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Astable 555 Multivibrator - doc00019

This is a demo of the popular 555 timer. you can try out the project on this page by a javascript simulation.



Press the Red button below to turn on the circuit press it again to turn off. The 555 can source (LED2) or Sink (LED1) upto 200mA. It can even drive a small motor or lamp with diodes added to protect from inductive kickback.

Vary Ra, Rb and Ct with the controls given and see the change of frequency, period and duty cycle.

Astable 555 Multivibrator - doc00019   Add to Google
The Interactive demo below requires images and javascript to be enabled.
freq  Hz period Sec duty cycle

Power
Ra 




Rb 




Ct 





LED1




LED2






Above in Gadget form, Astable 555 Multivibrator Gadget , for your Webpage or Google Home Page.

These are the formulae used by 555 and same is used in javascript without any change.

T1 = 0.693 (Ra + Rb) * Ct   charge time of Ct

T2 = 0.693 (Rb * Ct)  discharge time of Ct

T = T1 + T 2    total period in seconds

F = 1 / T = 1.44 / ((Ra + (2 * Rb)) * Ct)   Frequency in Hertz

D = T 2 / T  duty cycle, multiply by 100 to get  %.

Ct in farads and Ra-Rb in ohms.



The max power dissipation of 555 is 700mW so overload of more than 200mA will damage the device, connecting the battery in the reverse or wrong polarity will also damage device, ensure also Ra and Rb do not go less than 2.2K (use 4.7K minimum) as it may damage the discharge transistor at pin 7. The supply voltage can go upto 18V. For CMOS 555 like 7555 see the datasheet they are different.

the above circuit in pdf format  del00018.pdf
the cadsoft eagle source of the circuit  del00018.zip

datasheet of LM555 here pdf.

pdf  links may take time to load in the browser, save file target to your disk is better.

If LEDs are not lighting up, refresh the page. Tested in Mozilla 1, Opera 5 and IE5 with javascript and images enabled.
20:07 12-Jan-07 1.1


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