I wanted to see if there was any visible pattern in the flicker sequence of the small LED ‘Candle’, so I used the #digilentinc #digitaldiscovery and recorded two minutes of ‘flicker’.
I used some vintage 74LS123 and 74LS132 to ‘signal condition’ so I got two outputs: the raw signal which has PWM (brightness) and a sequence with a pure on/off, stripped from the PWM.

I found no reoccurrence during those two minutes 🤷🏼‍♂️
So the random generator is likely based on some analogue circuit rather than being shift register based.

Other fun facts: the raw PWM frequency is about 350Hz. I found PWM levels (brightness) from 30% to 90%. It’s mostly 100% on though, only occasionally dipping at those random (flickery) events.
And everything in the flicker timing seems to revolve around intervals of 100ms, occasionally a 50ms offset may be added/subtracted, but only once in a while.. 🤔

#electronics #testandmeasurement #xmas #engineer #digilent #siglent #electronicscuriosities