tracking Transmitter 
H-Bridge 
Heads or Tails 
Hearing Aid Constant Volume 
Hearing Aid Push-Pull Output 
Hearing Aid 1.5v Supply 
Hee Haw Siren 
IC Radio 
Increasing the output current 
Intercom 
Latching Relay 
LED Detects Light 
LED Detects light 
LED Flasher - and see 3 more in this 
list 
LED Flasher 1-Transistor 
LED Torch with Adj Brightness 
LED Torch with 1.5v Supply 
LED  1-watt  
LED   1.5 watt 
LED Driver 1.5v White LED  
LED flasher 3v White LED  
Lie Detector 
Light Alarm-1 
Light Alarm-2 
Light Alarm-3 
Light Extender for Cars 
Limit Switches 
Listener - phone amplifier 
Logic Probe  - Simple 
Logic Probe with Pulse 
Low fuel Indicator 
Mains Night Light 
Make any resistor value 
Make Time Fly! 
Making 0-1A Ammeter 
Metal Detector 
Microphone Pre-amplifier 
Model Railway time 
Motor Speed Controller 
Movement Detector 
Multimeter - Voltage of Bench 
Supply 
Music to Colour   
On-Off via push Buttons 
Phaser Gun  
Phone Alert 
Track Polarity - model railway 
Train Detectors 
Train Throttle 
Transformerless Power Supply  
Transistor Pinouts 
Transistor Tester-1 
Transistor Tester-2 
Trickle Charger 12v 
Voltage Multipliers 
Wailing Siren 
Walkie Talkie 
Walkie Talkie with LM386  
Walkie Talkie - 5 Tr - circuit 1 
Walkie Talkie - 5 Tr- circuit 2 
Worlds Simplest Circuit 
White LED Flasher 
White LED with Adj Brightness 
White Line Follower 
Zener Diode (making) 
0-1A Ammeter 
1-watt LED 
1.5 watt LED 
1.5v to 10v Inverter 
1.5v LED Flasher 
1.5v White LED Driver 
3-Phase Generator 
3v White LED flasher  
5v from old cells 
5 LED Chaser 
5 Transistor Radio 
5v Regulated Supply from 3v 
6 Million Gain  
6 to 12 watt Fluoro Inverter 
12v Flashing Beacon (Warning 
Beacon) 
12v Relay on 6v 
12v Trickle Charger 
20 LEDs on 12v supply 
20watt Fluoro Inverter 
27MHz Door Phone 
27MHz Transmitter 
27MHz Transmitter - no Xtal 
27MHz Transmitter-Sq Wave 
27MHz Transmitter-2 Ch 
27MHz Transmitter-4 Ch 
27MHz Receiver 
27MHz Receiver-2 
303MHz Transmitter 
  
Phone Tape-1 
Phone Tape-2 
Phone Tape-3  
Phone Transmitter-1 
Phone Transmitter-2 
Phase-shift Oscillator 
Power Supplies - Fixed 
Power Supplies - Adjustable LMxx 
series 
  
  
RESISTOR COLOUR CODE 
 
See resistors from 0.22ohm to 22M in full colour at bottom of this page and another resistor 
table   
  
 
BOXES FOR PROJECTS 
One of the most difficult things to find is a box for a project. 
Look in your local "junk" shop, $2.00 shop, fishing shop, 
and toy shop. And in the medical section, for handy boxes. 
It's surprising where you will find an ideal box.  
The photo shows a suitable box for a Logic Probe or other 
design. It is a toothbrush box. The egg shaped box holds 
"Tic Tac" mouth sweeteners and the two worm reduction 
twists a "Chuppa Chub." It cost less than $4.00 and the 
equivalent reduction in a hobby shop costs up to $16.00!   
A two-worm reduction gearbox producing a reduction 
of 12:1  and 12:1  = 144:1 The gears are in the correct 
positions to produce the reduction.  
                                         to Index  
 
 
ransformer 
 of 
h 
The speaker t
is made by winding 50 turns
0.25mm wire on a small lengt
of 10mm dia ferrite rod.  
the rod 
The size and length of 
does not matter - it is just the 
number of turns that makes 
the transformer work. This is 
called the secondary winding.  
The primary winding is made by winding 300 turns of 0.01mm wire 
(this is very fine wire) over the secondary and ending with a loop of 
wire we call the centre tap.  
Wind another 300 turns and this completes the transformer. 
It does not matter which end of the secondary is connected to the top 
of the speaker.  
It does not matter which end of the primary is connected to the 
collector of the transistor in the circuits in this book.  
                                         to Index