So, I know it's not required to add a final post, but I felt that after such a project, I should at least conclude some way.

 Although I had past experience with electronics when starting with this project, I was just getting into it, "getting my feet wet" so to speak. This projected helped me immensely, both by teaching me new things and by giving me hands on experience every day. I feel that, given the opportunity to continue something like this, I would DEFINITELY chose to do it again. I believe that I can use the knowledge that I've taken from this project as well as the familiarity with electronic components. I'm very happy that I was presented with the opportunity to do this project, and I hope to see similar ideas in other classes as well. Thank you for reading, and this concludes the blog.

1. Adjust the potentiometer. What happens to the sound frequency as R3 is adjusted?

2. Measure the voltage applied to pin 5. Adjust the pot to give the highest possible voltage.   4.7 volts
3. Now adjust the pot for the minimum voltage to pin 5. The voltage is 3.2 volts
4. The output frequency is highest when the control voltage at pin 5 is lowest.

1. What doe the LED do? How does this tell you that the astable is operating properly?

2. Change R2 to 100kΩ. What do you THINK will be the effect of this charge?
3. What is the ACTUAL effect caused by the resistor change?

This is the first project out of the "clocks" book.

1. Momentarily bring pin 2 of the 555 low by touching it to ground. What does the output do?

2. After the LED goes off, do this again and time the LED to see how long it remains on.
3. Use this formula to calculate how long the LED should stay on: t = R1 x C1 Does this agree with the time the LED was actually on?
4. Cause the LED to light and touch pin 4 to ground before the LED would normally turn off. What happened?
5. Change the value of C1 to 0.1µF. What do think will be the result of this change?
6. Repeat the above steps to determine the actual effect of changing the capacitance. What happened?
7. You may also want to change the value of R1 to see its effect. What happened?
By the way, that IS my hand trying to get out of the way before the picture took.

Any questions?

This is my optional Project to finish off the Opto-Couplers book. I made an electronic dice game. Happy to finish up this book (finally).

Any questions?

This project caused me a little bit of grief, especially because I believe that it's dead technology... Oh well, did the work anyway...

1. Remove one end of the resistor R5. This shuts off the opto-coupler. What is the effect of this?

2. Change the settings of the binary switches and reconnect R5. What happened?

3. Is this what you expected?

Any questions?

1. Touch the probe to a 5V source. What happens?

2. Touch the probe to source ground. What happens?
3. Can you decide what would happen if a digital pulse were applied to the probe? Explain how this would work.
Any questions?

A skitch of my answers to #2 and #4 and two photos of my wiring.

Part 1:
1. Here are the following switches needed to form the numbers below:

Part 2:
1. By using the four binary switches, make the 7-segment readout display numbers 1 through 8.
2. If any binary number above 9 is made by the switches, what happens to the 7-segment display? Make a chart of how the display looks for each binary number from 10 to 15.
4. Use the logic probes made earlier to determine the logic state (high or low) of the inputs and outputs of the 7448 decoder. Set the input switches to binary “7”- use the logic probe to observe the states of pins 7, 1, 2, and 6. What should they be for this input? Then, check the outputs, which are 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 15, and 14.

Any questions?

Project #3: Binary Numbers Display

More questions and more answers.

1. By manipulating switches, any binary number from 0-15 can be shown on the LED readouts.
2. What switches must be turned on to make the numbers 2         2       , 3      1 and 2     , 5      1 and 3     , 13      1, 3, and 4     ?
3. What is the maximum count that can be achieved with 3 LEDs?    7   . With 5 LEDs?    31  .
4. What is the relationship between the maximum count that can be achieved with a number of LEDs and the weight of the next LED if it were added?

value of next LED - 1 = maximum value of LED

Have a nice day!

Oh, and any questions?

Because you can just move one wire and change it from one to the other, I decided to merge these posts.

Project #1: A Simple LED Indicator
Pretty simple, it's an LED that indicates. Any questions?

Project #2: Logic Probe #1
Some questions with some answers:

1. Touch the input "probe" wire to the 5V source. What is the result?

2. Touch the probe to the source ground. What was the result?
3. Explain the operation of this simple logic probe.
Any more questions?