555 Timer Madness

555 Timer Madnesshttps://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/Do Something Unusual Using 555 Timers.en-USTelligent Community 12<link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=279dbc77-ef8b-4fa5-ba90-971258128282</link><pubDate>Tue, 16 Apr 2024 06:57:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:279dbc77-ef8b-4fa5-ba90-971258128282</guid><dc:creator>Gururaj</dc:creator><description>Attaching the pictures of the Sensor I have made again. . . You are right. This is a PVC insulated Aluminium wire normally used for drying cloths here. This is a strong wire and can't be bent easily...Will check on Teflon insulated Single stand wire. The looping back till the top is a good idea. I had done that some time back with 1.5 core, Insulated Copper wire (Multi-Stands). I need to check how this would work, will give it a try. W.r.t 75ft CAT5 cable, I have a single LAN cable upto from Sump to the OHT. The connections on either side (Arduino on one side and sensor on the other side) of this wire is taken with the help of connector as shown below...Connections are stiff and conducting properly</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=b870da13-2bcb-426d-8af8-e1167f4988cc</link><pubDate>Wed, 10 Apr 2024 14:51:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:b870da13-2bcb-426d-8af8-e1167f4988cc</guid><dc:creator>AE7HD</dc:creator><description>I can't find the picture you posted before. What insulation is on the wire? PVC insulation absorbs water. I notice you put some kind of sealer on the ends of the wires, are you sure that isn't leaking? I like to use teflon insulated wire, and rather than one wire down, I like to do a loop down and back up so there is complete insulation only in contact with the water. The behavior with a scope attached points to something very odd going on. A bad connection, perhaps? The scope should only add a few pF if you are using 10x probes and that should not change. What length are the pulses? How are you connecting 75ft of twisted pair? Are you replacing the 30ft, or adding 45ft? Soldered or just twisting the wires together?</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=a514cc3b-e2a5-4f78-9fcc-750867e8e69f</link><pubDate>Wed, 10 Apr 2024 01:36:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:a514cc3b-e2a5-4f78-9fcc-750867e8e69f</guid><dc:creator>Gururaj</dc:creator><description>@AE7HD : As you suggested I changed R3 100E and used Twisted pair. But no luck. I tired the setup with R3=1K, with 30ft Twisted CAT5 cable. It worked fine. But with 75ft cable its not working.. Infact when the CL (Sensor) is outside the water tank, It shows 0.11 nF. But when I start inserting it into the water (OHT), Capacitance reduces, like it become 0.07nF and goes as low as 0.01nF when fully inserted into water. I even used Digital Oscilloscope to test the signal. Weirdly, as soon as I connect Scopes probes, Capacitance starts varying like 0.11nF, 0.08, 0.05, 0.12, even with 2ft Cable and Sensor not in Water. If I remove the scope's probes..It stays constant at 0.11nF. The timing of high and low signals on Scope also shows varying results.. I though of increasing R3 to something like 4.7K/10K so that Sensor can detect the "Low" at this length of cable. Any other thoughts will be helpful.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=de8e517d-ea56-4282-81f2-2d7266f392d6</link><pubDate>Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:49:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:de8e517d-ea56-4282-81f2-2d7266f392d6</guid><dc:creator>AE7HD</dc:creator><description>If it works with 2ft of wire, then perhaps lowering R3 to 100 ohms and using both wires in a twisted pair will fix the numbers.. I've seen nearby noise sources cause problems when not using twisted pair or shielded wire. Brushed motors, motor start relays, LED/fluorescent lights.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=dde611ac-c75b-48dd-9c28-427487840840</link><pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 16:12:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:dde611ac-c75b-48dd-9c28-427487840840</guid><dc:creator>Gururaj</dc:creator><description>As it says, One Picture is worth thousand words, I am attaching pictures of my sensors. Pic 1 is complete view of 4ft Sensor. Pic 2: Closer look at the green Insulated Aluminium wires on either side of the pipe. Also the end of this Aluminium wire is insulated with rubber tape and Araldite (Adhesive). Pic 3: Shows how 555 timer is connected with this Insulated Aluminium wire. I'll surely use a single twisted pair and test it tomorrow. Borrowing a scope on Sunday to check timings. W.r.t Grounding the circuit at the tank, I don't have any additional grounding provided to circuit. Just the power supply wires (The Red-Black twisted wire in Pic -3) I'll even try to lower the R3 to 100 Ohms and give it a try. IMO, Since this setup is working fine with 2ft of wire, we can zero down our analyse around stray capacitance, Noise, EMI, timing issue or other.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=8265e77a-9606-4c96-ab81-d0993554f501</link><pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 12:55:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:8265e77a-9606-4c96-ab81-d0993554f501</guid><dc:creator>AE7HD</dc:creator><description>The wires are full insulated? Are they held rigidly? The cable between the sensor and 555 may affect readings as it flexes, depending on the cable. Inserting and removing the wires will give you different readings than filling and emptying the tank, as everything nearby including you affects the reading. Why did you use wires from two different twisted pair? It defeats the purpose of using twisted pair. Do you have an oscilloscope to observe the output waveform? Perhaps you have some outside source of noise. Do not ground the circuit at the tank. That can cause ground loop problems. With wire that long, I'd try lowering R3 to 100 ohms. 100 ohms is the impedance of Cat 5 and Cat 6 twisted pair.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=13b1295b-d1b5-4899-b118-cccf2258b1bb</link><pubDate>Wed, 27 Mar 2024 09:46:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:13b1295b-d1b5-4899-b118-cccf2258b1bb</guid><dc:creator>Gururaj</dc:creator><description>An update. I tested 4ft Capacitive Sensor (CL) with a cable of 2ft between 555 out and Arduino. Got the acceptable results. When CL is connected as in Schematic, but not yet inserted into Water I get 0.11 nF. When I start inserting it slowly into water, I get reading as 0.13nF, 0.15nF and so on till 0.32nF. When I remove it from water it comes back to 0.12 or 0.13nF With these result I wanted to test it in actual environment. The Sump (this is where Arduino is mounted) is around 75 ft apart from Over Head Tank (OHT). OHT level is what needs to be measured with 555 and CL I have LAN Cable with 4 twisted pairs running between Sump and OHT. I used one wire from two different pair (Green for -Ve and Orange from +Ve/Pulse) to connect 555 and Arudino. With this setup, the results were fluctuating. Initially it showed 0.11 nF before I inserted the CL into the tank. But when I started inserting CL into the tank, it used to raise a bit and fall back. Like value sometimes went to 0.2nF and fell back to 0.16nF. Even when I completely inserted CL into the tank (no movements at all) it used to show 0.19 nF, 0.16nF, 0.18nF, 0.13nF I'll try to use the single pair and test it out. IMO, the result may not be too much of difference. Any suggestion would be very help at this stage. AE7HD : Should we reduce the value of R3 since the length of the wire is 75ft? Will T-Off as low as 693 nanosecond (at 0.1nF Capacitor) be recognised by Arduino with this length of the wire? Please suggest if I need to do any change.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=1b66fed9-c883-40c5-aeed-3400e1fc15a7</link><pubDate>Mon, 25 Mar 2024 17:12:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:1b66fed9-c883-40c5-aeed-3400e1fc15a7</guid><dc:creator>AE7HD</dc:creator><description>For testing purposes, you can build a capacitance meter using two 555 timers. With a DMM as the readout on 200.0mV scale, it reads down as low as 0.1pF resolution. I have a meter with the lowest scale being 600.00mV, I find it is stable down to 0.01pF aka 10fF. hackaday.io/.../183405-dual-tlc555-capacitance-meter-01pf-resolution</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=1df7f05b-5e90-49af-afe0-8c566ad4dd2e</link><pubDate>Mon, 25 Mar 2024 15:59:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:1df7f05b-5e90-49af-afe0-8c566ad4dd2e</guid><dc:creator>Gururaj</dc:creator><description>Thanks for the replies jc2048 and AE7HD . I'll order TLC555. Mean while I have prepared a 4ft Capacitive sensor for water in our house's Over head Tank. I'll test that with Arduino and NE555..Keep you posted on my results..</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=ef9a4232-297f-40b0-8786-0fd31da057d7</link><pubDate>Sun, 24 Mar 2024 19:14:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:ef9a4232-297f-40b0-8786-0fd31da057d7</guid><dc:creator>AE7HD</dc:creator><description>jc2048 beat me to it. Use the TLC555 which is the CMOS version of the 555 timer. You will want to use shottky diodes.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=4fab9d5b-1c59-48bf-8f53-931abe2d6a5c</link><pubDate>Sun, 24 Mar 2024 19:13:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:4fab9d5b-1c59-48bf-8f53-931abe2d6a5c</guid><dc:creator>AE7HD</dc:creator><description>Awesome.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=9256c0ec-fe90-4654-a9e3-8881fc91910e</link><pubDate>Sun, 24 Mar 2024 17:37:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:9256c0ec-fe90-4654-a9e3-8881fc91910e</guid><dc:creator>jc2048</dc:creator><description>Perhaps consider a TLC555, which will operate down to 2V supply voltage? https://www.ti.com/product/TLC555</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=955a1894-b2cc-4a6c-a943-66154e63cee7</link><pubDate>Sun, 24 Mar 2024 15:15:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:955a1894-b2cc-4a6c-a943-66154e63cee7</guid><dc:creator>Gururaj</dc:creator><description>Hi All, AE7HD , I was wondering if I could use your 2 wire (common wire for power and sensing) mode with ESP12F which operates with 3.3V. Since 555's specified supply voltage is between +5 volts and + 15 volts. IMO, we need to have a MOSFET so that ESP12F can supply 5V to 555. If that is the case, how can we use this brilliant idea of 2 wire? Only next idea would be to use 3 wires in total..Two wires for powering 555 (+ve and -ve (N-MOSFET Switched)) and one for Signal from 555's Pin-3. One problem here would be, we will lose 2 pins of ESP12F, one to power MOSFET and other to sense the timing output from 555. Any idea would be helpful.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=c8f71901-e922-435f-8f8b-e49e2f935847</link><pubDate>Sat, 23 Mar 2024 04:33:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:c8f71901-e922-435f-8f8b-e49e2f935847</guid><dc:creator>Gururaj</dc:creator><description>I got it working. There is some issue in pulseIn() method of Arduino. I had to multiply 0.61280 to the output of pulseIn method to get the correct t_on time. Got this hint from this forum .</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=c7acdc6c-b1ca-4c16-8e24-15afb5e5c291</link><pubDate>Fri, 22 Mar 2024 04:55:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:c7acdc6c-b1ca-4c16-8e24-15afb5e5c291</guid><dc:creator>Gururaj</dc:creator><description>When I wave hand near wire or circuit no changes has been seen. But if touch terminal of C1 or wire between D1 and Pin8 of Arduino, Capacitance shon on 16x2 LCD/Serial Monitor increases to 172pF. Workbench : I worked on Sofa with cotton Cloth on it. I even test floor. Same result. Unfortunately I don't have Scope to test the Vcc Line and Pulse timing.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=0761f138-7cd6-4088-a8f1-b4722f3a33b7</link><pubDate>Thu, 21 Mar 2024 16:51:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:0761f138-7cd6-4088-a8f1-b4722f3a33b7</guid><dc:creator>AE7HD</dc:creator><description>What happens if you wave your hands around near the wiring? What is your workbench made of? Do you have a scope so you can observe the Vcc line at the 555 and the pulse timing?</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=5a3d0da4-fc9b-41ac-8bdc-ad673168b161</link><pubDate>Thu, 21 Mar 2024 16:11:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:5a3d0da4-fc9b-41ac-8bdc-ad673168b161</guid><dc:creator>Gururaj</dc:creator><description>For testing purpose I used Ceramic capacitor. You can see that in the image above. Thats between 100uF and the Diode I'll reprogram with better logic and test out once. BTW for getting t_on value I am using just " pulseIn (SIGNAL_PIN,HIGH)" which is returning 1090.28uSec instead of 693.693uSec</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=8e20a2b5-fadc-4f2e-b3d0-a33b5f2c5191</link><pubDate>Thu, 21 Mar 2024 16:05:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:8e20a2b5-fadc-4f2e-b3d0-a33b5f2c5191</guid><dc:creator>AE7HD</dc:creator><description>What kind of capacitor? This may be a progressive error caused by the software.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=f055ec7d-3ba0-4249-8e16-5b717a63be5a</link><pubDate>Thu, 21 Mar 2024 15:45:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:f055ec7d-3ba0-4249-8e16-5b717a63be5a</guid><dc:creator>Gururaj</dc:creator><description>This is my circuit. Do you think stray Capacitance may be influencing? I added another 100pF in parallel and got the capacitance as 279pF instead of 200pF. So its increasing exponentially as more capacitance is added.</description></item><item><title /><link>https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/project14/555timermadness/b/blog/posts/555-timer-remote-capacitance-sensor---fluid-level-body-detector-touch-sensor-2107817694?CommentId=98da09f4-793a-4857-a517-e35ce1bde5dc</link><pubDate>Thu, 21 Mar 2024 15:18:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">93d5dcb4-84c2-446f-b2cb-99731719e767:98da09f4-793a-4857-a517-e35ce1bde5dc</guid><dc:creator>AE7HD</dc:creator><description>Most likely stray capacitance. If you are using one of those white plug-in breadboards, they can have up to 15pF between strips and each strip is next to two other strips. Plus the longer the wires, the more stray capacitance there is.</description></item></channel></rss>