LED's flashers and steadys

[Airmedical]

O.k. I've been all over the place but I can't quite find the info I'm looking for.
Well, kinda. It's a matter of fine tooning what specificly I would like to try and do.
This is for a Huey helicopter.

I want a red tail light to flash ever second.
I want a white belly light to flash every 3-4 seconds.
Of course the 2x port and 2x starbord lights being steady.
A bright landing light under the nose.

Would like to do with a 9V battery or 2 or an AC plug.

NOTE: Electrical/electronics is my weakness.

Any help, thoughts, links, schematics?

Thanks
John

 

[schweinhund227]

Read this... it might help ?

you may need to tweak a few things.. but that's expected !

http://www.elecfree.com/led-flasher-circuit/

 

[Grendels]

There are a couple of ways to get an LED to flash. The simplest by far is to use a timing chip. There are two different timing chips that I have used for models. The 555 timer and the 4060 cmos chip.

For your purpose I think that the 4060 will work because it does a couple of things that will make your life easier.

One it will regulate the voltage in other words, the voltage you feed into the circuit can be higher than what the LED needs and this chip will drop the voltage to a safe level for the LED.

Second, it will give you many different blink rates off of the same chip. Each output pin has a multiplier to it. In other words, one set of outputs would give you that one second blink while another might give you the three second blink.

The 555 timing chip will not do either of these. Voltage in equals voltage out, and you will need a seperate timing chip for each led.

I have a brief explanation here:

http://www.scalemodeladdict.com/forum/index.php/topic,712.0.html

In the picture on the link, pins 1-7 and 10-12 are output pins. You can just connect LED's across those pins and play around until you get the blink rates where you want them.

Both sets of timing chips use a resistor and capacitor in combination to set the timing. I do explain how I set up my timing on that link.

And more on the 4060 here:

http://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/cj_blink.htm

 

[fumblethumbs]

I picked up six copies of the same toy from the dollar store a while ago. Each one contained several LED's of various colours. Also, they would flash at different rates with every push of the on button. One push would turn on the lights and they would slowly flash (maybe once every few seconds). Another push and they would flash faster. A third push and they went almost strobe speed. Well I tore a couple of the toys apart and gathered the riches to light an X-wing. Fibre optic feeds the indicater lights in the cockpit. Looked really cool when I mocked it up to have different coloured lights blinking at various rates. I guess the moral of the story is take a gander at your local dollar store.

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

Likely the toy has a 4060 chip (or similar), when you turn on the switch it is connected to the 2 terminals that give it the slow flash, hit the switch again and it sends power to the next set of terminals on the chip to increase the speed of the flash, hit the switch again, so on, and so on.

With a background in electronics we used to play with these in the lab and with the right LED's and flash speed, you can create quite the hypnotic, psychedelic effect.

Unfortunately I have forgotten quite a bit of it, none of which would take much to refresh my memories, but got to like math and physics.

 

[Grendels]

The toy probably has a PIC controller in it. They are pretty cheap and easily programmed. Also their behavior can be changed with a button much like described in the thread.

Unfortunately I have forgotten quite a bit of it, none of which would take much to refresh my memories, but got to like math and physics.

Welcome to my world. I teach math and physics almost every day. Last night was circuits using capacitors and resistors......

 

[Ohm]

wow, this is a really useful thread. ;D

 

[Grendels]

I will be doing a video of the timing chips in the next two weeks! Stay tuned!