Help a newbie with his flashing LED project

[cosm]

Hey guys. I am new here, and pretty much new to the world of electronics in general. I apologise if this post is too newbie for some of you.

I am working on a project where I need a circuit that flashes two LEDs and makes a small speaker emit a cellphone ringing sound. I am not sure if this is possible but I would like to have a switch, and when this is switched on there will be a 50 minute pause, and on 50 minutes the LEDs will flash and the speaking rings for 30 seconds to a minute, then it will stop and wait another 50 minutes and repeat over and over until it is switched off.

I would love to design this myself (with much help of course) because I would love to learn about all this stuff, but ultimatley, if the circuit is what I want I wan't to get a few hundred of them mass produced. Once again I am not sure how to go about this..are there companys that would do this? if I was to provide a simple design? Can you guys estimate a rough price I may be looking at? Would I be better of paying someone to design this for me?

Thanks a lot!
Tom
www.cosm.co.nz

 

[andy257]

Hi there,

What you ask isnt too demanding but you do not give enough information in your post. Do you want the leds to flash alternatly? or in sequence or both together? Do you want this noise to sound as they flash? How fast do you want the leds to flash? Do you want one switch to trigger and disarm or two switches one for each action?

provide a little more info and it shouldnt be too hard

andy

p.s

I have no idea why you would want to make alot of these but yes there are manufacturing companies which can do this for you. I couldnt quote a price but there is this service available.

 

[Optikon]

Hey guys. I am new here, and pretty much new to the world of electronics in general. I apologise if this post is too newbie for some of you.

I am working on a project where I need a circuit that flashes two LEDs and makes a small speaker emit a cellphone ringing sound. I am not sure if this is possible but I would like to have a switch, and when this is switched on there will be a 50 minute pause, and on 50 minutes the LEDs will flash and the speaking rings for 30 seconds to a minute, then it will stop and wait another 50 minutes and repeat over and over until it is switched off.

I would love to design this myself (with much help of course) because I would love to learn about all this stuff, but ultimatley, if the circuit is what I want I wan't to get a few hundred of them mass produced. Once again I am not sure how to go about this..are there companys that would do this? if I was to provide a simple design? Can you guys estimate a rough price I may be looking at? Would I be better of paying someone to design this for me?

Thanks a lot!
Tom
www.cosm.co.nz

Yes there are companies that can do this. But why?? something this low end will not have much monetary value and you'll be charged an arm and and a leg to get it mass produced. So expect to lose money. I am venturing a total guess here but you are probably looking at over $1000 to have these built and assembled (assuming you can get your PCB's for next to nothing) What is it for?

Your design sounds like it might be done with a handfull of one-shots, timers and counters. Or it could be more flexible / possibly cheaper with a PIC.

 

[bmcculla]

I think Optikon is right about using a PIC or other microcontroller for this project. An 8 pin PIC or AVR sounds perfect for this project. The one chip solution will save on board and assembly cost. If you keep your board size to around 2-3 square inches and keep your component count low It probably would be not too expensive to mass produce. There is an assembly house that is affiliated with PCBexpress that will do assembly for something like 10 cents a component for small runs.

 

[cosm]

Hey fellas thanks for your replies.

I have been reccomened the PIC thing as well.

Let me explain in more detail what I am trying to achieve.

I want a circuit with a small switch. When this switch is turned on two LEDs flash at about 4 flashes per second. The LEDs need to be on wires or have long prong things...i need them to possibly get 4-5cm away from where they join the circuit. As the LEDs are flashing I want a small speaker to emit a sound....its not to important what the sound is, but I would prefer something in quite a mid range and quite quiet. So a quiet ringing sound would be great. It would be even better if it could be something I can sample if that is a cheaper option.

I would like this to go on for 5 seconds, then wait 60 seconds, then 5 seconds again, then wait 60 seconds etc....and I want this process to go on for 10 minutes or so. Once the 10 minutes is up the whole circuit will wait 40 minuts and then repeat the 10 minute process. This goes on untill the switch is turned off.

I have a family friend who is in the electronics import/export business and runs quite a large company so I can get parts cheap.

I don't mind taking time to learn to program PICs (I know some programing so I think that I can do this) and I also have time to solder the circuits myself. Time is not too important. But the question is if I can program the pics and get the cheap parts, how do I get a bulk load of circuits to solder everyhing on to? Does this sound like too much effort and it would be easier just to get a company to bang them out bulk?

Optikon, these circuits fit into a much larger project that I am working on.

Thanks a lot

Tom

 

[Optikon]

Hey fellas thanks for your replies.

I have been reccomened the PIC thing as well.

Let me explain in more detail what I am trying to achieve.

I want a circuit with a small switch. When this switch is turned on two LEDs flash at about 4 flashes per second. The LEDs need to be on wires or have long prong things...i need them to possibly get 4-5cm away from where they join the circuit. As the LEDs are flashing I want a small speaker to emit a sound....its not to important what the sound is, but I would prefer something in quite a mid range and quite quiet. So a quiet ringing sound would be great. It would be even better if it could be something I can sample if that is a cheaper option.

I would like this to go on for 5 seconds, then wait 60 seconds, then 5 seconds again, then wait 60 seconds etc....and I want this process to go on for 10 minutes or so. Once the 10 minutes is up the whole circuit will wait 40 minuts and then repeat the 10 minute process. This goes on untill the switch is turned off.

I have a family friend who is in the electronics import/export business and runs quite a large company so I can get parts cheap.

I don't mind taking time to learn to program PICs (I know some programing so I think that I can do this) and I also have time to solder the circuits myself. Time is not too important. But the question is if I can program the pics and get the cheap parts, how do I get a bulk load of circuits to solder everyhing on to? Does this sound like too much effort and it would be easier just to get a company to bang them out bulk?

Optikon, these circuits fit into a much larger project that I am working on.

Thanks a lot

Tom

Ah.. ok well, if you do not have many components, maybe recruit some friends and put em to work soldering.. if you can get your parts and boards cheap, you might be justify assembly costs..

You could use something like Eagle or similar to do the PCB design since it is free for a small board like yours.

Also, keep in mind if there are other electronic assemblies in your larger system, consider waiting and do them all together to save money.