Oscillating with the 74HC14

Posted by on Apr 9, 2011 in Blog, Etc | No Comments

Today, I built an oscillator with the 74HC14 hex inverter Schmitt trigger.
Here’s the datasheet.
I thought this was interesting, the inventor of the Schmitt trigger, Otto Herbert Schmitt (1913 – 1998), was a scientist who worked both in physics and biology. He figured out the trigger while studying neural impulse propagation in squid nerves.

Pretty

I built this circuit with a capacitor 0.01uF and resistor 14.8k, which were just lying on the bench. I calculate a frequency of about 6.75kHz. Freq (Hz) = 1/ (R*F)

Which is pretty close to what shows on the oscilloscope … I’m looking at the output signal on pin 12.
Time (seconds) = 1/Frequency (Hz)
osc

I then used all the gates available and made three oscillators. By using different values for R (Mohm range) and C (uF range) on each oscillator, and therefore creating three out of phase oscillators, I was able to get a nice color cycling effect on an RGB LED.
osc



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