Hey everyone! I'm new to the world of electronics and I've been experimenting with Tinkercad. I recently learned about how watches and circuit boards use crystal oscillators to keep time. I understand that when you pass electricity through a crystal oscillator, it creates voltage spikes at consistent intervals, which can lead to precise timing pulses. Here's my question: If I connect a 1 kHz and a 0.5 kHz crystal oscillator together, touching their pins, and then connect them to an LED and a battery, will the LED flicker randomly? Or will it flicker at regular intervals? I'm really looking to create a simple flickering effect without any coding involved. Hope that makes sense!
2 Answers
Just a note—make sure you understand that for the LED to light up correctly, the oscillator circuits you're using need to be properly designed. Otherwise, you might not see the flickering effect you're aiming for. It's a fun experiment, so I encourage you to try it out!
Great question! First off, it's important to know that electricity doesn't flow directly through a crystal oscillator. To make it work properly, you'll need to use a capacitor and a resistor in parallel with the oscillator, along with a transistor. Think of it like you’re tapping the crystal to make it vibrate. This setup amplifies the electricity and allows it to flow in a way that creates an output signal at the frequency of the crystal. If you create two of these circuits with your 1 kHz and 0.5 kHz oscillators and combine their outputs, your LED will flicker on when either signal is high. If they are synchronized, you'd get a flicker at an average of 5 kHz for half the time. However, if they're not in sync, you'll see a varying flicker rate due to the interaction of the two frequencies!
Just to add to that, if they're out of sync, the LED flicker frequency will actually change based on the sum or difference of the two oscillator frequencies. So, it can create some interesting flickering patterns!