maybe its a red herring?

My guess, a ground to the housing of the box that would contain it. As it is on the negitive side of the power source. IS it a crystal radio? Though no tuner noted, just 5 transisters, some resisters and a couple of unknown items, speaker, and switch.

this is why i detest electronical engineering.

I'm in agreement with final day, because of its alignment, position and the fact that its not been labelled, leads me to believe that this is case earthing. Would make sense too for a simple radio as it would act as a form of aerial too.

On further look at the circut as a whole, it has 14 resisters, 5 transisters, 5 capsitors, 1 diode, 1 LED, 1 switch, 1 speaker and an unknown, RV1 that seems to go no where as does part of Q4. I would be curious as to what this is.

He said what it was:

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At first I thought it was a hydraulic or pneumatic accumulator, but why would one of those be on a Live Wire Detector? Exactly, it wouldn't be, and it isn't!

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I would assume that that is the probe itself.

No, he said

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At first I thought it was a hydraulic or pneumatic accumulator,

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not that this was the item. it would need an item as sensor or other mech piece in the circut for that. Not a ground.



Edited by - Finalday on 1/18/2005 2:19:48 PM

it is a live wire detector circuit, and i wondered what the thing was...

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Author of the Freelancer Neural Net
Administrator of Kryosphere Studios

i still stand by my decision that it is the probe for testing the wires, however, i would be more concerned about the dead ends on Q4 and RV1, actually, make that 3 dead ends, 2 on the Variable resistor RV1.

Whatever it is, it has to be able to operate on some sort of static current, judging by the single connection from the device, or it is designed to accumulate electrical current and insert it on the Negative power Bar.
Ive seen single-connection objects, one in particular was a touch-pad light switch, 'on' and 'off' having single connection pads that allowed the bodies natural static current to operate the transistors.

does the circut have any sort of operational specs? maximum testing voltage? is it designed to test AC or DC? what voltage? etc... etc...

It may even be a trick circuit, because usually a trasistor (Q4 in this case) requires all three poles to be occupied for it to work, at the moment, Q4, along with R3, are probably inoperative, the same goes for RV1 and R7. the absense of any sort of connection on those components leads me to believe the diagram is incomplete.

@final: i was answereing the question about what the circuit did, and i was pointing out that he said it was a live wire detector in his original post.

Edited by - Arania - PFY on 1/19/2005 1:30:53 AM

yeah, when i drew it, i missed out a few wires, in particular Q4 and a few others... i found out ts the sensor for the live wires... cheers anyways guys...

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Author of the Freelancer Neural Net
Administrator of Kryosphere Studios