You asked for it, and now you’ve got it. It’s taken more than
a decade of accumulated complaining, but this gigantic 555 timer IC has
finally gathered enough psychokinetic energy to take corporeal form and
demand fealty from the readers of Hackaday.
Or not. The less exciting explanation is that creator [Rudraksha
Vegad] was looking for a way to combine his interests in discrete
electronic components and woodworking. The result is an incredible build
that’s more than just a conversation starter; this desktop-sized version of the iconic integrated timer circuit is fully functional. You can even hook it up to a breadboard, assuming you’ve got some alligator clips handy.
Lifting
the lid on this wooden “chip” uncovers an intricate hand-wired array of
discrete components that stand in for the microscopic goings on inside
the real thing. He’s even gone through the trouble of recreating the
symbols for the comparators and flip-flops that you’d see in a diagram
of a 555 using wooden shapes to elevate their respective components. It
might not fit the classical definition, but surely this must count as
some form of circuit sculpture.
[Rudraksha] credits several other projects for not just inspiring him to create his own mega 555, but for helping him wrap his head around the internal workings of everyone’s favorite IC.
Using components he salvaged from old hardware, he says the project
ended up being very educational for him. These days, when most makers
are more likely to reach for a microcontroller than a logic chip, spending some quality time with transistors and passives can be quite illuminating.