How to Make a Blinking LED Circuit on a Breadboard

If you want to build a blinking circuit that contains light then this guide is completely for you. For this purpose, an inventor-based circuit is used to make this blinking circuit. The best about it is that it is small and can be fit on the breadboard.

If you want to know about the circuit, it can be work on both the electronic components that come from the basic or standard type. You can build the circuit with your need as you want easily. There will learn about the formation of the blinking circuit with the help of 2 resistors, a capacitor, and a transistor.

Different ways to build the blinking led circuit:

There are different ways to make a blinking circuit but here I’ll show you three different methods to make the blinking LED circuit. You can make it by using transistors, relay, or invertor. This is dependent on your need. You can also use a 555 timer. This is also known as a microcontroller.

Here you will know about three different ways to build it.

• Transistor
• Relay
• An inventor by logic NOT-gate

Blinking Two LEDs Using Transistors:

The circuit which is made from the transistor is also known as an Astable Multivibrator. To make the circuit you need some points to consider first. First, you need to know about the behavior of voltage and current when is used with the resistors, capacitors, and other diodes.

As you know that capacitors have the power to store the electric charges and can be charged and discharge. To ok for this process you need two capacitors C1 and C2. Both of these need to have the opposite properties like one can be charged and the other with discharging property.

You need to select the transistor that has both ON and OFF buttons. The ON transistor means the current is flowing from it. As the current flows the LED will start to light up.

Blinking an LED Using Relays:

This is the easiest way to make a blinking LED. Relays will be used for this purpose. Here, is the whole process given below. 

There are some items that you need to create a circuit. You need a battery, a relay system, and a light bulb. The relay should be square. First of all, you need to know completely that how does a relay works?

The relay system contains the button which is used to connect the power and to disconnect the power. When the relay coil has power and current is flowing from it the switch will automatically disconnect the power that is coming from the electromagnet.

This will connect the power back to the light bulb and the bulb will light up. But if the relay coil has no power supply then the switch will turn off the power from the light bulb. This will again give the power to the electromagnet back again.

The cycle will start over again. This is a kind of vicious cycle that will continue to repeat throughout. The above circuit has some problems that will switch so fast that you won’t see the light blink. To solve this problem you can introduce a time-delay using a resistor and a capacitor. This will you to solve the problem.

5 Best Solderless Breadboard for LED

As the circuit has power off so when you give power to your circuit, the battery will start to charge the capacitor through the resistor that is R2. After a moment, the relay coil pulls the relay into the other position.

This will makes the LED light ON. Why does this happen? This happens because the capacitor has been charged now. This will help the relay to place at its position. But the capacitor only has enough energy to keep the electromagnet in the relay powered for a little bit before it is empty or discharged.

Here, when the relay gets its power off again it means the capacitor is out of power. The relay will go back to its original state again and turns the LED OFF again. Then the cycle repeats itself.

How to Blink an LED with an Inverter?

This circuit only needs three parts therefore, it is easy to make a blinking led circuit from it. The first thing that you need is LED and the resistor. I designed the circuit around an inverter. Also called a NOT-gate.

First, you need to know about the invertor. An invertor is the logical component of the outputs the opposite of what it gets in. If it gets a high voltage in, it gives a low voltage out. And vice versa. A high voltage is a voltage close to the supply voltage. A low voltage is a voltage close to zero volts.

First, you need to connect the invertor’s output back to the input resistor. This will help you to know that if you are applying a high voltage at the input then you will get a low amount of output at the end. But as you are seeing that the output is still connected with the circuit therefore, the input will be low.

Now that the input is low, the output will be high. That means the input will be high again, and this cycle will continue for the time until the circuit is connected with the power supply. So it will keep jumping between high and low.

You can use a capacitor to solve the problem of this jumping back and forth. The capacitor will be used on the invertor. The resistor R1 controls how much current goes back to charge the capacitor on the input. The size of the resistor R1 and the capacitor C1 will, therefore, determine the blinking speed.

You better used the invertor named Schmitt Trigger Inverter. Schmitt Trigger just means that the threshold for switching from high to low is different from the threshold for switching from low to high.

Conclusion:

Here you have seen how to make a blinking led circuit on a breadboard. The circuit can be made from the capacitor, resistor, or relay. You can also use an inverter, NOT-gate to make the circuit on a breadboard to blink the led. These three methods are completely explained that will help you to make the blinking led.