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BASIC ELECTRONICS

Workpackage: Description: Basic Electronics In this worksheet, you'll learn how to make use of basic electronic components like a resistor or a LED. You will get in touch with some of fundamental laws of electronics. You will also meet the most basic electronic components used to create circuits in almost any electronic device. 1 - Meet the fundamental concepts - Discover which components are available - How to build a circuit - Troubleshooting - Useful Resources You should be able to read.

Difficulty (1-10): Overview:

Requirements:

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FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS
Terms
Electrical Circuit
An electrical circuit, or also called network, is a collection of electrical components such as switches, resistors, capacitors and voltage sources. This components are connected in a closed loop.

Voltage [V]
Voltage, also known as electric potential, is the driving force in every electric circuit. It represents the charge between two points. It is important to mention that there is no fixed point of measurement, it is always measured as a reference. This means that the voltage is measured against the lower potential. The following picture will help to describe this a little better:

You see a diagram with several different voltages. 1. Starting at 8V the higher potential is point A. So compared to B, A is 3V bigger than B. If you measure from B to A, you get 3V. If you measure from A to B, you will get -3V. If you use Point A as the positive connector and point B as the ground connector, you can power a circuit with 3V. Point B will be the referenced ground. 2. Starting at A you will encounter 6V is your ground is located at 0V. If you move your ground down to B, you will measure 8V. Again, if you would use A and B for powering a circuit, your new referred ground would be at actual -2V. But for the circuit it would be again, 0V. 3. Same like point 2, but this time the distribution is equal.

Carelse, Pauger, Pilz

Electronic components

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Current [I]
The next important thing you will encounter in an electrical circuit is what is called current. In general all this electrical things are a bit hard to explain, but the current is a bit easier to explain than the rest. You can compare it with your water tap. If you open the tap, water will come out. Depending on the pressure and the diameter of the tap, more or less water molecules are leaving the tap. This amount of molecules can be considered as the current, whereas the pressure is the voltage and the diameter of the tube is referred to as the resistor.

Resistance [R]
In every electrical circuit there is something what is called resistance. Resistance is necessary to create a valid circuit. With just a small resistance value, or even worse, without a resistance an electrical circuit becomes faulty. The current increases, the consumed power of the circuit increases dramatically and creates heat mostly too much heat. Almost every electrical component has its own resistance value. But there are some special components called resistors. Mostly this resistors are made of materials showing the behavior of a bad electric conductor. This results in generating heat.

Power [W]
The electrical power is a value which you can calculate from your voltage and current values. If you buy electrical components, several different factors are important power is one of them. If you design your circuit without considering the maximum power components might end up destroyed.

Electronic components
Resistors
As mentioned before, resistors are necessary for every electrical circuit. Almost any electrical component has its own resistance value. Even a copper wire has its specific resistance value. In almost any given circuit you will find resistors made of coal. Coal is a much weaker conductor than copper with a higher specific resistance value. There are a lot of different resistors available, in Europe the so called E6 family is very popular. IMPORTANT: All the tiny, round resistors you will find for the workpackages just support 0.25 W only. Please make sure that your resistor consumes less or equal, otherwise it will be destroyed!

Carelse, Pauger, Pilz

Electronic components

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The upper symbol is widely used in the US, in Europe the second symbol is more commonly.

used

Capacitors
A capacitor is another electronic component. It is made out of thin foil layers, which are separated from each other by a material which is not conducting. Between this layers electrical charges are stored. Compared to a battery, a capacitor can store small capacities in a relatively small amount of time. There are two types of capacitors: a normal capacitor, and an electrolytic capacitor. There are two major differences between these two: - The maximum capacity of an electrolytic capacitor is much higher - An electrolytic capacitor can be used just one-way. Like a diode it blocks in one direction. Capacitors can be found in several use cases. The most popular are: - Storing energy - Compensating peaks in electronic signals by smoothing supply voltages - Electronic filters

There are so much more components available, it is not purpose of this document to describe and explain all these. Much more information is available on the internet.

Diodes
A diode is a very commonly used electrical component with a very special behavior: - A diode needs at least .7V to become a conductor - A diode as a very low resistance in one direction, if the voltage is bigger 0.7V - And a very high resistance in the other direction, which you can consider as blocked. At the voltage values we are working with, the diode is able to block oncoming current completely. If you increase voltage over a specific limit, the diode will be destroyed.

Above you see two circuits the one on the left side is correct. The diode is in the correct position and if the voltage at the diode is bigger than .7V, the circuit will work properly. On the other hand, the second circuit is set up incorrectly. The diode will block the oncoming current. Notice that our voltage supply just has a peak output of 3V, the diode will easily block this.

Free-running diode
The reason why diodes are mentioned is, that there is one very important use case: the freerunning diode.
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Fundamental laws

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When you control a stepper or servo motor with electronic components, these components can be destroyed if you dont use a free-running diode.

Fundamental laws
Fundamental Laws
The law of Ohm

U R * I [German] V i * R [English]
Electrical power

P U *I
These two are the most fundamental laws you will be using through the different workpackages. With Ohms law you can calculate almost every normal resistor you will need, with the electrical power you can make sure that you wont kill the resistors in your circuit.

Useful Resources
http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws
Resistors
http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/resistor/res_1.html

Capacitors
http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/capacitor/cap_1.html

Diodes http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/diode/diode_1.html

Carelse, Pauger, Pilz

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