Hi
I’m just starting out using Fritzing and getting used to everything here. I wondered if someone had already tried to connect a continuous rotating servo and an LED array to a 555 timer powered by a 9v battery pack, so the servo and LED array would come on at verious intervals through the 555 timer.
I already tried to connect a PIR to this configuration but gave up as I couldn’t get it to work. So I decided to go down the timer road instead.
I’d be grateful to anyone who may have seen this setup before to tell me where it is.
Best regards
Michael.
While I haven’t done anything like this, I can supply some things to think about. The first suggestion is to do a google search for what you want (as long a description as you can of what you want) to see if anyone else has done it. A google search of the form “continuous rotating servo and an LED array to a 555 timer powered by a 9v battery pack” turns up a number of hits that may be useful. That is probably the best way to find other projects (not limited to Fritzing!) After that here are some things to think about: is the battery needed? The battery will limit the amount of time the project will run (and imply that you need to reduce power consumption as far as possible.) If you can run of a power supply you have a lot more options. Servos and LED arrays usually need a lot of power making a battery problematic unless it needs to be portable for some reason, in which case you will likely need a larger battery than the typical 9 volt cells (which may be implied by the 9V battery pack since there are RC batteries with many amp hour capacity!) The 555s are low power, but if low power isn’t needed a CPU may be an as cheap and better solution. The CPU (such as an Arduino Nano or a blue pill) will give you much more flexibility in control at the cost of higher power draw and having to write software. Without knowing more about the aims and constraints of the project it is hard to provide more than this general advise, so hope this helps.
Peter
Hello Peter,
and thanks for a very detailed reply.
I’ll try to broaden my description.
I have a glass cylinder about 6.5 inches high, and I want to display it on a rotating base that is lit up from beneath by an LED array (5 leds of different colours). I originally wanted to insert a PIR detector in the base so the continuous 360 servo would turn the cylinder whenever someone walked past for, say, 20 seconds and then re-set itself. But because the PIR has 3 wires running from it, I couldn’t incorporate it into the original setup without bringing in an Arduino as a controller. This would make the circuit bigger, and I wouldn’t have enough space in the base to accommodate everything. I searched Fritzing for that layout but couldn’t find one, even though I had a printout of that schematic sitting on my desk at the time. The reason I wanted to use a 9v power supply was that I was going to put the base in pubs, on a shelf behind the bar, and didn’t know whether there would be an electrical plug nearby to power the base.
I hope this description makes it easier to understand what I’m trying to do.
Let me know if I can simplify the above for you to understand what I’m on about.
Best wishes
Michael.
If you can get an image of the schematic (from a photo of the schematic for instance) , a google search for the image via search for image should find it:
just drag the image in to the window and it will find exact matches which should give you the post. That said I would avoid the battery and use an external power supply because between the servo and the LEDs, this is likely to draw a fair amount of power and thus flatten the battery fairly quickly (probably at the very worst time the way murphy’s law works 
) the external power supply will likely work better and be less maintenance (and thus less resistance to installing your device!) The PIR should be able to be powered from 5V and then trigger the 555s when the signal wire goes positive (assuming it can be fitted to the base with a view out the glass to make the PIR work correctly!)
Peter
A late thought. If you need a small cpu board there is the Seeed XIAO which is around 0.7x0.9in and has 11 I/O ports which should be plenty for your application. There is a Fritzing part in both the and smd (if you want to solder it to a pcb) available here
Peter
