make a CMOS oscillator in under 2 mins

A simple square wave oscillator made with a cheap and cheerful CMOS chip. It's the first chip project from Handmade Electronic Music by Nicolas Collins. I have reviewed it here: http://leafcutterjohn.com/?p=1053

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Oscillator
• CMOS
• Handmade Electronic Music
• Nicolas Collins
• Leafcutter John
• synth

[3mustardMoNkEyS]

wouldn't the 9V kill the CMOS chip or are you using the old CMOS chips not the HC,AC variety?

[leafcutter]

@3mustardMoNkEyS That is a HCF 40106b chip, it's rated up to 18v with a recommended operating range of 3 to 15v. So 9v is not a problem for it.

[Cds56]

@leafcutter 100N?? would that be 100uf?

[leafcutter]

@Cds56 no 100N = 0.1uF but you will get different pitches with different values. Try a selection of different capacitor sizes. Same goes with the variable resistor i think i probably used a 1M or 100K you'll get results with any large VR. In fact you don't even need a VR just attach two bare wires to pins one and two and use your skin to change the pitch!

[ReignLicks]

I really want to make a synth with multiple different sound waves like Square Wave, Sine Wave, Saw Tooth Wave etc etc. What chips would i haft to get to make them?

[fridgebulb]

An interesting mod for this is to replace the potentiometer with a light dependent resistor, and you get something thats vaguely like a theremin. I've never used the hcf40106 chip, but a similar oscillator can be built with a few more basic bits and a 555 timer, which are very cheap and readily available.

[lukepieters]

Thank you so much this really helped

[lukepieters]

Where can i buy the chip?

[shad0wburn3d]

You can do some great stuff with this simple schematic :) Excellent vid!

[f0ckt]

very cool.

[rafaelmachineski]

thanks for the video, very informative

[HUSTLEBANE]

what does an oscillator do and what do you need that potentiometer for?

[hannobisschoff1]

Nice vid, just be carefull with square waves and speakers in long term use. with enouhg power you can rip the coil out of the membrane or "cone"

[elijahlucian]

THANK YOU