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The Quad LED Fader (QLF) Family of Circuits
The result of a running online conversation between Wilf Rigter and Bill Bigge



The Quad LED Fader family of circuits was created by Wilf Rigter, essentially as his part of an online conversation with Bill Bigge. This all started innocently enough in the summer of 2003 with Bill Bigge's query about circuits to drive some number of LEDs or strings of LEDs (nominally 4) in a random, independent, ornamental way:

I'm trying to put together a simple circuit to fade a string of LEDs on and off slowly. It needs to drive ten LEDs in parallel and turn them on and off slowly to give a nice slow pulsating effect, all running off a 3v supply (2x AA batteries).

Wilf's first reply was with the QLF1 circuit (click on thumbnail for a full-size diagram in a new window):

Requires just 2 ICs (LM324), 4 transistors,16 resistors, 5 caps, 1 pot and 40 LEDs. That's 28 parts plus the 40 LEDs.

The circuit consist of 4 triangle waveform generators driving 4 current sources. The LED current ramps linearly up and down and stays off for a short time. Fade cycle time with R1 / C1 shown is about 4 seconds as measured on my breadboard. Adjust R1 / C1 as required to the 4 independent frequencies.

I used just 3 LEDs to simulate the string of 10 but the result should be the same. Slowly adjust P1 from 0V up to start oscillation and increase brighness. Too high a P1 setting stops oscillation. You can lower R4 if necesary if P1 adjustment is insufficient.

A mere few hours later, Wilf followed up with a PWM (pulse width modulation) version of the circuit -- QLF2 (again, click on the thumbnail for a full-size diagram in a new window).

As QLF2 did not work very well, Wilf replaced it with two designs -- an all-opamp PWM version (QLF3) and a hybrid PWM version (QLF4):

Subsequently, Wilf posted an explanation of the circuit and its operation:

Attached is a section of the QLF4 circuit and the relevant waveforms to match the description of operation. The frequency of the yellow triangular waveform is much normally slower but is speeded up here to illustrate the principle.

The left side of the circuit consists of 2 74HC14 oscillators one of which operates at 2 kHz and the other has a cycle time of 2 to 4 seconds. The output pins of the inverters have squarewave outputs but the input pins have a triangular waveform between 1V and 2V peak to peak, which is the charge and discharge curve of the capacitor voltage as it swings between the trigger and reset thresholds of the Schmitt inverter. It is the BLUE 2KHz input waveform and the YELLOW slowly changing reference voltage we will use to generate the RED Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) waveforms that drive the LEDs.

In the middle of the circuit, one LM324 Quad opamp act as a comparator (a LM339 can also be used with different pin out). The + inputs of all comparators are connected to the blue 2kHz triangular waveform while the - inputs are connected to the respective yellow ~0.3Hz triangular waveforms of the slow oscillators. The slow yellow waveforms are used as ramping reference levels to which the common blue 2kHz triangular waveforms are compared.

If the rising blue 2kHz waveform is more positive than the yellow reference level, the comparator output (red) goes high and supplies base current to the output transistor. If the falling 2kHz waveform drops below the reference level the comparator output turns off.

The yellow reference acts as a "slicing" level through the blue 2KHz wavefrom and the resulting red rectangular output waveform of the comparator will be positive for a longer time if the reference level is low and will be off longer if the reference level is high.

The 2kHz rectangular waveform causes the average current through the 10 parallel LEDs to smoothly change between 0 ma and 100ma or from full off to full on and back again.

Since the four slow (Pulsar) oscillators all have different cycle times, the four strings of LEDs will independently vary in brightness at different rates. Peak current can be as high as 400mA (all strings on) but the average current should be about 200mA, so AAA or larger alkaline batteries are required.

As for other applications, the LEDs can be can be replaced with motors to provide PWM speed control.

The reference voltage level generated by the slow oscillators can also be a potentiometer or a LDR / PD photo bridge. The speed of the motors will be variable and proportional to the voltages at the reference level inputs.

Within a few days, Wilf had applied a bit more polish to his circuit, and posted QLF5:

Here is the polished up tested design, Quad LED Fader 5, which works on the same principle as QLF4 but uses a LM339 quad comparator instead of the LM324 quad opamp. The advantage is the LM339 has an open collector output which permits rail to rail output signal swing.

I have improved the QLF5 output drivers which are now configured as 60mA current sources to maintain even LED brightness over a voltage range of 3.2V to 2.4V when the battery supply drops. The output current is limited when the 2N3906 starts to turn on as the current through the 10 resistor is about 50ma and the 2N3906 shunts base current away from the PN2907.

The 74HC14 oscillators now also have stable output frequencies by regulating the chip Vcc line with a red LEDs used as a 2V "zener".

The improved QLF5 circuit is only slightly more complex using a total of 33 components in addition to the 40 LEDs. However the perfomance is greatly improved over the simpler QFL4 design.

The QLF5 can also be used with a 9V battery for random rainbow cycling of tricolor LEDs. With 3 LEDs, one set of 6 components can be removed to reduce parts count.

When the supply voltage is increased to 9V or 12V, 3 or 4 LEDs (or 3 or 4 groups of 3 LEDs ) can be driven in series for better matching of brightness.

With a 9-12V battery supply, the PN2907 1K base resistors must be increased to 10K and the 10 ohm current sensing resistors should be made 33 ohm for 20mA current. The 1K ohm resistor in series with the 74HC14 Vcc line should be raised to 10K.

Wilf was still able to improve on his circuit, and posted QLF6:

Always aiming for the pure minimalist design, here is QLF6, an amazingly simple but effective 4 channel LED controller which requires just 14 parts plus LEDs.

This circuit works nicely from 9V to about 2.4V with just minor changes in brightness and frequencies. It takes advantage of the build-in LM339 output current limiting.

The current per output is about 20ma so several matched high efficiency LEDs can be driven in parallel. At higher supply voltage (9V max) use series LEDs for higher efficiency and reduced LM339 heating.

PWM makes QLF6 efficient in part due to high peak optical pulses which are perceived brighter than the light of LEDs operating at equivalent DC current.

The oscillator frequency is stabilized with a simple voltage regulator across the 74HC14 chip power pins using the forward voltage drop of LED5. This also allows the circuit to operate directly from 9V.

The slow oscillators that control LED 1-4 use non-critical resistor values between 1M and 10M. The maximum values shown give a maximum fade time for LED 1 of a few seconds.

The 100K pot can be adjusted from all LEDs OFF, to random flashing, to random fading, to some weird stuff near the end of rotation. A rainbow LED connected to LED 1-3 can be used to [Ed.-- ???] The QLF6 circuit generates the full spectrum of colors and hues, which is visually a much more appealing effect than the recent Spectrummer design which only generated pastel hues.

QLF6 is a true random fader / flasher as the PWM switching transients seem to break up any attempt of the oscillators to phase lock even if the slow oscillators are close in frequency.

This circuit can also be used to drive small motors to generate some bizarre random motion, say no more!

On request, Wilf adapted the QLF6 circuit to drive a multi-color common cathode LED, and posted QLF7.

A few months later, Wilf revisited the QLF family -- making its behavior light-sensitive, and posting QLF8.



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Page author: Wilf Rigter
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