Attention electronics experts

[PineRidge]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. BobReeves was gracious enough to enlist his talents and fab up a finished timer along with a parts list so that others could easily be made. He's incorporating a few improvements of his own. I'll fire off a picture once it's completed. Maybe by then one of you may have figured out what it's actually gonna be used for.

HINT it involves vegetables, golf, and tennis. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[BobReeves]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Hey Pineridge,
You could always whip one up using the dead bug method. You know, put the 555 upside down, and solder the components to it. Kinda looks like a dead bug huh.

I bet they don't teach that in NASA certified soldering courses!

Of course, I've never used this method. I was in a room where it was being done once, but I didn't inhale. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Mike )</font>

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif We called this prototype method of building up a circuit "Christmas trees". Sometime it got pretty exciting when wires that weren't suppose to touch did.

 

[SPIKER]

yep and I bet none of you guys ever charged up a small cap & tossed it to o9ne of you're buddies either /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif My circuit design days are way back almost 10 yrs now so I'm out of date but I did design a few items using the ole 555's.

Mark M

 

[PineRidge]

Mark being an old HVAC guy we used the capacitor trick on more than one occasion. Normally it only worked once per technician though, after that they wouldn't catch them anymore. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[SPIKER]

oh btw when I sail smal cap I MEANT SMALL one anything with a .01 or larger UMF rating could be very dangerous! as in HIGH current loads. low voltage sure but it's the amps that kills...

/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

MarkM /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[VA_Joe]

A good sized capacitor can shock like you know what but it won't kill. First the current is DC (i.e. unlike AC current - it won't disrupt muscle control - such as stopping the heart) and second the discharge would likely occur in only one hand vice through the body (although the hand could have a nasty burn - the patient will live).

The other factor is that voltage is needed to drive the current through the body. If the voltage is low, the ability to drive enough DC current to do real damage will be limited.

Note that for AC current - all bets are off. WIth AC, 25 volts with between .5 mA to 1 mA of current is enough to stop the heart. For a capacitor, however, this is not an issue

Anyways - my two cents.

Joe