kestrel

Electricity Projects #4

Personal entry follows. This is part of a series of entries related to projects and reflections related to the snap-together electricity kit I bought for myself. I'm a 45-year-old guy who is curious about electricity, and this is part of my opportunity to learn more about it.
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I fully-acknowledge I am nerding-out with all this electricity project stuff.

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PEOJECTS 16 - 21
- Integrated circuit linkages are heavily-influenced by the location of their connections. The difference between Project #15 ("Doorbell") and Project #16 ("Momentary Alarm") is stark. Pressing switch S2 has very different behaviours when comparing one project to the other. Placing S2 at the same spot as the 3-link above the Music integrated circuit doesn't work...!

- Switch S2 seems to block -all- current until/unless it's pressed. This explains why things behave differently between projects 15 and 16.

- The "Alarm" integrated circuit (labeled U2) plays the same sound but at different frequencies based on the position of the circuit's link along its top edge. There are three separate positions, and from left to right, the sound frequency increases: "the sound plays faster."

- Regarding the photo resistor (labeled RP): a bright light is required to trigger the photo resistor through a typical sheet of paper. Even with a bright light, if the paper is coloured with black/dark ink it will still be enough to deactivate the resistor.

- The photo above is detailed with the flow of electric current through the circuit, marked by the pink line. The switch S2 stops the flow of current through the circuit until it's pressed. Then, it branches off and moves through the "Space War" integrated circuit, through the resistor (to turn down the volume!), through the Speaker, then back out through the remainder of the circuit. As soon as S2 is no longer pressed, the circuit is broken again and all sounds stop playing.