The cheapest way to blink a led

Oct 24, 2003 24 Replies

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I don't know how they do it, but in the Pound Store in Gloucester they are selling a transparent plastic whistle that contains five leds, two red, one green, one yellow, one blue with three button cells powering it, a push button switch and a chip glued directly onto the PCB that merrily flashes them.

It costs £1 (duh, it's the Pound Store), about $1.50.

I guess the lowest cost answer is probably to get a hundred thousand made in China.

Peter

You're right, Cygnal evidently changed their pricing and I didn't read the page relying instead on memory. My apologies, I still have a recent printed page which specifically introduces the '305 for $0.99/one. Maybe the recent buyout had something to do with it.

that price.

We disagree, somewhat. Achieving extreme pulse widths isn't easy, try getting a 0.5% pw for instance and see what the unit to unit variations are.

Agreed.

-- Regards, Albert

---------------------------------------------------------------------- AM Research, Inc. The Embedded Systems Experts

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(916) 780-7623

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As I said, _each_, quantity one, $0.99. I have no idea how much Digikey marks them up, you can purchase directly from Cygnal with a credit card. Here's pricing:

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I don't thin there is a PIC for under a buck quantity one.

As to using a 'boring old LM55', remember that you have to add a few external components, the duty cycle is not very controllable without a handfull of extra parts. Even then you have to change h/w to change frequency or duty cycle. Using a micro gives a lot more options.

-- Regards, Albert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AM Research, Inc. The Embedded Systems Experts http://www.amresearch.com (916) 780-7623 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Have a look at that page again and pay close attention to the column headers. Does "Approx 10Ku Price" ring any bells?

Stef

What's this message doing back after a month?

BTW, The direct purchase method gives you at best the qty. 100 price, no matter how many you key in (up to 99999, or over a quarter of a million dollars- enough to max out most credit cards unless you have one of those line-of-credit or Cash Management jobs), and if you do, you'd be canny enough to want to save $150K+ by giving them a call.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

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