Hi all,
Basically, I need to make a series of pulses in continuos operation, five of them, with variable timing in between them. These pulses will be used in an electric stimulator (for physiotherapy) to act as push button presses. I've already created a "daisy-chained" circuit of monostable 555 timers with potentiometers to vary the timing, and an astable 555 timer hooked up to the first 555 to create the initial impulses. This is exactly what i'm doing:
**broken link removed**
However, I'm running into problems. If I make a pulse too short, then sometimes the pulse after it does not go. And, if I make the pulses too long, the astable timer seems to interfere. Basically, things aren't clear cut. To solve this problem, I am thinking about using something like this **broken link removed** . And hooking up the outputs all to one place. (I'm not creating a series of different pulses to diff locations, just one place).
What's the best way to tackle this problem? Continue with my 555's, try and play around with the 4017 circuit? I am also thinking about using a microcontroller to do this, although I would need to learn a lot about them. How easy is it to program a microcontroller for this function? Can it accept voltage level inputs to somehow vary the amount of time between outputs? I've just finished my first year of elec eng, and don't really know much about electric stuff besides gauss' law and the like...
Thanks, Arnold
Basically, I need to make a series of pulses in continuos operation, five of them, with variable timing in between them. These pulses will be used in an electric stimulator (for physiotherapy) to act as push button presses. I've already created a "daisy-chained" circuit of monostable 555 timers with potentiometers to vary the timing, and an astable 555 timer hooked up to the first 555 to create the initial impulses. This is exactly what i'm doing:
**broken link removed**
However, I'm running into problems. If I make a pulse too short, then sometimes the pulse after it does not go. And, if I make the pulses too long, the astable timer seems to interfere. Basically, things aren't clear cut. To solve this problem, I am thinking about using something like this **broken link removed** . And hooking up the outputs all to one place. (I'm not creating a series of different pulses to diff locations, just one place).
What's the best way to tackle this problem? Continue with my 555's, try and play around with the 4017 circuit? I am also thinking about using a microcontroller to do this, although I would need to learn a lot about them. How easy is it to program a microcontroller for this function? Can it accept voltage level inputs to somehow vary the amount of time between outputs? I've just finished my first year of elec eng, and don't really know much about electric stuff besides gauss' law and the like...
Thanks, Arnold