I'm trying to use a transistor as a switch. Catch is I am using a premade device that has a flashing led that blinks as it operates. I want to use the source of the flashing led to trigger a transisor to drive a 6 volt 555 lamp. I need a refresher... my mind can't remember back when I did this stuff in college. anyone have any solutions I'd appricate it.
This is electronics 101. Trivial electronics 101.
You pick a transistor with a sufficiently high collector-current capability to drive the lamp. The lamp goes from B+ to the collector. Pump enough current into the transistor's base, the transistor saturates, bringing the collector voltage close to zero, and the lamp goes on.
Note that the input current to the transistor, multiplied by the DC current gain of the transistor, has to be at least the current the lamp requires for full output.
Depends on what makes the LED flash. Some LEDs have the flashing electronics built in so have a continuous DC supply. If it's a plain LED and all you can access is the intermittent signal to that, use a second transistor to charge a cap and use your main switching transistor fed from that cap.
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Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
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