Electronic Instrumentation: Project 3 Information

Project Requirements
• Build a Working Version of the Project
• Explain how it works

Pre-Project Report
• Select Project -- If you choose to pick your own project, you must email a description of the project for approval sometime this week.
• Draw a tentative circuit diagram. You can make changes once you get into the lab. Provide a parts list.
• Describe what the circuit will do and how it works.

Project Options
• Electronic Wheel of Fortune -- Build a circuit with at least 10 LEDs in a circle. When triggered the circuit should light one LED at a time in sequence around the circle, simulating the motion of the wheel. The speed of rotation should decrease and eventually stop, leaving one LED lit. The original speed of rotation should be crudely determined by the operator. For example, you could connect a small motor to the circuit and by spinning its shaft produce different voltage levels. (The motor is used as a generator in this case.) The voltage thus produced could then set the initial speed.
• Electronic Holiday Decoration -- Build a circuit with at least 15 LEDs in some kind of decorative pattern. Trigger the LEDs in a sequence. For example,, you could light one, then three, then five, ... LEDs. The circuit should go through at least three different sequences before it repeats. It is not suggested that any randomness is necessary in this circuit.
• Student Defined Project -- You can propose to build anything that has a significant logical/digital component to the design.

Additional Information for All Electronic Projects
• 555 Timer.
• Drspice info on the 741
• Dick Smith Electronics info on the 555 and 386 , among others. (This is a company in Australia and New Zealand.)
• 555 Timer Page from Lizard74, which also contains some good project info.
• 555 Timer Applications are also discussed by Kostas A Papathanasiou of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
• Circuit Specialists, Inc.