No free lunch huh...How bout putting a lightning rod in a pond full of fish...
If your brave enough to start scooping up stunned fish with the storm cloud still over the rod then you deserve free fish...
If you have tried op amps to boost the signal your problem may be that you used cheap ones. Also use precision resistors along with them so your voltage divider outputs arn't lazy. Get some modern good quality op amps <ie' not silicone base > ones and they will be more sensitive. btw - When using st...
I made some of the 11 second count types that you mentioned using a 555 as the clock driving a 4017 as the led count down driver. And yea, the overflow pin of the 4017 drives a relay because of the high current requirment of the igniter. You can choose any count ya want from the 4017. But it's also ...