Calling all electronics gurus.

tbone9600

Active Hunter

• May 16, 2008

• #1

Does anyone know how to wire up a circuit with three randomly flashing LED's? If there is anyone could you hook me up with a somewhat layman's diagram? I've searched all over the net and I haven't even stumbled over anything that will work. All I am finding is a kit for five and it will not do.

Thanks,
t_bone

 

tubachris85x

Well-Known Hunter

• May 16, 2008

• #2

http://ledcalc.com/

 

tbone9600

Active Hunter

• May 17, 2008

• #3

Thanks! That's pretty cool but can you get it to show you how to make them blink?

 

Hasid

Jr Hunter

• May 17, 2008

• #4

You need to get blinking leds.

 

tubachris85x

Well-Known Hunter

• May 17, 2008

• #5

t_bone9600 said:

Thanks! That's pretty cool but can you get it to show you how to make them blink?

Click to expand...

The blinking LED's are their own kind. They are built to blink, I believe they have a resistor that creates the blinking. What you need to do, is go to a radioshack, pick up what ever kind you need, make sure it says that it is a blinking LED. Use the technical information from the packaging for the LED calc I posted, and it will create a diagram of how it should be wired. Either in a series or parrallel

 

V

vadr h8r

Hunter

• May 17, 2008

• #6

You could also get one of those scary flashing Halloween eyes that come on those little badges. Once you take it apart, the circuit board is really small and you should be able to implement them into just about anything!

 

Hasid

Jr Hunter

• May 17, 2008

• #7

heres what you can do, get a 2 AA or AAA battery pack and you can run the majority of the 5mm leds without a resistor. jus tmake sure the forward voltage is around the same as the voltage of your batteries so 2 AA/AAA with a 1.5v a piece togeather is 3v. so teh reds will be driven a bit harder than teh greens and blues and the life span will be lessened a bit,

 

mrgr8ness

Well-Known Hunter

• May 19, 2008

• #8

What exactly are you trying to do with the LED's? Are they supposed to just randomly blink, blink sequencely, alternately, etc?

 

tbone9600

Active Hunter

• May 19, 2008

• #9

Thanks for all the info so far. Unfortunately none of it has worked for me yet.

mrgr8ness said:

What exactly are you trying to do with the LED's? Are they supposed to just randomly blink, blink sequencely, alternately, etc?

Click to expand...

I need three LED's that blink randomly or at least appear to. I am building another Boushh style thermal detonator. 'Cept this time I'm using stainless steel and I want to be a little more accurate with the blinking lights on the front. On the first one I wired them in series with a blinking LED and they just blinked at the same time. I did find a circuit diagram, here, that uses a 555 timer and a 4060 counter and driver. I thought I could omit 4 of the LEDs and connect two outputs to each of the three I need to get a little more of a random sequence. Only reason I haven't tried this yet is that my local Radio Shacks don't have any and they acted like I had an anus on my forehead when I asked about it. I did find a place online and ordered one. Do you know of another way.

 

batninja

Well-Known Hunter

• May 19, 2008

• #10

Do they have to blink randomly? Those LED lighting kits that folks use to put in childrens' clothes contain 8 to 10 LEDs, and you can clip the wires to the unwanted LEDs, creating an 'almost' random effect. They'll still be sequential, but you can pick three that blink off-tempo...just not randomly.

I hope that made sense.

 

tbone9600

Active Hunter

• May 19, 2008

• #11

"Semi" randomly would work. Where can you get those. I have never seen them. I've seen the ones with like two LEDs for kids to wear when outside after dark... ie. Trick or Treating. Are they similar to that?

 

mrgr8ness

Well-Known Hunter

• May 20, 2008

• #12

The 555 timer would work, you could just come out of the output(pin 3) with your LED and a 470ohm resistor, then to common. This would flash just one LED. You could build 3 exact circuits, and with component value changes, make them blink randomly from each other. I could draw something up in EB for you, but just don't have the time at the moment. Here is a great website for you. I see at least 3 cicuits there, that should give you what you want with a little tweaking-
http://www.hobbyprojects.com/F/Flashers_and_Blinkers.html

 

tbone9600

Active Hunter

• May 20, 2008

• #13

mrgr8ness said:

The 555 timer would work, you could just come out of the output(pin 3) with your LED and a 470ohm resistor, then to common. This would flash just one LED. You could build 3 exact circuits, and with component value changes, make them blink randomly from each other.

Click to expand...

I went ahead and ordered the driver/counter chip but I may try this as well. I should have the items to do this on hand. Thanks.