PROJECTS MINI-PROJECT

Magnetometer
Detects even the smallest changes
Rev. Thomas Scarborough

The circuit described in this

article is incredibly sensitive
to changes in the magnetic
field. It can be used to detect
earthquakes, but it can also
function as a car alarm or for
theft prevention. The
construction is
straightforward and only
standard components have
been used in the design.

The author, who lives in Cape Town,

South Africa, originally designed this
circuit to detect small earth tremors
that could be possible precursors to
more violent earthquakes. We know
that earthquakes only occur very rare-
ly in Western Europe, but this circuit
also lends itself for use in several oth-

er applications. The circuit in question

is fairly simple and it uses an ordinary
mains transformer as a sensor coil. It
is capable of picking up minute chang-
es in the magnetic field strength. It is
so sensitive that it can detect a pass-
ing train at a distance of two kilome-
tres. Before we look at the principle of
operation we’ll take a look at several
possible applications for the circuit:
- Theft prevention: fix a neodymium
magnet to your laptop or briefcase and
the magnetometer will immediately
warn you when it’s picked up.
- Car alarm: when the car is moved and
Figure 1. This oscilloscope trace shows the signals generated when a magnet is moved nearby (see text). changes its angle to the Earth’s mag-

62 elektor electronics - 5/2007

 SENSITIVITY R4
P1 R1 R2 R3

47k
470k 330k 220k
IC1 1M

7
2 IC2A IC2B IC2C IC2E IC2D
C2 R5 R6 R7 C1
6 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 8 11 10
LM380N 1 100k 1 100k 1 100k 1 1
3
1u 10u
5 16V 16V P2
IC2 = 4069U
4

10k
C6 C3 C4 C5 C7
CENTRE
P3
100u 470n 470n 470n 100k 100u
16V 16V

+12V
R8
10R
2
1 D1
R9 IC3A R10
3 C8
100k D2

47k

3
C9 100n D3
+12V

MD SEL

V+
6 10
470n R11 LED10
7 5 11 D4
12 D11 IC3B 100k IN LED9 9
5 6 12 Trigger
14 DIV HI LED8 8
IC3D 7 13 D5 IC3C
13 1N4148 REF OUT LED7 10
R12 14
LED6
IC4 15 D6

10k
IC2F LED5
IC3=TL074 LM3914N 16
LED4
13 12 8 17 D7
1 REF ADJ LED3 P4
18
LED2 100k
1

DIV LO
LED1 D8
IC5 +12V

V-
S1 D9
78L12
4

2
1 2
RESET D10
4 14 R13
C10 C11 C16 C17 IC3 C13 C14 C12 C15
3

IC2
47k

11 7 100u 100u
100u 100n 100n 100n 470n 100u
40V 16V 16V 16V
050276 - 11

Figure 2. The circuit diagram shows the large number of amplification stages used. They ensure that even the smallest variations in the magnetic field can be detected.

netic field it will be detected by Concept including a mains transformer as sen-

this circuit. There are basically two types of mag- sor and an LED bargraph as indicator.
- Vehicle detector: ap- netometer: ones that give an absolute There is also a trigger (alarm) output
proaching cars or trains value of the magnetic field strength that turns on when the full scale of the
can be detected over and others that show the change in LED bargraph is reached.
a large area around the field strength. This circuit detects
the magnetometer the variations.
due to the vibra- Figure 1 shows an oscilloscope trace
Practical circuit
tions they cause. of the output of the circuit, when a The most important part of the magne-
- Extremely sensi- strong loudspeaker magnet was moved tometer is the detection coil. In the
tive vibration alarm: at a distance of about a metre away prototype a mains transformer was
minute vibrations in from the sensor (an old mains trans- used (230 V/12 V, 2 A), but in theory
the vicinity can be de- former). The magnet is first tilted one nearly any transformer or coil could be
tected, such as a bouncing way (at 0.5 s), then the other way (at used. The author found that the above-
ball on a wooden floor tens of me- 2.5 s), then the magnet is shaken back- mentioned model worked well and
tres away. wards and forwards (from 5 to 6.5 s) gave the circuit a very good sensitivity.
- Magnet sensor: the circuit obviously and finally the magnet is slowly rotat- The primary and secondary windings
reacts to nearby magnetised objects ed. It is interesting to see that you can of the transformer were connected in
as well, such as a magnetised screw- tell from the shape of the waveform in series (and in phase) to increase the
driver half a meter away, or even an which direction the field changed. sensitivity.
‘old-fashioned’ 3.5-inch floppy disk. When this circuit was first designed The coil is connected to the inputs of a
- Cat flap opener: attach a magnet to the author wanted to create a seis- type LM380 opamp (see Figure 2). This
the cat collar and when the cat comes mometer that was inexpensive and is really a power-amp IC that can de-
close to the cat flap it will be opened could operate in a stand-alone fashion liver 2.5 W, but it turns out to be just
automatically by the circuit. (i.e. without the use of a PC or data right for this circuit because it has a
logger). This resulted in a fairly simple fixed gain (50 times) and the output
circuit that used standard components, automatically settles to half the supply

5/2007 - elektor electronics 63

PROJECTS MINI-PROJECT

tential divider R4/P2/P3. After another

6 &
RC filter (R9/C9) the signal is buffered
 3 5 '


& (OHNWRU 3 & by IC3A and fed to a halve-wave peak
3 & & '
&
5 rectifier (D11/C13), which supplies a
5 '

3 DC voltage to the input of the LED bar-
5 '
&
&
,&
graph circuit. In this way a peak-hold
,& 5 & '


,& ' function is implemented, which shows


& 5 '

& 5 5 5 & and holds the largest measured value
& ,& '
on the display. Pressing S1 resets the
,&


'


& 5
5 & &
5 LED display. If you don’t need this
  5 '

&  peak-hold function you can replace D11
& '
with a wire link and leave out C13 and
S1. All changes in the signal level will
then be shown on the LED bargraph
display.
The rectified signal is fed via a buffer
(IC3B) and a final RC filter (R11/C12) to
the input of the well-known LM3914
(IC4), a much used LED driver IC that
contains all the electronics to drive a
10-segment LED bargraph display (D1
to D10).
The reference input of the LM3914 has
been set such that the signal strength
is indicated relative to LED D5. LED
D10 is on continuously to indicate that
Figure 3. A PCB has been designed for the circuit to make the construction easier
the circuit is powered up; it may be left
out of the circuit if not required.
Opamp IC3C provides a trigger output
voltage without the need for separate passive RC low-pass filters in between that generates a logic high when the
bias resistors at the inputs. (R5/C3, R6/C4, R7/C5). This provides LED for the strongest signal level lights
The low-frequency signal is then am- an enormous gain to the output signal up (D1). P4 is used to set the trigger
plified further using a number of gates from the LM380. All the filter stages level.
from an unbuffered 4069UB CMOS IC. (another two follow later on) reduce The supply to the circuit is provided by
An unbuffered CMOS inverter can be frequencies above about 20 Hz, mainly a 12 V regulator, since any mains ripple
made to function as an amplifier with to suppress interference from mains- on the supply line would be disastrous
the addition of a resistor between the borne signals. for the small signals we’re amplifying.
input and output. In this case four in- Next, IC2D adds another dose of gain The power supply can be any mains
verters have been used as sequential to the signal, where the DC offset to adapter that has an output voltage of
amplifier stages (IC2A/B/C/E) with the input of the gate is provided by po- about 15 to 20 V DC (50 mA is
sufficient).

Construction and setting up

COMPONENTS With the help of the PCB artwork
shown in Figure 3 it shouldn’t be too
LIST difficult to make a board or have one
made for you. Make sure that you get
Resistors Semicondcutors
the 8-pin package for the LM380 since
R1 = 470kΩ D1-D4,D6-D10 = LED, red, 3mm the PCB has been designed for this.
R2 = 330kΩ D5 = LED, green, 3mm Keep in mind that you need the unbuff-
R3 = 220kΩ D11 = 1N4148
R4,R10,R13 = 47kΩ ered version of IC2 (4069UB), other-
IC1 = LM380N-8 wise the circuit will definitely fail to
R5,R6,R7,R9,R11 = 100kΩ
R8 = 10Ω IC2 = 4069UB (unbuffered version) work! Use IC sockets for all ICs to make
R12 = 10kΩ IC3 = TL072CN the construction easier and to help
P1 = 1MΩ preset IC4 = LM3914N with any potential faultfinding. All re-
P2 = 10kΩ preset IC5 = 78L12
P3,P4 = 100kΩ multiturn preset sistors are mounted vertically. The re-
set switch is connected to the board
Capacitors Miscellaneous via a pair of wires.
C1 = 10µF 16V radial S1 = pushbutton, 1 make contact The circuit can be mounted in an enclo-
C2 = 1µF 16V radial L1 = coil, e.g. discarded mains transformer sure that has suitable cutouts made for
C3,C4,C5,C9,C12 = 470nF
230 V / 12 V @2A the LEDs, the reset switch and the
C6,C7,C10,C13,C14,C15 = 100µF 16V
radial PCB, ref. 050276-1 from power connector.
C8,C11,C16,C17 = 100nF www.thepcbshop.com An old transformer works very well as
a detector ‘coil’. It should have all

64 elektor electronics - 5/2007

windings connected in series, and you
Application tips
should take care that they are all in At the start of the arti-
phase, otherwise the sensitivity will be cle we already showed
reduced. Two short pieces of wire a few possible applica-
should be used to connect the trans- tions for this magne-
former to the board. tometer. Most of these
Once all components have been sol- are fairly straightforward
dered onto the PCB we can connect the and there is no need to
mains adapter and start with the ad- give detailed instructions. It
justments. First set the sensitivity con- is important that you should
trol (P1) midway, as well as P2. Now first ‘play’ a bit with the circuit
turn P3 until the centre green LED (D5) to find out how sensitive it is,
Figure 4. For
lights up on the LED bargraph. During what it reacts to and what the
the prototype in the lab
normal use, P2 can be used to adjust best setting is for P1. Whilst experi- we used an old PCB-mounted transformer
the display (you could also use an ordi- menting you should have as few met- with all windings connected in series.
nary potentiometer for this) as and al or magnetic materials as possible
when necessary. Especially when the near the circuit, since they interfere
sensitivity is set to a high value you’ll with its operation.
find that the null-point can vary. When You can make a simple seismometer by should be fixed to a large surface and
the sensitivity is lowered via P1 it hanging an old loudspeaker magnet the transformer should again be placed
should be possible to obtain a stable from the ceiling using a long piece of just below the magnet. You’ll be
setting that shows very little drift. string and placing it just above the amazed by the distance at which vi-
The final adjustment is the trigger lev- transformer. P1 should then be adjust- brations can be detected with this sim-
el, set via P4. This isn’t critical, and ed such that the LED bargraph remains ple circuit!
should be set such that IC3C switches just unlit. To make a vibration alarm (050276-1)
reliably when LED D1 lights up and that can detect passing traffic you
switches back again when D1 turns should attach a magnet to the end of a
off. long ruler. The other end of the ruler

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5/2007 - elektor electronics 65