them. I would like to express my sincere thanks to my teacher for assigning us this project. Also I would like to put forth my genuine gratitude to my parents for their irreplaceable help and encouragement. It helped me to gain knowledge of various vitamins. Once again I would like to thank everybody. Ever felt frustrated seeing the street lights being on during day and not at night when they are required to be? Or, ever felt too lazy to stand up and switch on the lights of your room when it gets dark? And wondered if this all could be done automatically? Now it is no longer your fascination. With the help of a few easily available parts and some time you can make your own automatic dark sensing lamp that turns on when its dark and switches off while in light. 50 K Potentiometer
555 Timer IC Strip board
470 Resistor
Light Dependent Resistor or Photoresistor
Plus wires 9V Battery and other miscellaneous items. And most importantly TIME and PATIENCE!! Below is the circuitry of the model. The symbols have their usual meanings. This circuit uses a popular timer IC 555, which is connected as a comparator with pin-6 connected with positive rail, the output goes high(1) when the trigger pin 2 is at lower than one third of the supply voltage. Conversely the output goes low when it is above the level. So small change in the voltage of pin 2 is enough to change the level of output (pin 3) from 1 to 0 and 0 to 1. The output has only 2 states, high and low and cant be in intermediate stage. It is powered by a 9V battery. The entire circuit is economic in power consumption. Pin 4, 6 and 8 is connected to the positive supply and pin 1 is grounded. To detect the presence of light an LDR is used. LDR is a special type of resistor whose value depends on the intensity of light falling on it- 1 mega ohm in darkness and only 5 K-ohm in light. It responds to a large part of light spectrum. The potential divider circuit with LDR variable resistance is connected in series . Voltage, being proportional to the conductance, more voltage is obtained from the divider when LDR is getting light and low voltage in darkness. The variable resistance is adjusted so that it crosses potential of one third in brightness and fall below the same in darkness. Sensitiveness can be adjusted by this variable resistance. As soon as LDR senses darkness, the voltage of pin 2 drops below one third of the voltage and that in pin 3 gets high thus LED connected to the output (pin 3) gets activated. Battery: for powering the circuit a 9V battery has been used. LDR: a special type of resistance whose value depends on the brightness of light falling in it. It has a resistance of 1 mega ohm when in darkness and only about 5 kilo ohms in light and responds to a large part of the light spectrum. Light Emitting Diode: a diode is a component permitting electricity flow in only one direction. Because of this, diode is used to rectify AC voltage into a DC voltage. Diodes have two connections, an anode and a cathode. In schematic representations the triangle points towards the cathode and anode is the opposite end. Current flows from anode to cathode. Light The hydraulic analogy compares emitting diodes, or LEDs, differ from regular diodes in that when a voltage is applied, they emit electric current flowing through light. They are used as indicators, transmitters etc. circuits to water flowing through Resistors A resistor is a passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical pipes. When a pipe (left) is filled resistance as a circuit element. The current through a resistor is in direct proportion to the with hair (right), it takes a larger voltage across the resistor's terminals. Resistors are common elements of electrical networks pressure to achieve the same flow and electronic circuits and are ubiquitous in electronic equipment. Practical resistors can be of water. Pushing electric current made of various compounds and films, as well as resistance wire (wire made of a high- through a large resistance is like resistivity alloy, such as nickel-chrome). Resistors are also implemented within integrated pushing water through a pipe clogged with hair: It requires a circuits, particularly analog devices, and can also be integrated into hybrid and printed circuits. larger push (voltage drop) to drive Variable Resistor or Potentiometer: A potentiometer , informally a pot, is a three-terminal the same flow (electric current). resistor with a sliding contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals This explains the working of are used, one end and the wiper, it acts as a variable resistor or rheostat. A potentiometer resistors. measuring instrument is essentially a voltage divider used for measuring electric potential (voltage); the component is an implementation of the same principle, hence its name. Potentiometers are commonly used to control electrical devices such as volume controls on audio equipment. Potentiometers operated by a mechanism can be used as position transducers, for example, in a joystick. In our model the Legs 1 and 3 have been grounded and leg 2 is connected to one end of the Photoresistor. The 555 timer IC is an integrated circuit (chip) used in a variety of timer, pulse generation, and oscillator applications. The 555 can be used to provide time delays, as an oscillator, and as a flip-flop element. Derivatives provide up to four timing circuits in one package. Introduced in 1971 by Signetics, the 555 is still in widespread use due to its ease of use, low price, and stability. Depending on the manufacturer, the standard 555 package includes 25 transistors, 2 diodes and 15 resistors on a silicon chip installed in an 8-pin mini dual-in-line package (DIP-8).Variants available include the 556 (a 14-pin DIP combining two 555s on one chip), and the two 558 & 559s (both a 16-pin DIP combining four slightly modified 555s with DIS & THR connected internally, and TR is falling edge sensitive instead of level sensitive). The NE555 parts were commercial temperature range, 0 C to +70 C, and the SE555 part number designated the military temperature range, 55 C to +125 C. These were available in both high-reliability metal can (T package) and inexpensive epoxy plastic (V package) packages. Thus the full part numbers were NE555V, 1 of 9 Pin out diagram NE555T, SE555V, and SE555T. It has been hypothesized that the 555 got its name from the three 5 kD resistors used within, but Hans Camenzind has stated that the number was arbitrary. Low-power versions of the 555 are also available, such as the 7555 and CMOS TLC555. The 7555 is designed to cause less supply noise than the classic 555 and the manufacturer claims that it usually does not require a "control" capacitor and in many cases does not require a decoupling capacitor on the power supply. Such a practice should nevertheless be avoided, because noise produced by the timer or variation in power supply voltage might interfere with other parts of a circuit or influence its Pin-out Diagram (the semicircular depression threshold voltages. is used as a reference in identifying the legs. The dark sensing automatic lamp model has tremendous utility in our daily life. Most obviously, it the product-of-choice for street lighting thus minimizing the need of any human intervention as well as any sort of power wastage. Other than this the circuit can also Symbol for a Photoresistor be exploited to make doors that open automatically on arrival of any person near it, taps that turn on automatically when we put our hand below the outlet among others. An original Signetics dual line