Clapper project - slight problem

[letsrelaythat]

Hi All,

Last night I built the following circuit:

**broken link removed**

It works well, at the moment rather than hanging a relay off it I have a little green LED on a bit of wire, just to test before I buy the $12 AUS solid state relay..

One problem I have found, is that the circuit responds to 2 sharp claps. Now that part is ok... sort of. If say I were to clap now, then wait 10 seconds, and clap again, it triggers the circuit and the LED goes on/off. What would be interesting to know is:

a) Is this circuit supposed to only respond for a certain time (i.e I've wired something wrong)
- and if not -
b) Can I put something in to make it only respond for 250-500 milliseconds after the first clap?

Thanks in advance,

Tim.

 

[letsrelaythat]

So theres no way I can limit the clap timeout for a certain time??

 

[letsrelaythat]

Also I got a relay for use with switching the lights, its a 10A 230VAC/30VDC, does that mean that I can control 10*230 = 2300W with this relay?

For now I hope to use it with a bedlamp, then hopefully I won't blow too much up.

Thanks in advance,

Tim.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Also I got a relay for use with switching the lights, its a 10A 230VAC/30VDC, does that mean that I can control 10*230 = 2300W with this relay?

Yes, that's right.

 

[Roff]

So theres no way I can limit the clap timeout for a certain time??

Yes there is. See the schematic below. With the values shown, you can limit the range from approximately 100ms to 1 second. To increase the range, make C4 larger.

BTW, if values are not shown explicitly, they still have the values from the original schematic.

Edit: Added a toggle flip-flop (IC5), which I forgot in the original schematic.