Criticism request!

I bought a small DIY kit from Radioshack that is like a "wheel-of-fortune" type of the thing. It can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/LED-Wheel-Of-Fortune-Kit/dp/B0006HJSUK. When the push-button is pressed the LEDs light up one at a time and slowly comes to a stop.

The kit came with a instructions on how to put it together and a schematic, but no explanation on how it works. I thought this would be a great opportunity to study a piece of circuity and really understand how it works. There are two ICs in the circuit: a 4017 Johnson counter and a quad-inverter IC. Before this, I was unfamiliar with the Johnson counter, so I had to read the data sheet.

Anyways, I redrew the circuit schematic in CircuitLab and have it posted publicly.

Would anyone be willing to take a look and give me some criticism/tips on the explanation and writing? I very much appreciate it!

by schultz_x86
August 21, 2012

Just a quick glance, it looks like you put together a nice circuit and description. Your link to the kit is broken, so I can't tell much about the actual device.

It's interesting that you have the LED cathodes connected to the output of the NOT gates. This looks "wrong" to me. (Having the output of a logic gate being the return current path for your LEDs). I suppose if the NOT gate was drawn as a CMOS it would look "right" too me, but just a matter of opinion I suppose.

Regards, Chris

by ChrisZeh
August 22, 2012

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