Hello, Looking for some urgent help. I’m planning to use this kit (a one channel light organ) to pulsate a light to a track of speech for a halloween display.
This is attempt 2 after kit one burned out. The new kit is all assembled, clean soldering and the correct rating of light and sound attached but I have seen no activity from the light. If anyone has had similar problems with the kit I would love some advice.
Many Thanks
Callum Smith
The unit requires a reasonable amount of input power to operate. If there is no assembly mistake or wiring problem, the audio input signal is probably too low.
Thanks for the advice. I have tried the circuit with a loud amp and thick speaker wire turned up to full volume with no result. Any Ideas? Also checked with a magic pen - voltage all round the circuit. Also when using the pen when it touched two strands of the triac the light came on. Is this normal.
any advice would be appreciated.
Soldering look rather poor. Make sure there are no intermittend solderjoints or interrupted pads/tracks.
“The unit requires a reasonable amount of input power to operate. If there is no assembly mistake or wiring problem, the audio input signal is probably too low.”
How much input power is needed? My kit is not working either.
[Update: it’s working… I added a 2Watt high-gain mini amplifier – Ramsey BN9; sorry couldn’t find any velleman in a local store, and I need this for Halloween too – unfortunately, I could only cram the PCB into the project box, and the amplifier needs to be powered…9V outside the box I guess]
I headphone input good enough? [No, apparently]
Can I change any parts on the MK110 so it’s more sensitive, so that a line-level/headphone signal is enough to drive the circuit?
-gary
It needs a couple of watts, so a line level or headphone input will not do the job. The input section is an opto-coupler, for safety, so you need at least 1.7V at the input to drive the opto-coupler led. It cannot be made more sensitive, you would require a totally different, more complicated circuit.
Hello, i have a problem with a MK110.
I follow the instructions on the manual, but there is a couple of questions…
1- They show that the fuse goes to the left main which is L
But if it’s so, i wonder why the colours are inverted.I mean in France for the " neutre" we use a blue.
For the “phase” we use the brown.
2- It works for halogen? I have already use it for, but i don’t know if is its function.
Thank you for your precious help.
Roberto
Colours are not imortant. If you plug it in, you do not know which pin is ‘N’ and which pin is ‘L’.
It works with 230VAC halogen lamps, not with low voltage halogen.
Thanks for your answer. 
I find out where i was wrong… anyway, i have another question.
Is the direct signal safe as a microphone input?
Can i risk to burn an amplifier, and in what conditions?
Roberto
[quote]Is the direct signal safe as a microphone input?
[/quote]
Sorry, but we do not understand this question.
The unit requires a speaker-level signal, i.e. it should be put in parallel with a speaker.