Electronic Circuits and Diagram-Electronics Projects and Design

PWM lamp dimmer. A simple and efficient PWM lamp dimmer using timer IC NE555 is discussed in this article. Yesterdays linear regulator based dimmers can only attain a maximum efficiency  of 50% and are far inferior when compared to the PWM based dimmers which can hit well over 90% efficiency. Since less amount of power is wasted as heat, the switching elements of PWM dimmers require a smaller heat sink and this saves a lot of size and weight. In simple words, the most outstanding features of the PWM based lamp dimmers are high efficiency and low physical size. The…

Any one who is interested in electronics would have come across this IC – 555. It is the one component that is used in many wide range of applications. 555 Timer is used in a variety of applications including monostable and astable multivibrators, dc-dc converters, digital logic probes, waveform generators, analog frequency meters and tachometers, temperature measurement and control devices, voltage regulators etc. So it is essential that you should have a deeper understanding of 555 IC and how it is used in these applications.  The best way to learn about anything in this world is to – ‘get your hands wet’. You should read,understand and do things on…

CircuitsToday is listing some simple 555 timer circuits that have already been published in our site before. To know about the basics of NE 555 along with the timer circuit schematic, click on the links below. 555 Timer Circuit Schematic and Working Principle 555 Timer Monostable Circuit 555 Timer Oscillator Circuit 555 as an Astable Multivibrator LM 555 Datasheet From the articles above you will also get the idea about its duty cycle and also other 555 timer applications. Here are the links of some easy 555 IC circuits with complete description and circuit diagram. A small description is given…

Description. The circuit diagram of a very simple voltage doubler using NE555 timer is shown here. Here IC NE555 is wired as an astable mutivibrator operating at around 9KHz. The base of the two transistors (Q1 and Q2) is shorted and output of the astable multivibrator (pin 3) is connected to it. When the output of astable multivibrator is low, Q1 will be OFF and Q2 will be ON. The negative terminal of the capacitor C3 will be shorted to ground through T2 and it will be charged to the input supply voltage. When the output of the astable multi…

Description. A lot of electronic circuits using NE555 timer IC are already published here and this is just another one.Here is the circuit diagram of a police siren based on NE55 timer IC. The circuit uses two NE555 timers ICs and each of them are wired as astable multivibrators.The circuit can be powered from anything between 6 to 15V DC and is fairly loud.By connecting an additional power amplifier at the output you can further increase the loudness. IC1 is wired as a slow astable multivibrator operating at around 20Hz @ 50% duty cycle and IC2 is wired as fast…

Ramp Generator Circuit-using 555 Timer IC We know that if a capacitor is charged from a voltage source through a resistor, an exponential waveform is produced while charging of a capaci­tor from a constant current source produces a ramp. This is the idea behind the circuit. The circuit of a ramp generator using timer 555 is shown in figure. Here the resistor of previ­ous circuits is replaced by a PNP transistor that produces a constant charging current. Charging current produced by PNP constant current source is iC = Vcc-VE / RE where VE = R2 / (R1 + R2) *…

A voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) using the timer 555 is shown in figure. The circuit is sometimes called a voltage-to-frequency converter because the output frequency can be changed by changing the input voltage. As discussed in previous blog posts, pin 5 terminal is voltage control terminal and its function is  to control the threshold and trigger levels. Normally, the control voltage is ++2/3VCC because of the internal voltage divider. However, an external voltage can be applied to this terminal directly or through a pot, as illustrated in figure, and by adjusting the pot, control voltage can be varied. Voltage across the timing capacitor…

A monostable multivibrator (MMV) often called a one-shot multivibrator, is a pulse generator circuit in which the duration of the pulse is determined by the R-C network,connected externally to the 555 timer. In such a vibrator, one state of output is stable while the other is quasi-stable (unstable). For auto-triggering of output from quasi-stable state to stable state energy is stored by an externally connected capaci­tor C to a reference level. The time taken in storage determines the pulse width. The transition of output from stable state to quasi-stable state is accom­plished by external triggering. The schematic of a 555…

An astable multivibrator, often called a free-running multivibrator, is a rectan­gular-wave generating cir­cuit. Unlike the monostable multivibrator, this circuit does not require any ex­ternal trigger to change the state of the output, hence the name free-running. Before going to make the circuit, make sure your 555 IC is working. For that go through the article: How to test a 555 IC for working An astable multivibrator can be produced by adding resistors and a capacitor to the basic timer IC, as illustrated in figure. The timing during which the output is either high or low is determined by the externally…

  Block Diagram of 555 timer IC: Comparator 1 has a threshold input (pin 6) and a control input (pin 5). In most applications, the control input is not used, so that the control voltage equals +2/3 VCC. Output of this comparator is applied to set (S) input of the flip-flop. Whenever the threshold voltage exceeds the control voltage, comparator 1 will set the flip-flop and its output is high. A high output from the flip-flop saturates the discharge transistor and discharge the capacitor connected externally to pin 7. The complementary signal out of the flip-flop goes to pin 3,…