A Shrine For All The 555 Lovers

For many of our readers, the classic 555 timer holds a special place in their heart, and cursed be the fool who dares to use an Arduino in its place. For the seriously devoted ones, or those who simply like a novelty decorative item, [acerlaguinto7] built just the right thing: a giant, actually functional, cardboard 555 timer IC.

Taking all the measurements of the original IC, [acerlaguinto7] scaled it up by factor 22 and started cutting out pieces of cardboard — also considering the orientation notch — and added the markings to emulate TI’s NE555P. Next he took a bunch of aluminum cans apart and shaped them into the pins, again staying as close as possible to the original. To top it all off, he put an actual NE555 inside the giant counterpart, and hooked it up to the soda can pins, turning it into a fully operational, oversized timer IC.

Obviously, giant conductive pins like that scream for some dead bug blinky light that even the shakiest of hands could manage to solder, and [acerlaguinto7] certainly delivers, as you can see in the video after the break. One nifty way we could see this taken further would be integrating this breadboard implementation as replacement for the 555 inside — or then just connect it to the giant Raspberry Pi.

26 thoughts on “A Shrine For All The 555 Lovers

  1. Another “put something inside something else and call it something it’s not” article. The 555 is simple enough that this could have been built with discreet components. *Then* you’d have an article.

  2. Wow, I could have blinked that LED with a … (555 would have been my goto, but what can I say now?) capacitor and diode?
    seriously though I’d buy it as a coffee table.

    edit: real programmers use gosub, not goto so….

    I respect this guy, and hope he has his towel on the way out of here…

  3. But, if you’re going scale it up – scale it all up!
    Don’t just put a 555 inside, use transistors to make a macro working version of the comparators and flip-flop

    Anything worth doing this big is worth over doing :-)

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