RMS Used in AC Circuit Analysis
Because the value of an AC signal is continuously varying, it would be difficult to use formulas such as ohms law. In the specific case of a sine wave, the Root Mean Square (RMS) of the wave is used instead. More ...
Magnetism
Electric currents and magnetic fields are closely related. Whenever an electric current flows a magnetic field accompanies the current. When a wire is coiled up, the resulting magnetic flux becomes more concentrated. More ...
Bipolar Transistors
Transistors are semiconductor devices used to amplify or switch electronic signals. Transistors are one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. There are basically two types of transistors, Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJT) and Field Effect Transistors (FET). More ...
How to Read a Capacitor's Values
Due to the limited space available for printing, physically small capacitors are especially difficult to read. Therefore capacitors use a wide variety of codes to describe their characteristics. More ...
Electronics Lab
Even though an electronic circuit may appear to work on paper, and maybe even in a circuit simulator, it's always important to test it in the real world. Prototype circuits can be built using a solderless breadboard. More ...
RC Filters
An RC filter can accept input sinewave signals and block certain bands of frquencies, thus allowing to pass only desired frquencies. This section describes passive RC filters. A passive RC filter uses only resistors and capacitors. More ...
Inductors in DC Circuits
When voltage first applied current through an inductive circuit is low because a magnetic field starts building in the coil, and this magnetic field creates a back electromotive force (EMF) that oppose the current in the inductor. More ...
Batteries
Early in the history of electrical science, laboratory physicists found that when metals came into contact with certain chemical solutions, voltages appeared between the pieces of metal. These were the first electrochemical cells. More ...
Use a Resistor to Measure Inductance
Inductance is usually measured by using an LCM multimeter. It can also be mesured using a resistor. With the resistor method, you adjust the frequency of a sine wave until the AC voltage accross the resistor and inductor are equal. Then using a formula to calculate the inductance. More ...
Common Emitter Configuration Transistor Biasing
To design a common emitter amplifier circuit, use a voltage divider with resistors selected to set the base voltage at the center of the transistor's linear region. Then, through a DC blocking capacitor, apply a waveform to the transistor's base. More ...
EMI, RFI, EMC, EMS, What's the Difference?
EMI, RFI, EMC, and EMS all refer to different aspects of radio frequency interference which may cause elecronic devices to malfunction. Correcting these problems can be an art and a science. More ...
Triac
You can of a triac as two back-to-back SCRs with the cathode of one SCR connected to the anode of the other. The gates are connected together. Because we have a two SCRs configuration you can control the switching of both half cycles. More ...
Superposition Theorem
The resistive networks that satisfy Ohm's law allow a number of simplifying approaches to be taken in their analysis. Circuit analysis by superposition replaces all voltage sources but one with short circuits, then using the summation rules of series-parallel combinations of resistors determine the voltage across and current in each branch due to the remaining voltage source, and then repeating this process for all voltage sources and superposing the results. More ...
Electric Fields and Static Electricity
Static electricity is a phenomenon caused by a buildup of unbalanced electric charge that is not moving. We are all familiar with the static electric charge caused by dragging our feet across a carpet and then the sudden static discharge caused by grabbing a door knob. More ...
