TOPIC: TOUCH SWITCH MECHATRONICS

CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION The main part of the circuit are the two NAND gates of the (1)4011 Integrated Circuit which are connected as a flip-flop. Pins 9 and 13 are the ON and OFF contacts. The two gates are connected to the positive rail by the two 10M resistors. Shorting one of the gates with the ground rail by touching it (this is equivalent to connecting about 50K between the gate and ground) FLIPs the output to that state. Shorting out the other contact FLOPs it back. The output of the flip-flop drives a transistor connected as a switch. It switches an LED and a relay. The relay is rated to switch 240V. Connecting the two 1K resistors connects the other two NAND gates of the IC into the flip-flop and makes it much more sensitive to touch. The touch plate may in fact work with only the first two gates connected. But it will be much more sensitive with all four gates connected as a flip-flop. The touch switch works by capacitive pickup of the mains hum. When the contact is touched body capacitance picking up general RF in the air is enough to short the plate to ground. Because the touch plate uses mains hum as it method of shorting the gate to ground a mains connected power supply must be used to supply power to the switch. A battery will not work.

COMPONENTS 1K resistor 5% 1/4W brown black red 10M resistor 5% 1/4W brown black blue 1N4004 diode 12V relay IC (1)4011 IC 14 pin IC socket Hookup wire 5mm LED Kit 10 PCBs Battery snap BC557 3 2 1 1 1 1 4 1 2 1 1

Circuit diagram

How it works?

This is a circuit of electronic on-off Touch switch controller using IC CD 4011 that is connected as a FLIP-FLOP. He is simple in the manufacture and the materials that use they exist everywhere. This based in the known CD 4011, which drives a relay of which the contacts play the role of switch. The metal surfaces can have what form we want, but it should they are clean and near in the circuit. In order to it changes situation it suffices touch soft somebody from the two plates. This high sensitivity of the circuit makes the touch switch operation possible. The two gates are held at logic state 1 continuously by means of the two resistors R1 and R3 that connect them to the positive supply rail. These resistors have a very large resistance of 10 Mohm. If we now touch a set of contacts the skin resistance closes the circuit between the corresponding gate and the negative supply rail. The skin resistance for small areas of the skin is normally much lower than 10 Mohm and the gate is effectively brought to logic condition 0 which makes the FLIP-FLOP change state. For any given state of the FLIP-FLOP touching the corresponding set of contacts will make the circuit to reverse its state of balance and in effect toggle the switch. As a switch is used a relay driven by a transistor which is driven from the out put of the FLIP-FLOP.

Applications

A touch switch is a switch that is turned on and off by touching a wire contact, instead of flicking a lever like a regular switch. Touch switches have no mechanical parts to wear out, so they last a lot longer than regular switches. Touch switches can be used in places where regular switches would not last, such as wet or very dusty areas.