I am looking for a simple circuit that gives a voltage controlled oscillator to Flash an LED.
I have an output from an instrumentation amp and I would ideally like the LED to be off at around 300mV and then flash with increasing speed as the Vout from the instrumentation amp goes up so that the LED appears to be fully on around 3V. This is running from a 6V supply. I would like the LED on duration to be short but just enough to notice (I guess around 50 to 100ms) and at 300mV have it flash about once per second or so.
Obviously this could be done in lots of ways, including with an MCU, but it is an add-on to an existing project and I would ideally like it to be low cost, low power and low component count (not asking for a lot am I). Hence I have been looking at 555s and while there are a lot of circuits out there I am not sure that a 555 is the best option.
So is there a better VCO or should I just go with a 555?
I have an output from an instrumentation amp and I would ideally like the LED to be off at around 300mV and then flash with increasing speed as the Vout from the instrumentation amp goes up so that the LED appears to be fully on around 3V. This is running from a 6V supply. I would like the LED on duration to be short but just enough to notice (I guess around 50 to 100ms) and at 300mV have it flash about once per second or so.
Obviously this could be done in lots of ways, including with an MCU, but it is an add-on to an existing project and I would ideally like it to be low cost, low power and low component count (not asking for a lot am I). Hence I have been looking at 555s and while there are a lot of circuits out there I am not sure that a 555 is the best option.
So is there a better VCO or should I just go with a 555?