Thanks man. That's a nice thing to say! Most of my students call this boring... Hence what I said. I'm just amazed KZfaq has found this video so popular... Wasn't intended for anyone other than my students!

Rob Winter everything is boring when we don't understand,but when things get clear and specially when you have passion for that thing it will be exciting instead. I'm looking forward for some other videos because I love electronics and i love the way you explain things and you helped me understand it better

Rob Winter Thanks for the video! I just bought an electronics learning lab four days ago and I wanted to understand how the ic555 works. Your video definitely helps to clarify most of my questions!

Hi Thom, a 556 is basicaly just 2 555 timers on one chip anyway with common power and ground legs... shouldn't be that different to wire up. Glad you're learning and experimenting - That's how you learn.

thanks! I'm glad some people get what's going on at least! half my students still claim they don't get it from this video hence why I figured it was too complex/boring!

Long yes, boring no. but i am a self taught person at this, and i am now getting into animating my props, so this stuff is needed. I would like to see a simple break down of PNP and NPN transistors the diffrences between regulars and mosfets, what they are used for why they are used, what are the diffrent things they can be used for. becasue they are the next thing i want to click in my head, and me understand..

+Rob Winter BJTs and MOSFETs please

+Rob Winter Is there any way to make a "dual purpose" (monostable/astable) timer using just _one_ 555 chip? I mean, a circuit with a _switch_ which could be set either in "astable" mode (continuous "clock" pulses) or "monostable" mode (just one pulse triggered by a separate push-button), depending on whether I want to pulse it manually by pressing a push-button ("pulse once"), or let it work on its own by pulsing, let's say, every second. I know how to make a single astable multivibrator, or a single bistable multivibrator. But if I wanted to switch between either of these modes, I would have use two separate circuits with separate 555 chips and select the signal from the first or second one with a switch. What would I rather like, is to make it on just one chip instead of two. Is it possible at all? I couldn't find such a circuit in any of the usual applications for 555 :/

I'm sure it's possible with a DPDT switch. All you need to do is disconnect pin 6 from pin 2 in astable mode and also disconnect the top resistor from the circuit. Then the dpdt could connect The lower resistor to +v and pin 6 to pin 7. I'm sure it could work with the right switch.

You are the best!

Rob Winter Hello sir, I'm sorry for bothering you with what is probably a super basic question. I've loved your explanation videos. Your students are very lucky to have such a great teacher. The only question I have relating to this circuit, and any circuit really; is how do we go about figuring out what sized resister(s), and/or capacitance sizes to achieve the timing/operation we're looking for? Like say, if I was looking to have an astable 555 running at 180hz? I'd really appreciate any help you could offer, and anxiously await your answer. Thank you for the amazing videos!

waqar mehdi you're welcome. Glad it helped you.

this is the best explanation ever.

Ha! thanks! I don't think some of them would agree with you, but cheers for the compliment.

Thanks! Glad it Helped you. Don't worry about your English, it's better than most of my students who are English.

Thanks man! Glad you got something out of it! (even I thought this video was boring!)- I don't know why this video is so popular? Loads of people interested in the 555 timer and it's 1970's technology! Have you people in KZfaq heard of PIC chips? - much easier to do anything in electronics with a PIC. - Check out www.picaxe.com for a good, easy to learn starter system. IMO, much better than Arduino that everyone bangs on about.

Rob Winter Well I don't exactly have a degree in electronics and am working on making my own arcade machines. So I'm teaching myself how to build simple circuits and working up. Arduino is good and they claim you just need to follow directions to do there projects but that isn't too helpful when your done with there projects and trying to do your own. Never heard of a PIC {I'm a noob i know} I may have to look into that. Why I {speaking for myself here} liked this video was you actually explain it and the hows and whys of it working. Most videos ive seen is "plug this here, plug that there, oh and did i mention you need to plug that over there?" There is no explanation to the truest effect of the word on most other videos. This video more or less takes me by the ear puts my face up to the chip and goes "look idiot this is how it works" Nicer than that but that's the basic jist. Boring, maybe, but when your running out of time, money and energy ill take what information i can get and try to apply it to what i'm doing.

aha - i seem to have been here before - lol.,.,., well this is just as entertaining and revealing as it was the first time (though i'm not sure what that says about my memory!)

Thanks Mike. Glad you like it

Thanks. glad it helped you out!

+Rob Winter also... those Nixie clocks look awesome. might have to build one. where do you get the valve tubes with the numbers in them?

Tubehobby.com

Here i am watching it again for my acc exams XD, ur such a life saver!!!