Some types of electronic equipment do not provide any indication that they are actually on when they are switched on. This situation can occur when the back-light of a display is switched off. In addition, the otherwise mandatory mains power indicator is not required with equipment that consumes less than 10 watts. As a result, you can easily forget to switch off such equipment. If you want to know whether equipment is still drawing power from the mains, or if you want to have an indication that the equipment is switched on without having to modify the equipment, this circuit provides a solution. One way to detect AC power current and generate a reasonably constant voltage independent of the load is to connect a string of diodes wired in reverse parallel in series with one of the AC supply leads. Here we selected diodes rated at 6 A that can handle a non-repetitive peak current of 200 A. The peak current rating is important in connection with switch-on curr...