555 Dark Detector Circuit Help

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You do not seem to have read what I wrote in red in my previous post.

I said that you could put a red LED in series with the base resistor (R4) which should make the transistor switch off when the output of the LM358 goes low. And I would change R5 to 10k. 1k is unnecessarily low.

This would be easier than buying and installing a 2N7000. FETs have a gate, not a base. You could use a 100 Ohm gate resistor (ie. make R4 = 100 Ohm) and you don't want or need R5, ie. remove R5.
 
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Hi ijcox now I’m going to make your circuit modifications. First I’m going to finish off the LM358. After fine tune that I’ll look in to the 74HC14 one.
I’ll tell you the latest progress.

Thanks ijcox
 
Hi here is my LM358 circuit. Unfortunately I couldn’t find 2N7000 transistors.
But I tried with your suggestion the series red LED & the resister to the base of the 2N2222.

But the output LED still dim at ambient light. When the light is available the LED is going fully off

When dark increases the LED starts to light up dim. After fully dark the LED lights up fully bright.

Some how I must find a 2N7000 transistor.
 

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You didn't connect the 100k hysteresis resistor to the (+) input of the opamp.
You didn't provide a resistor to ground at the base of the transistor to turn it off (the output of the LM358 goes to ground if something pulls it to ground).

My modifications to your circuit should have the LED snap on and snap off.
 

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Hi Audioguru thanks for your edited diagram. Actually I did a mistake in that hysteresis resister in my drawing, in the circuit I put it in the right place.

But the output is completely different from mine. Your one is better.

Now I’m going to make the changes as in your diagram.

Thanks for the support Audioguru.
 
Now that you have posted the circuit we can see what you're doing.

I thought your problem was in driving the transistor, but it is because you did not have any hystersis.

However, with Audio's modified circuit, the hystersis is going to vary according to the pot setting.

So I suggest that you measure the voltage across the LDR when the light level is at the point where you want the LED to turn on. Then measure it again at the light level at which you want the LED to turn off. Ignore the LED, just measure the voltages.

Tell me what these voltages are and I'll calculate the hystersis resistors for you.
 
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The opamp won't work if the pot is near minimum or maximum. So the resistor that feeds the LDR should have its value selected so that the pot is near its center. Then the hysteresis will work properly.
 
audioguru said:
The opamp won't work if the pot is near minimum or maximum. So the resistor that feeds the LDR should have its value selected so that the pot is near its center. Then the hysteresis will work properly.
Also, the hystersis will vary as the pot is altered because the Thevenin resistance of the pot changes from zero at either end to a quarter of its value at the centre.

I would prefer to see a variable resistor in series with the LDR and the hystersis set by 3 fixed resistors. But I need to know how much hystesis he wants.
 
I'm so happy it worked very well than I expect


Exactly!

What I did is I put a variable resister for the hysteresis resister & tuned until the LED turns fully off.It worked very well.Now no ore damn dimming.

Also don't forget I added audioguru's resisters too specially the one going from base to ground.

The main different i see from both circuits is, in the NE555 when it comes to the threshold voltage the output starts triggering fast.

But when I use an op amp with hysteresis it won't trigger like that, it gives the output nicely.
 
I don't understand your last sentence either.
 
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