Electronics Really Cool Idea...Have the entire circuit designed...

The wiper terminal is the one that's seperated from the other two, which would be the...other two. The wiper terminal should connect to the capacitor, while either of the other two goes to +5v. Your choice will dicatate which direction you need to turn the shaft to increase the resistance.

 

As of right now i have all the power leads plugged into the sides of the breadboard. I was thinking that maybe i could just hook up one 12V power source <not having to use more then one wire off of the PSU> to all of the leads. Those being: 555 timer power, 4017 clock power, and the LED power.

Should i do this? or should have the two ic's hooked up to the 5V wire from the PSU and then the LED's hooked up to the 12V wire?

Thank you

ps: both of the ic's can handle up to 15V of power. And I realize that the more power i put through the 555 timer the higher the mW go. I have no bearing on how the increase, or dcrease, in the astable output will increase, or decrease, the length of time the LED's are on. As i mentioned before i would like each of the LED loops to be for about 1-2 seconds

 

Ok so i am wire up the LED's and i was wondering should i put the resistors on the positive side of the series or on the negative side of the series....i can't remember which way electricty flows....for some reason i want to say that it goes from negative to positive....but i don't know.

And just in case you didn't understand the words i have thrown together a couple of drawings;



Also i just want to make sure of something real quick. You hook up the long end of the LED to the positive end of the power supply....correct?

 

U can put the resistors where you want, even between two leds

For the legs: try it first, i met some leds with "reversed" legs.

 

Thank you for all your help!!!!

work is coming along well...i have most the LED array for the "R" complete and i will post pictures as soon as i get them developed.

I have the circuit complete as well i just need to plug the LED's in and then i will be ready to test.

I am not sure if i want to just use one of those pieces of plastic that has all the holes in it....sorry if i don't know the name of it....or if i should make an actual board that has the connections on it instead of being cables.

I have no experience with making my own board so i don't know how well that would turn, but if someone could send me a link to a tutorial on how to do it that would be great!!!

 

Breadboard is the word you're looking for I'm sure. I wouldn't keep the circuit on a breadboard if I were you. The best method, if you don't want to get your hands dirty with making PCBs (not the easiest thing in the world to just jump into, trust me), consider getting a perfboard (basically a piece of highly compressed paper with holes drilled in a ".1x".1 configuration, same as your breadboard) with copper-ringed holes and soldering everything together. The only thing is you'll have to individual connections together. However, there's stripboard, which is even more like your breadboard (".1x".1 grid, horizontal tracks), but you can't pick the stuff up at RatShack (only place I know of to find it is Futurlec).

 

Once they get their site working, http://www.stripboard.com/ may come up with some more sources around the world. Odd, virtually every electronics components dealer in the UK stocks it.

 

I wish i lived in europe so bad!!!!

My friend was telling me about how back in Hungary they used to have days where everyone would put their stuff that they thought other people might want, out on the street. And you could just cruze around and pick u cool stuff...for FREE!!!!

But anyways back to the project. I am looking into the stripboards....i am overjoyed at how cheap they are!!! But i can't decide if i shoud go with the board that has individual holes iwth sloderable surface around them or if i should go for the boards that look like the breadboard. I am afraid that with the ones that look like bread boards, i will use to much space and waste a whole bunch of the actual board that could be used in another project. But i will decide as soon as i get the circuit working!!!! <should be soon, a couple more days of soldering and i should be done>

Alright onto the actual circuit, not only does this diagram that i made show the power circuit but it also shows the original circuit that whypick1 so kindly provided...Thank you!!! There is something that i have a question about...first off i was wondering if the LED's were hooked up as you suggested...series parallel, or parallel series...whichever one it is. and then also i wondered if someone oculd take a look at the power circuit. The LED arrays connect off of the +12V but the +12V also connects to the gruond as well (labled as -12V for simplicity for me). I was wondering if this would still allow the circuit to work or if this would short circuit the power source...it would be like taking the 12V wire and the ground wire on a molex cable, and connecting them together. I don't know if it would work.

Well enough talkign here is the diagram:


sorry for the hugeness....i have just started using Eagle Layout Editor so I am not good at makign good use of space....also take note that all compenest's values are labled.

 

1. Yes, that's series-parallel/parallel-series (same thing)
2. You've got one HUGE misconception. You've got +5v for the IC's positive supply and -5v for the IC's negative supply. The problem is that you're more or less thinking of voltage as absolute, instead of being relative. By feeding something +5v for high and -5v for low, it's running off of 10v, not 5v (positive - negative = effective). Same thing for the LEDs, you're giving them 24v effective, not 12v.

Ground is GND is ground is 0v. Remember that. The reason its called "ground"? When it's all said and done, ground goes to the ground (trust me on this, I read a huge-ass book meant for AC systems operators about this stuff). Where you have negative some voltage, you should be putting in GND.

Also, on your schem, you short out +12v and -12v. +12v should go to the LEDs, and GND needs to go to the transistors.

 

Allright i think i have fixed most of the problems you have brought up....the main question i had was about the short and you noticed it so Thank you!!!

The new Diagram:



I have changed thee "-V" labling to "GND" and i think that i have taken out the short...i am not positive though so if someone could check that over one last time.

The two black wires in a molex connectors are grounds correct, i am thinking about having a single 4 pim molex be the power source for the whole system.

Thank you!!!

 

Yes, the black wires are ground (common color scheme for DC, while AC decided it'd be different and go for white for neutral, which is not quite ground, and green for ground...I like DC a lot better). The reason there's two is so that there's one for stuff running on +12v (fans and motors) and one for stuff running on +5v (electronics). With just one ground wire, it'd have to carry all the current drawn by both sides, and the max amperage that the wire used in Molex connections is somewhere around 10A. For this project, feel free to use just one.

And yes, you eliminated the short.

 

hmm.. i might have missed something here, but why do you want to run the IC's of 5v and the LEDs of 12v?

Those IC's are CMOS, so they will handle up to 15v (18)... Running both of 12v will make wiringa bit easier... it's safer aswell

 

He probably did it because I did it first, and I did it first because I always put ICs on +5v because that voltage works for almost all IC families.

 

oh.. and the "loose pin" on the potmeter should be connected to the adjustable pin... just so that it's connected to SOMETHING...

 

when you say the adjustable pin...do you mean the adjustable pin on the POT?

and with the 5V....i am thinking about changing it to 6V...because <correct me if i am mistaken> that is what comes out of the molex connector, a 12V wire, 2 grounds and then a 6V wire. If i change the voltage that the IC's are getting then i could just plug the whole molex connector intot he PCB and not have to worry about cutting any wires. Easy ataching and detaching of the whole circuit.

Well i am not going to be at my house this weekend so i am not going to be able to post on this or work on the circuit but i am looking at a completion date of next sunday...or something around there

 

No, it's +5v.

 

Your +12V supply lines run round the led string groups, shorting them all out (extreme left verticals). And you aren't showing the transistor base resistors (470R for a 5V IC supply).

 

hahahha excellent point....as you can see i am very excited about this so do take care to examine what i posting that much but what good would forums be if i didn't make any mistakes!!!

But that part of what you said about "and you aren's showing the transitor base resitors (470Rfor 5V IC supply)." I don't understand that. I am going to go back through the posts and try and figure out what you are trying to tell me but i don't get why i need resistors on the transistors base lead.
Little help on that part would be great

THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!

 

Allright i think i figured out what you were talkign about cpemma. I have inserted some resistor in between the diodes and the transistors. I am still un sure of why....you said something over heating, is that the reason? Also i fixed the problem with the LED's being shorted.



I have a question about the resistors that i inserted into the cirtcuit between the diodes and the transistors. Just wondering what effect they will have on the display of the lights, faster blinking, brighter, dimmer, or non at all?

Also I just wanted to make sure that this is right....i should use 1.5Kohm resistors?

Thanks again

 

They won't affect the speed or brightness at all - they'll merely make the circuit work by increasing the current through the transistor, lowering the output voltage to near ground.