Make Your Own Electronic Dice This Weekend
A 555 timer, a decade counter, and some LEDs are about all you need to build flashy electronic dice this weekend.
What’s your go-to game? Dungeons & Dragons? Or maybe something more traditional like Monopoly or Yahtzee? Whatever tickles your fancy, you can spice it up with a cool electronic die created by YouTuber ES Tech Knowledge to impress your family and friends. As designed, the circuit simulates a seven-sided die. If you need a more standard six-sided die, or something else, you can tweak it to get your desired result.
The build isn’t very polished, but it's definitely flashy. The circuit is built on top of perfboard, and consists of just LEDs, diodes, resistors, a button, a 9V battery, and a pair of chips. These chips are a CD4017 decade counter and an NE555 timer. ES Tech Knowledge solders the circuit in the video, but it might be hard to follow along. Fortunately, there is also a circuit diagram you can use.
The logic is entirely encoded in how the chips are wired up, so there is no need to write or flash any software to the die. After the soldering is done and the battery is connected, you just push the button to get a pseudo-random number lit on the LEDs.
If you have these common parts on hand, you should be able to make this electronic die in less than half an hour. Happy gaming!
R&D, creativity, and building the next big thing you never knew you wanted are my specialties.