Nostalgia: A Two Transistor LED Flasher Circuit

I am feeling a little nostalgic. So I rebuilt one of the first circuits I put together when I started messing around with circuits in eighth grade. It’s a very simple beginner project, and might appeal to your child – real or inner!
Another reason I wanted to put this up is because most “blinky” circuits I see now are based on the venerable 555 IC. This is fine, but the two transistor circuit is simpler for a beginner to understand than the innards of the 555, I think.
Here is the circuit. It’s a two transistor astable multivibrator. (Read the wikipedia link for the gory details of how it works. 😉 )

For supply, I used a 3V CR 2032 coin cell. The transistors are 2N2222, but I think any NPN transistor would work in this case. The LEDs are Red, which have low turn-on voltage, and this is important, since we’re using a coin cell here. The circuit was assembled on a breadboard.
Even for this simple circuit, some calculations are involved to get it right. The total period of oscillation is given by:
T=t1+t2=ln2R2C1+ln2R3C2≈0.693(R2C1+R3C2)
Choosing
R2=R3=47 KΩ
and
C1=C2=22 uF
gives us a total period of about 1.4 seconds – 0.7 seconds per LED. Good enough.
Now, to compute
R1=R4
. Assuming a 0.6 V drop across the transistor, and a 20 mA current through the LED gives us
R=3−0.620mA=120Ω
. So a 100 Ohm resistor, which is more common, will do just fine.
And here’s the circuit in action:
Build it for your child! 🙂