A neat little sample kit has arrived: it’s a Linear Tech TimerBlox set.

What have we got here?

Opening the mailer up, we get:

Chips and board included

What caught my eye about this kit is the little red board in the lower right corner. With that and the chips in hand, you have everything you need to actually evaluate the product. One less reason to not do- very smart move, Linear Tech. Removing obstacles, no matter how small is always appreciated.  Now, on to the chips.  I don’t know if I’ll go as far as calling them the new 555, but you get a nice selection of building blocks, from VCO (LTC6990), to really slooow (as in 29uHz)  clock (LTC6991), to voltage controlled PWM (LTC6992) to one shot (LTC6993) and delay/ debounce  (LTC6994) . All are using integrated silicon oscillators, operate from 2.5 to 5V and are incredibly easy to use. And as usually Linear’s datasheets are packed with examples of applications. Prices are in $1.8-$2.50 range.