Integrated Circuit Chip Help

[boyd]

Good morning from New Zealand. I had a breakthrough last night. On planning to design a simple circuit to track the sun with motors I came across a youtube site.

This guy had done all I need but instead of using a full circuit using a bunch of sensors and transistors he used a chip LM358.

Now I studied this Op Amp. I found the logic diagram and discovered how it worked. I also was able to convert it into the binary which I have never really done before. Very very cool.

My question is this. If I have a circuit I am designing and instead of connecting a huge amount of transistors/diodes/levers and pullys together, how do I find an IC like the LM358 to do the work?

Does a site exist where chips are explained, can be searched out with logic diagrams to suit a purpose? Or am I going the wrong way about this?

I am so stoked to have a circuit where I actually use a chip. Because chips to most people are definitely the ooh arr look at that! Keen to understand more.

Regards Boyd

 

[davenn]

Does a site exist where chips are explained, can be searched out with logic diagrams to suit a purpose?

no site that covers lots of chips

but if you know the chip you need / interested in, you can download the data sheet from various www sites
the data sheet will tell you all about the chip and how to use it

 

[BobK]

It is not likely that the circuit you found uses a bunch of discrete parts to do what an op amp will do. Op amps are pretty much the swiss army knife of analog electronics and anyone designing such circuits in the last 50 years would be familiar with them and choose to use them instead of discrete components.

Bob

 

[ramussons]

.

My question is this. If I have a circuit I am designing and instead of connecting a huge amount of transistors/diodes/levers and pullys together, how do I find an IC like the LM358 to do the work?

If you have an idea as to what your designed circuit needs to do, you can try to break it down to sub units and search the web for an IC that does something like that. Say you need to count upto a certain number, do something, then count down.... you could search for an Up/Dn counter that does the counting part.