Hi guys!
In this Instructable, I'll be showing you how to make LED strip dimmer using a few potentiometers and an IC555 timer. I'm currently working on a larger project which involves using this circuit, So I thought it would be good to share this circuit since it's really cool to play with just by itself.

So let's get Started!

Step 1: Watch the Video!

If you don't want to read all the stuff you can watch my video!

Step 2: Part List, Schematic & Gerber Files!

Part List:

Tools:

Soldering iron
Side cutters
Pliers
Multimeter

Optional:

Since I will be using this circuit for a future project I decided to go for PCB you can do it on a Vero board

Step 3: Working!

Working of LED Dimmer using IC555:IC555 is capable of generating PWM signal which can control the amount of power delivered to the circuit. Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) is a fancy term for describing a type of digital signal.

When the signal is high, we call this “on time”. To describe the amount of “on time”, we use the concept of the duty cycle. Duty cycle is measured in percentage. The percentage duty cycle specifically describes the percentage of time a digital signal is on over an interval or period of time.

If a digital signal spends half of the time on and the other half off, we would say the digital signal has a duty cycle of 50% and resembles an ideal square wave. If the percentage is higher than 50%, the digital signal spends more time in the high state than the low state and vice versa if the duty cycle is less than 50%.

Here graph that illustrates Four scenarios:

100% Duty Cycle= avg 5V

75% Duty Cycle= avg 3.75V

50% Duty Cycle= avg 2.5V

25% Duty Cycle= avg 1.25