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I recently picked up a repowered athearn unit (9-44cw) and it has a chip inside, minatronics name on it but no idea what it's suppose to do.
It's hooked up to the headlights and someone threw in some ditch lights on the front but they dont light up. I was wondering what does the chip do?
Tom, the 555 is a timer IC. It can be set up as an alternating flasher, it can be keyed on or off by an event. So some possibilities are oscillating lights, a beacon or a tone generator. Best choice would be to look in the minatronics catalog for a better idea of what it should be doing.
Sorry not much help eh!
Tom, the 555 is a timer IC. It can be set up as an alternating flasher, it can be keyed on or off by an event. So some possibilities are oscillating lights, a beacon or a tone generator. Best choice would be to look in the minatronics catalog for a better idea of what it should be doing.
Sorry not much help eh!
From all the guessing I'm assuming it's programmed with a number button off of a quantum engineer dc controller or something similar. I'm just going to pull it out
QUOTE: "I'm assuming it's programmed with a number button off of a quantum engineer dc controller or something similar"
Not really. It's an IC that dates back to the early 1970s - very stone-age analog IC "programed" by the selection of resistor and capacitor values plus how you hook up the pins in varrious configurations. This thing predates microprocessors and microcontollers. Designing with this IC was considered as 'hack-amatuer' even 30 years ago. Light controllers using the PIC processor would be a more modern approach.
