EEVblog: The 555 Timer is 55 years old [video]

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bbrudgers about 5 hours ago 37 commentsRead Article on youtube.com

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3form•about 4 hours ago

5:55 video released on May 5th, as per description :)

For something feeling like a fairly specific IC, I remember seeing many projects that use it throughout the years in wacky ways - and seeing it makes me happy to know that the sentiment for this little piece is shared.

regularfry•about 2 hours ago

The trick is that it's sold as a timer but it's really a kit of parts from which you happen to be able to build a timer.

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

cbdevidal•about 2 hours ago

Can even build a computer out of them

https://hackaday.com/2011/08/05/building-a-computer-out-of-5...

FarmerPotato•about 3 hours ago

Two videos tomorrow at 5:56!

zephen•about 2 hours ago

That's fine, but you know you have to concatenate them and sell them as one unit, right?

darrinm•about 2 hours ago

As a kid I didn’t understand what the 555 timer chip on the Apple II disk controller was doing but I learned the hard way that when you misalign the pins on the drive connector cable and the 555 chip releases its blue smoke you can’t use the drive anymore :(

fortran77•about 1 hour ago

There was a 556 on the Apple ][ disk controller (a dual 555).

See: https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20P...

longwave•about 3 hours ago

Big Clive is currently livestreaming to celebrate the 555's birthday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzNjFJdaw_I

SoleilAbsolu•about 3 hours ago

I still have the Forrest Mims III Radio Shack "555 Engineer's Mini-Notebook" somewhere in my basement. And rumor has it that Sammy Hagar can't drive 555 because his car just isn't fast enough!

MisterTea•about 2 hours ago

The Mims books are fantastic. As a kid I collected every mini notebook and the green Radio Shack "Getting Started in Electronics." They were my intro to electronics along with the Radio Shack kits.

stevekemp•about 2 hours ago

I have a paper copy of "IC 555 projects" kicking around on my bookshelf still!

PDF version here https://worldradiohistory.com/UK/Bernards-And-Babani/Babani/...

mnw21cam•about 1 hour ago

I used one of these to win an inter-school science competition when I was ~13. It was a minute timer. The competition board doubted I had built it all myself, so they plonked it down in front of me and demanded I draw the circuit diagram in front of them.

jacquesm•27 minutes ago

That says a lot more about them than it did about you.

davidwritesbugs•about 4 hours ago

Oh god I feel old. I remember being an excited schoolboy thinking how magic this was when it debuted.

davidwritesbugs•about 4 hours ago

I also remember being amazed, and did a forehead slap, when an old army bomb disposal man explained how, what I thought was an innocent device, was used by the IRA in bombs.

nickcw•about 4 hours ago

Ha. When I was a teenager I used to build 555s into timers for the same purpose using a no PCB rats nest construction.

Though surprising the family at dinner with a small explosion was a much more innocent purpose.

Brian_K_White•about 3 hours ago

For me that is blue leds.

davidwritesbugs•about 2 hours ago

Yes! I remember thinking "damn you band gap physics, if we only had blue leds we could do colour displays with LEDs, but that can never happen."

tuvix•about 4 hours ago

Built an atari punk console using these with my late father. Still have it hanging on my wall in a shadow box.

swed420•about 3 hours ago

I recently dug one out to use as a hardware shutdown timer to power off an rpi's PSU once it has presumably halted without having to resort to a dedicated MCU for the task.

nom•about 4 hours ago

also today's date is 5.5. and the video is 5m55s

OldSchool•about 1 hour ago

As an electronics-enthusiast kid in the 70's, just before home computers showed up at all, I wished the 555 was for Time Travel

pryelluw•about 2 hours ago

Back when radio shack still existed I would buy a 555 timer during every visit. I live collecting them and still have a bunch somewhere stored. I continue to do it with the 328p arduino boards as well whenever I visit my local microcenter.

stackghost•about 1 hour ago

When I was a camp counselor in my 20s I designed a one-octave "piano" out of one of these, a battery, paperclips for keys, and a shitload of resistors. We had the kids build them on proto board. They sounded harsh but you could play Mary Had a Little Lamb on them!

encom•about 3 hours ago

Can't watch it right now, but upvoted for Dave Jones. He's taught me so much. Absolute treasure, and the host of one of the last great active forums. Thank you for not blackholing all that info on the disaster that is Discord, like so many other communities.

Etoro2024•about 2 hours ago

I used to get exited about this. Hahaha I think I miss those days.

sho_hn•about 2 hours ago

I have a Displate of a decapped 555 hanging near my EE workbench:

https://displate.com/displate/2002057

amelius•about 3 hours ago

What component values do you need to time exactly 55 years?

Maybe it could work if you used 5 timers?

ua709•about 2 hours ago

How exactly is exactly? Can I make it measure 1 hour with an allowed tolerance of 55 years, plus or minus. :)

megous•about 2 hours ago

I don't think you could do it. Not with the original BJT variant anyway. :)

floxy•42 minutes ago

Hmm, why not? For the astable configuration, you could use a 100F capacitor with R1 = 10 Meg and R2 = 7.5 Meg, for a 55 year period. Base current for the Threshold NPN will come from the Trigger PNP (and hopefully temperature drift matches OK). Other than maybe the 100F capacitor might have some variation in capacitance and leakage current over the course of 55 years ;-)

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/tecate-group/PBLH...

kazinator•about 3 hours ago

Time to slow it down to lower frequencies and give it more frequent checkups.

ilvez•about 4 hours ago

killer oneshot, laughed hard..

aj7•about 3 hours ago

The late Harold DuBose use to use the 555 as a power inverter as it could sink 200ma at the laser companies he worked for. Convenient and cheap.

raverbashing•about 2 hours ago

Makes me wonder if we could have a 555 circuit with a trigger time of 55 yrs

mnw21cam•about 1 hour ago

How many capacitors do you have that can hold their charge for 55 years?

robofanatic•about 4 hours ago

and this is the fifth comment