How Rectifier Circuits Work in Electronics
One of the most common uses for rectifier diodes in electronics is to convert household alternating current into direct current that can be used as an alternative to batteries. The rectifier circuit, which [more…]
Electronics Projects: How to Build an LED Flasher Using an Oscillator
An electronic circuit that generates repeated waveforms is an oscillator. The exact waveform generated depends on the type of circuit used to create the oscillator. Some circuits generate sine waves, some [more…]
Electronics Components: Why Transistors Were Invented
Think of a transistor as an electronic lever. A lever is a device that lets you lift a large load by exerting a small amount of effort. In essence, a lever amplifies your effort. That's what a transistor [more…]
Electronics Components: Look inside a Transistor
Have you ever taken apart an electronic gadget just to see all of the neat electronic stuff inside? If so, you have likely seen a number of transistors already. Consider this a guided tour of the transistors [more…]
Electronics Components: The Most Important Transistor Specifications
Transistors are more complicated devices than resistors, capacitors, inductors, and diodes. Whereas those electronic components have just a few specifications to wrangle with, such as ohms of resistance [more…]
Electronics Components: Transistor Specifications
There are many different kinds of transistors. The most basic kind is called a bipolar transistor. Another variety of transistor, called a field-effect transistor [more…]
Electronics Components: Amplify with a Transistor
The most common way to use a transistor as an amplifier is in an electronic circuit sometimes called a common-emitter circuit because the emitter is connected to ground, which means that both the input [more…]
Electronics Components: Transistors as a Magic Potentiometer
A transistor within an electronic circuit works like a combination of a diode and a variable resistor, also called a potentiometer or pot. But this isn't just an ordinary pot; it's a magic pot whose knob [more…]
Electronics Components: Use a Transistor as a Switch
One of the most common uses for transistors in an electronic circuit is as simple switches. In short, a transistor conducts current across the collector-emitter path only when a voltage is applied to the [more…]
Electronics Projects: How to Build an LED Driver Circuit
In this project, you build an electronic circuit that uses a transistor to switch on an LED using a current that's much smaller than the LED current. When you close the switch, both LEDs light up. However [more…]
Electronics Projects: How to Build a NOT Gate Circuit
A gate is a basic component of digital electronics. Gate circuits are built from transistor switches that are either ON or OFF. There are a total of 16 different kinds of gates. [more…]
Electronics Components: Oscillator Circuits
An oscillator is an electronic circuit that generates repeated waveforms. The exact waveform generated depends on the type of circuit used to create the oscillator. One of the most commonly used oscillator [more…]
Electronics Components: Integrated Circuits and Moore’s Law
You've probably heard of Moore’s law, an electronics statement which in a nutshell predicts that the number of transistors that can be placed on a single integrated circuit doubles about every two years [more…]
Electronics Components: What Exactly Is an Integrated Circuit?
An integrated circuit (also called an IC or just a chip) is an entire electronic circuit consisting of multiple individual components such as transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, and the conductive [more…]
Electronics Components: How Integrated Circuits Are Made
You don’t have to know how integrated circuits (IC) are made to use them in your electronics projects, but the process is pretty interesting The process is complex and varies depending on the type of chip [more…]
Electronics Components: Integrated Circuit Packages
Integrated circuits (ICs) come in a variety of different package types, but nearly all of the ICs you'll work with in hobby electronics come in a type of package called [more…]
Electronics Components: Control the Time Intervals in an Astable 555 Circuit
An astable 555 timer circuit in an electronic project works like a metronome: It keeps running until you turn it off. This mode is also called oscillator mode [more…]
Electronics Components: The 555 in Astable (Oscillator) Mode
Another common way to use a 555 timer is in astable mode. The term astable simply means that the 555 has no stable state: Just as it gets settled into one state [more…]
Electronics Components: Calculate the Duty Cycle of an Astable 555 Circuit
The astable mode is also called oscillator mode, because it uses the 555 as an oscillator within an electronic circuit. Astable mode creates a square wave signal. [more…]
Electronics Components: The 555 in Bistable (Flip-Flop) Mode
A flip-flop is an electronic circuit that alternates between two output states. In a flip-flop, a short pulse on the trigger causes the output to go high and stay high, even after the trigger pulse ends [more…]
Electronics Components: How to Use the 555 Timer Output
The output pin (pin 3) of an electronic 555 timer circuit can be in one of two states: high and low. In the high state, the voltage at the pin is close to the supply voltage. The low state is 0 V. [more…]
Electronics Components: Double Up with the 556 Dual Timer
It turns out that there are many uses for two (or more) 555 timers in a single electronic circuit — useful enough that you can get two 555 timers in a single chip, called the 556 dual-timer chip. The 556 [more…]
Electronics Projects: How to Make a One-Shot Timer
In this project, you build an electronic circuit that uses a 555 timer chip in monostable mode. When a trigger switch is pressed, an LED lights and stays lit for approximately five seconds. Then, the LED [more…]
Electronics Projects: How to Make an LED Flasher Using a Timer Chip
In this project, you build an electronic circuit that uses a 555 timer chip to alternately flash two LEDs on and off. Then, you modify the circuit so that the circuit is controlled by two pushbuttons that [more…]
Electronics Projects: How to Make a Beeper
In this electronics project, you use two 555 timer chips to build an audible beeper, with both timers configured in astable mode. Each time controls a different audible tone on the beeper. [more…]
