We love all of the projects that are coming out for the 555 design contest, so we thought we would share a couple more that have caught our collective eye.  Have a 555 project of your own? Be sure to share it with us, and keep an eye out for the contest submission dates. Read on for a few of our project picks.

A wonderful combination of a number of commonly used ICs, this amplifier with built in visualizations features the LM3915 as a circular VU meter, a TDA2003 audio amp chip, as well as a 555 to control an LED “breathing” light. Sure the role of the 555 is limited as of now, but there is plenty of time to beef up any designs before the contest is over.

A follow up to a previous project we covered, this revamped low cost fuel injection tester, this build by [Dino] has taken in to account some of the suggestions by Hackaday commentors to step up the submission. Be sure to check out the explanation video, as well as a video in action.

This odd looking perforated disk acts similarly to a record, however it uses optical sensors in place of a needle to sense notes of a “song”. Using 555 timers to generate the audio signals, this project definitely has a distinctive sound to it. Right now it is hand turned, and the resolution seems a bit low, but a quick servo or stepper add on and some more fine tuning could yield a very unique music box build.

The Music visualizer is actually a second build based on an earlier design[Thanks Roger]. The build was influenced by Zyra’s How to make an oscilloscope out of a television. The hack is quite simple, patch the output of an amplifier into the vertical deflection coils of the CRT. This is a good use for that old TV you may have laying around  but don’t want to recycle it just yet. While on the subject we had covered the Mac SE/30 audio visualizer in 2006. For those looking for something a little more hard core, here is a bit about Homemade cathode ray tubes.

Advanced Beauty is a collection of 18 “sound sculptures” pairing artists and programmers to create a collaborative work visualizing sound. The styles run a broad range from fluid simulations to manipulating cell animation. The demos were built using Processing. While all of these were built using human input, we see potential for them to help improve standard visualizers. Hopefully, to bring out more information about what’s actually being played. Below is just one of the videos in the series. You can find more on Vimeo.

[via information aesthetics]