One Of My Favorite Circuits

I particularly like the 666 Timer. Which is a take-off on this very popular timer.

From: xkcd.com/


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6 responses to “One Of My Favorite Circuits”

  1. Neil Avatar
    Neil

    Heh, I have had this cartoon pinned up over my workbench for a couple of years now.

    Ahh, the old 555. Lots of fun. It’s gone the way of the dodo, though. I recently stuck a 50MHz ARM processor into a design because it was cheaper than adding glue logic. Last year I did a design review on a piece of industrial equipment that used an ARM to handle eight logic I/O pins–because three optocouplers (to isolate a serial link) plus the ARM was cheaper than eight optocouplers!

    When it’s cheaper to substitute a 32MB state machine for glue logic, it’s a whole different world…

  2. Randy Avatar
    Randy

    So that’s what applied science in electrical engineering looks like. I never knew.

  3. Eric Wilner Avatar

    Second the “processor cheaper than glue logic” remark, though in my case I used a Tiny AVR to replace a dual analog timer and a couple of gates. Not only cheaper, but it added a lot of flexibility for the future.
    If you really like the 555, Evil Mad Scientist has a kit!
    http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/652

  4. Simon Avatar

    I’m doing some stuff with the LPC1114. I’m not real fond of the ARM architecture. Too C oriented. But it has some very nice timers on it.

  5. Neil Avatar
    Neil

    Simon-

    I’m not fond of ARM either. But boy is it cheap. And when I pass the design off to the engineers that have to maintain it, they’re highly unlikely to know any language other than C.

  6. Simon Avatar

    Neil,

    It is my hope to change that. I should be announcing in the next month or so.