It is saying that 2 consecutive outputs will drive the transistor.

That was obviously the intention of the design, I wonder if it ever worked? People make mistakes, the internet is awash with them. I made a mistake myself once; I thought I was wrong, but in actual fact I was right.

Seriously, the responders to this thread have all been at pains to clarify. Time to let it go and move on?

 

Also, if the goal was to keep each LED on for twice as long, why not just cut the clock frequency in half and use the Q5 output to reset the counter?

 

Also, if the goal was to keep each LED on for twice as long, why not just cut the clock frequency in half and use the Q5 output to reset the counter?

Oh, I just saw that you offered up that suggestion midway down the first page.

 

Also, if the goal was to keep each LED on for twice as long, why not just cut the clock frequency in half and use the Q5 output to reset the counter?

The circuit designer did not know how to reset the CD4017 after it counted to 5 so two consecutive outputs were wrongly tied together with diodes and the CD4017 was allowed to count to 10.

 

The circuit designer did not know how to reset the CD4017 after it counted to 5 so two consecutive outputs were wrongly tied together with diodes and the CD4017 was allowed to count to 10.

The poor quality of the design has been remarked upon repeatedly.

 

The poor quality of the design has been remarked upon repeatedly.

It came from www.circuits4U. There are many circuits with errors there and even some circuits with errors were copied from other websites "over there".