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The duty cycle of a pulse wave is the ratio of the time it spends high to the total duration of the high
and low state. We calculated these durations in step 5, and we can combine them to calculate the
duty cycle of the 555:
duty cycle = (time spent high) / (total time duration of high and low states)
substitute the equations from step 5 to get:
Notice how there is no RB dependance. Also notice how the voltage drop across the diode and the
supply voltage have an effect on the equation.
It's good to note here that you can also use monostable mode with an external trigger to create
a PWMsignal of duty cycles between 0 and 100%. I explained how to do this at the end of step 4.
Even more info about PWM with the 555 timer can be found on the datasheet.