Sheesh, anyone who has an oscilloscope is better equipped than most. How much electronics background do you have?

I'm thinking simple op amp circuits. Like I said, there are lots of ways to do this.

I just drew this, so I don't know it will work. It should though.

The triangle is a stable ½ voltage point for the op amp circuit.

 

Great Thanks!! It is going to take me a while to study and understand this. Ok i notice the circuit drawn takes 9 volts in. The LED's I'm currently using is a 3 volt, does this mean I am going to change the initial volt value to 3?

 

if the LED is 3.0V and the transistor is turned on hard so its saturation voltage loss is 0.1V then the current in the 330 ohm resistor and in the LED is simply calculated with Ohm's Law. 9V - 3V - 0.1V= 5.9V. The current is 5.9V/330 ohms= 18mA so the LED will be fairly bright.

LEDs operate with current, not voltage.

 

I strongly suggest reading chapters 1 and 2 of my article, it should fill you in on basic LED theory. It is one of the reasons I wrote it (for people new to LEDs), the rest is just icing on the cake.

LEDs, 555s, Flashers, and Light Chasers

 

Alright so on my list is
few resistors I don't have
the 220 cap
TL072 chip

Also I was wondering if R1 is really 10ohm resistor or a 10k?

I don't think I get the small stable ½ voltage triangle points. How do you do this?

 

The triangle points are like ground, but they are not ground. They are common points, all connected together. Otherwise I have to draw a wire all over the schematic that basically only confuses the schematic.

In this case (as stated) the triangles are a separate power supply voltage. Not very high current, but as long as you stay within the current requirements it is extremely stable and quiet.

I picked 10Ω for R1 to limit the max gain. Without R1 the op would go very hi gain indeed, the 10Ω sets the limit to a gain of 1000 (gain is R2/R1+1). You can adjust down from there. The fidelity sucks, but how will a LED know? If R1 were 100Ω max gain would be 100.

Last thought, the parts aren't that critical. You could substitute the caps fairly easily for example, as long as you are in the ballpark. Same with resistors.

 

Ok I have a question on reading caps. I have a fairly good amount of random caps here and I'm not sure how to read them for they don't specifically say 220uF.

For example, I have many small clay caps that say
Y5U
.05Y
25V
so how will i know the uF?

Also I have a couple 555 timers which are also 8 pin.... could this be used?

 

It is either a 5µF or a 0.05µF, or maybe a lot less. I'm betting on the former. Many DVMs have a built in capacitance meter nowdays. If it 5µ it could substitute for the 10µF cap OK.

The physical appearance of parts is a major clue for values. For example, if this were a little disk it is probably in the picofarads (\(10^{-12}\)) and opposed to µF (\(10^{-6}\)). Electrolytics are very distinctive, and tend to be in the µF area.

 

A Y5U capacitor is a cheap poor quality ceramic which is a tiny power supply filter. 0.05Y is 0.05uF which is almost nothing. Use an electrolytic capacitor, not a ceramic one.

 

Is there any way I could use a 555 timer on this?

 

LEDs, 555s, Flashers, and Light Chasers

Chapter 12 - Special Effects

This could be simplified, but it's main purpose is high power, as in a lot of LEDs.

What's the matter with the first schematic?