[ATM] device controllers

[Julio Sanchez]

I am still in doubt whether to use the 555 or a simple PIC such as the 16F84. I am loose with PIC circuits and programming (I even wrote a book about it) but not so with PIC-less circuits. Then, with a PIC it would be easy to drive a 7-segment LEDs (or even a LCD). This assuming that the system should provide some info and feedback to the user.
Is this getting too fancy?
Regards,
Julio

-----Original Message-----
From: Dominic-Luc Webb [mailto:dlwebb at canit.se]
Sent: Friday, February 2, 2007 05:07 AM
To: 'Ken Hunter'
Cc: 'Julio Sanchez', atm at atmlist.net
Subject: Re: [ATM] device controllers

On Thu, 1 Feb 2007, Ken Hunter wrote:

> Why go to the trouble of a PIC and a program? A 555 timer
> and potentiometer are within the design parameters of the
> device you are wanting and can easily drive the same
> Triac's (or relay)...

Not sure about easily. I have had some major adventures getting
555 timers to drive transistors. On the other hand, I have an
excellent PMT power supply that can give pulses to a HV relay
that works great. There are plenty of cheap/simple 2 transistor
circuits out there that can do this as well.

Dominic-Luc Webb