Electronic circuits that use the 555 Timer

555 Timer Circuits

555 Timers are fun and a great way to start learning electronics

DRIVING A RELAY Circuit

The 555 will activate a relay. When pins 2 and 6 are connected as an input, the chip requires only about 1uA to activate the output. This is equivalent to a gain of about 200,000,000 (200 million) and represents about 4 stages of amplification via transistors.
In the first circuit, the output will be opposite to the input. The relay can be connected "high" or "low" as show in the second diagram. One point to note: The input must be higher than 2/3V for the output to be low and below 1/3V for the output to be high. This is called HYSTERESIS and prevents any noise on the input creating "relay chatter."



NEGATIVE LOGIC
An interesting point to remember.
In the first diagram above, the relay is connected so that it is active when the output is low. This is called NEGATIVE or NEGATIVE LOGIC. It has the same reasoning as-5 - (-5) = 0.
Or in English:  "I am not NOT going."
When the input is low in the first diagram, the output is HIGH and the relay is OFF. The circuitry creates two reversals and makes it easy to see that when the input is LOW, the relay is OFF.

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