Fading LED - take 1....

TiM

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Sep 4, 2010
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You know the feeling....

accomplishment.

Even the smallest, simplest things... I am pleased with myself ;D

First Circuit.mp4

I watched Grendels' videos, asked some stuff & read some stuff. Now I have a box of stuff and made a light do what I wanted 8)
 
Pretty cool! Do you have a link to where you found the circuit? I could use that for my contest build.
 
Hi Grendels,

I started here and then meddled with it...

555 Timer Fading LED

Mine is running on 4.5V batteries for now as I don't have a lab-power supply, as discussed in your thread, the chip I've got is TLC555 so doesn't take a lot of power relative to other types.
 
Thanks for posting. I think I actually have that transistor in my parts stock so I can play around with it pretty fast. I wanted a circuit like this for the martian war machine. It would look good in the cobra eye and it will work well with aircraft warning lights in my Mercury 9 dio.
 
This afternoon I've been working on how to squeeze it into a small space - 1" square. I got some prototype board with strips of copper on it, worked out how to add wires as "crossover" pieces and where to break the copper strip.

Time for a bit of fine grinding... :-\


p.s. Having watched your late night soldering - have you tried using sockets for chips? I've got some so I don't fry anything.
 
I measured mine off the surface of the breadboard and it adds ~5mm to the height, the chip is only 3mm or so on its own.

Alternative I thought of if I'm really stuck for space in the future - need to make a PCB & go with a SMD package.
 
I know those sockets don't add a lot of height, but for things like the Mercury 9, it would never fit.

I haven't made a PCB. But if I really get going on this and start soldering up timing chips often, I will start doing so.
 
I had a "practice" yesterday - bit of wire on a vero-board with not so good results.

First - I didnt't clean the copper all that well - thought I'd get away with it with some extra flux but nooo....
(this is a most embarrassing admission for professional reasons)

Second - I found the vero-board with 0,8mm holes were on the large size, considering the size of the wires and the chip/socket pins there's a lot of void around them in such a large hole (especially as it's not through plated).

After that, I think rather than just breaking tracks mechanically (small cutting wheel) I'd get some etch and do a manual attempt at removing the copper strips from where they arn't needed... just waiting for that in the post.
 
Nice Job TiM

Love that fading LED looks Alive.... almost ! freaky !

Good job with Finding the Circuit and giving it your own touch !


later buddy !
 
Test 2, involving an alternative with a Schmitt trigger didn't have the same fade so I didn't bother videoing it in the dark. The chip is larger and for some reason, the values for components in the circuit I followed didn't fade it at all so I had to mess around to get something working. In the end, I decided to go with the one that gave the result above...



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There is a resistor missing from the bottom corner - still havn't found it in the box of loose model bits ::)
 

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