The Novice Writer: MiniProject-Traffic Light Circuit

INTRODUCTION:

Traffic Lights are used to control the vehicular traffic. In the modern era, everyone has different types of vehicles resulting in the rise in the numbers of vehicles. That’s why traffic lights are mandatory to avoid the traffic jams and accidents. There are three lights in the traffic signal, having a different message for the drivers. Red light (upper one) asks the driver to yield at the intersection, green light (last one) gives the driver free license to drive through the intersection whereas the yellow light (middle one) alerts the driver to wait if the next light is red or get ready to go/turn the engine ON if the green light is next.

The traffic light has proved to be an amazing way to stop the vehicular collisions and control the traffic jams in today’s modern era where everyone owns the different types of vehicles.

COMPONENTS REQUIRED:

There are quite a few components, which we were used to making our Traffic Light Control System. Following is the list of the components.

1. 9V Battery (Input Battery)
2. 100K, 22K, and 330-ohm resistors
3. 1µF, 10µF, and 2.2mF capacitors
4. Six 1N4148 diodes
5. 555 timer IC (As a pulse generator)
6. 4017 IC counter (Main IC of the circuit)
7. 1M Potentiometer (Controls the timing of pulse generated by 555 timers)
8. Red, yellow and green LEDs. (Output)

CIRCUIT DIAGRAM:

WORKING PRINCIPLE:

This traffic light is made with the help of counter IC, which is mainly used for Sequential Circuits. Coming to the working principle of Traffic Lights, the main IC is 4017 counter IC which is used to glow the Red, yellow and green LED respectively. 555 timer acts as a pulse generator providing an input to the 4017 counter IC. The timing of glow of certain lights totally depends upon the 555 timer’s pulse, which we can control via the Potentiometer so if you want to change the time of glow, you can do so by varying the potentiometer, having the responsibility for the timing. LEDs are not connected directly with 4017 counter, as the lights won’t be stable. We have used the combination of 1N4148 diodes and the LEDs in order to get the appropriate output. The main drawback of this circuit is that you can never have an exact timing with this, however, you will have best estimated.

Control Lights Indication:

There are three control lights or signals, which will provide the instruction to the driver.

RED light – instructs the driver to STOP at the intersection.
YELLOW light – instructs the driver to WAIT (If the red light is next) or GET READY (if the green light is next).
GREEN light – instructs the driver to GO through the intersection.

COST REPORT:

COMPONENT NAME	PRICE (per piece)	QUANTITY	TOTAL
IC4017	20	1	20
IC 555	15	1	15
RESISTORS	1	7	7
CAPACITORS	2	3	6
1N4148	5	6	30
LEDS	1	3	3
POTENTIOMETER	10	1	10

TOTAL COST OF PROJECT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to Prof. Samidha A Kulkarni as well as our Head of Department – Prof. Lekha Das who gave me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful project on the topic TRAFFIC LIGHT CONTROL which also helped me in doing a lot of research and I came to know about so many new things I am really thankful to them.

Secondly, I would also like to thank my parents and friends who helped me a lot in finalizing this project within the limited time frame.

~Jay Mehta