Single Transistor Oscillator, MiniPCB, 06B-00, Rev A1-01

I made a single transistor oscillator circuit (that doesn't work...at 5 V)!

It doesn't work with Digilent's Analog Discovery 2/3 because the power supply range is too small. We need a higher voltage on V+ to cause the transistor to begin oscillation. At least that's my theory. I haven't seen it oscillate.

One time I was in a job interview and someone asked me for an example of a time I failed. Well, this is not a bad example of an engineering failure. My schematic doesn't work when built.

I need to get a bigger power supply and revise the miniPCB to be more like this example: http://www.cappels.org/dproj/simplest_LED_flasher/Simplest_LED_Flasher_Circuit.html

The PCB is a two layer board, and designed to be easy to manufacture and assemble. And it is optimized for cost by being panelized on 100 x 100 mm squares.

Signals are routed on the bottom layer (the layer with the part number), and a common ground plane (as uncut as possible) is on the top layer.

The P1 connector is located in a standard position with respect to the board edges: making it possible to build a universal tester, backplane, or stand.

For ease, start with the shortest components.

I'm testing with +5 V on V+, but the YouTube example showed +18 V on V+. The circuit doesn't work at +5 V. Plus, I'm using a white LED, which probably has a higher voltage drop than other LEDs, diodes or a jumper.