Saturday 16 August 2014

Need Help With Transistor Logic Circuit Design


Greetings all and Happy New Year!


I've been working on a logic circuit to control the main entrance gate at our ranch for some time now. I've been testing using Falstad's Circuit Simulator.


However, I've run into a problem: In the control head, I need to implement some simple logic to turn on the "STOPPED" indicator when the main entrance gate is not at the open limit (open limit = NOT grounded) AND not at the closed limit (closed limit = NOT grounded), OR when the "STOP" button is pressed (sending 12V to the latch interrupt relay).



I'm going to admit right up front that I have very little electronics knowledge compared to most people out here, but that hasn't stopped me from trying - smiles.


Let me post what I have first, and then I will explain the dilemma:


Problem B


In the above schematic, I can see the Q3 transistor is forward biased even when all inputs are zero, and I fail to understand why.


I'm also not sure if I have the saturation points set correctly.


And lastly, not matter what I do, I cannot make the current draw of the LED equal to exactly 10 mA in all scenarios - it's close, but I'd like to know if there is a solution where it is always exactly 10 mA.


It DOES work....just not perfectly. Q1, Q2, and Q3 are all 100 hFE transistors, and power consumption is a factor since this is all solar powered.


Appreciate any help on this.


I'm really interested in other's thoughts and ideas as I am sure there is more than a couple of solutions to this problem.





AnalogKid nailed it. Can't thank you enough.


enter image description here



Answer



Your original circuit, updated for more stable operation. Also, eliminated Q3.


schematic


simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab


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