In a recent lab, my partner and I constructed a one shot 555 timer. We were asked to heat up a capacitor in the circuit and observe what happened on our oscilloscope. We observed a small decrease in frequency, but why does that happen?

 

MOD NOTE: Moved to Homework Help.

 

The idea of a lab like this is for YOU to apply what you have previously learned to explain something that you haven't seen before. That purpose isn't well served if we just spell everything out for you?

So what's YOUR best explanation for why you are seeing what you saw?

Since the frequency went down, what does that imply happened to the capacitance?

Think of how a typical capacitor is constructed. What kinds of things -- there's probably more than one -- might happen as the temperature changes? Are the direction of those changes consistent with what you would expect as the temperature goes up?

Do you have a data sheet for the capacitor type you used?

 

Can you post what kind of capacitor it was? electrolytic? ceramic? talantium? paper? Gel?????......

 

It was a 1 uF electrolytic capacitor and no, we were not provided with a datasheet for it.

 

First, explain what is electrolytic capacitor and what's inside.

 

Okay. So now think of what capacitance is, what might influence it, and how that influence might be affected by temperature. Just do some brainstorming.

 

One shots do not have a "frequency." Do you mean monostable (one shot) or astable (multivibator)?