555 Touch Switch

This touch switch built based on famous 555 timer IC. When the plate is touched the 555 timer is triggered and the output on pin 3 goes high turning on the LED and the buzzer for a certain period of time. The time that the LED and the buzzer is on is based on the values of the capacitor and resistor connected to pin 6 & 7. The 10M resistor on pin 2 causes the the circuit to be very sensitive to the touch.

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InfraRed LED Flasher for Optical Switch

This circuit is used to detect objects by reflected infrared light. It can be built into a cylindrical enclosure just like an inductive proximity switch.

This is also useful as a level detector for colored liquids like oil. This has some immunity to ambient sunlight as it detects ac pulses.

IC 555 is used as an astable oscillator and it flashes the Infra red LED D1 at a high speed, The object close to this LED reflects the light along with the ambient light which may also be sunlight.

IR Led’s and Diodes

The types available are various and polarity hard to detect even photo IR transistors can be used. The IR Led can be tested in diode mode of a DMM (battery should be in good condition) it should give around 1.1V drop in proper polarity. An IR detector diode or photo diode can be tested in the same way the drop will be 0.5V at 1 feet from a 60W lamp (no sunlight), closing the IR photo diode with your hand will be an over range on DMM this will happen on proper polarity. the photo diode shows around 10k ohm resistance in daylight and in Mega ohms when covered also the photo diode detects light on reverse bias and used like that.

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