Chip
Worship
Eric Schlaepfer has a lifelong
passion for vintage electronics —
especially cathode-ray tubes, which
he has repurposed as functional art
objects such as clocks. He speaks
lyrically about “the joy of a vectored
display, with glowing phosphors.”
But his most widely known project
is a macro-scale 555 chip. “I found
an old datasheet which showed the
components, even including the resistor
values,” he says. “I built a copy from
transistors and resistors, and it worked.”
(The circuit is shown in Figure
F
.)
Eric’s big 555 is a handsome piece,
shown in Figure
G
. Naturally, he
showed it to people — including Lenore
Edman and Windell Oskay, cofounders
of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories,
which sells maker products. Windell
has his own fetish for old electronics,
such as Nixie tubes, so he and Lenore
came to the obvious conclusion: They
could sell Eric’s big 555 as a kit.
The assembled version is shown
in Figure
H
, and it’s for sale at shop.
evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/
tinykitlist/652-555kit. If you have
steady hands and good eyesight, there’s
also a surface-mount version.
Eventually, Windell hopes to market
a macro-scale 6502 microprocessor
containing 3,510 transistors, if he can
resolve some frustrating component
supply issues. In the meantime, he
has built a CNC-cut, laser-engraved,
wooden (nonelectronic) 555 footstool,
shown in Figure
I
with optional cat.
Schematic of the circuit inside a 555 timer chip,
published in the original Signetics datasheet.
The original version of the big 555 timer, built by
Eric Schlaepfer.
The Three Fives kit compiled by Evil Mad Scientist
Laboratories.
CNC’ed wooden 555 footstool (no electronic function).
21
make.co
Camenzind collection, Charles Platt, courtesy Pia Camenzind, Google/Charles Platt, Signetics, Eric Schlaepfer, EMSL, Windell Oskay
F
G
H
I
M82_018-21_555timer_F1.indd 21M82_018-21_555timer_F1.indd 21 7/11/22 12:38 PM7/11/22 12:38 PM
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