Recent content by Freddythunder

@anorlunda This is a great guide to show approximate current draws of the raspberry pi, but it's way more than that. The motor is pulling the most current, probably then followed by the audio amplifier, then by the h bridge to run the motor in two different directions. A larger power supply...

Hello friends... I'll jump right into the deal here.. I pranked a friend by putting a raspberry pi into a yoda head like the one on his desk. There's an intro video: and the prank itself: if you are intrigued. Everything in the head runs off 3 AAA batteries. 1 raspberry pi zero w, 1 small...

I wish. I can't find any more docs than what's on the pages. I'm used to that buying parts from China and figuring stuff out. But I can tell you the chip is MC34063A. So how do you suppose the chip started to burn?

Thank you SunThief. I think your last comment is the most important. I did not notice that the LEDs were 700mA, and if the driver can only do 300mA then that could explain the smoke. I think I was looking at the 1W specs at 350mA. I was also thinking that 3W at 10V would only pull around...

Thank you for the responses; I don't think I was entirely clear about a couple things.. Sorry. First, I put the wrong link in here.. I do want to get IR LEDs in the future, but need to figure out how they work with visible light first. HERE are the LEDs I'm working with...

I've been doing a lot of searching on the interwebs for the best way to power these 3W epistar high power LEDs. And then I started looking for an alternate I can afford. I hope someone can help me as I'm not too good with electronics. I got a handful of these LEDs...

Oh yeah, I could use a relay becuase that's just a coil of wire just like the doorbell. Which makes me wonder, maybe I can supply DC power for the circuit and the doorbell and then just use the AC input to a relay to hit pin 2 on the 555. I do not have any idea how to set that up and my dad's...

Hello, I remember a few decades ago I built a circuit with my dad using what I think was a 741 op amp and a 555 timer and a loose wire. When you'd touch the wire, an LED would light. Then it took 30 seconds for the circuit to reset. I remember he said it was called a [logic] gate. Present...

Project Finished! Here we are again... One year and four months later.. Of course I think probably closer to a total of about 15 hours in that time span.. And it is finished. I wound up putting together two 556 circuits and connecting the output to a TIP31 transistor for 4 segments of LEDs...

My apologies - the reds are 6 and 4 not 7 and 3... The way I built the thing, the resistor was going in the opposite direction of where I was counting. As for the LEDs, they do all work. I've had 6 of the 8 segments all bliking at once and all segments currently work. I also had a blue one...

Trying to use my brain and avoid further frustration, would this work? If I used the LED calculator I found correctly: All blue LEDs (at 120 mA Each array) would pull 480mA All red LEDs (at 60mA each) would pull 240mA According to this...

Hello again, Here is a picture I put together with the values of the resistors and how I put the LEDs together. I'm not exactly sure where in the past four pages I got these diagrams, it's not exact to the post you posted. That was more for the transistor setup I believe...

Ouch. Well I did have six segments blinking the way I wanted and the entire shell constructed. I only get about a day a month to work on this with job and fam. But now I'm ready to get this thing finished! As for scratch and dent I could ask but imnpretty sure it'd be more. I found one one...

It's been a year and a half. Sheesh.. So printed circuit boards are too expensive. I pulled out all of my stuff determined to finish it so I can move on with the script. I even have a proposed camera man who's brother has a old police car to use. I have six segments constructed and attached...

Oops... Sorry about my post. I was really looking for a direction to go and not necessarily a person from here to do it, but I understand how it breaches solicitation. Thank you Jim Hardy for all the advice. I learned most things you stated from my dad when I was a kid and use .032 solder and...