Basic Electronics

Lesson 1: Getting Started in Electronics. How to set up a lab; common test equipment and electronics supplies; starting a parts and materials inventory; getting components at low or no cost.

Lesson 2: Basic Electrical Concepts. Resistors, potentiometers, rheostats, capacitors, inductors, diodes, transistors, and integrated circuits; color coding; voltage, current, resistance, AC and DC, conductance, and power; circuits; the laws of electricity.

Lesson 3: Alternating Current and Transformers. Understanding AC waveshapes, frequency, amplitude, and calculations; inductance; DC resistance; sine waves; transformers; soldering for the first time; desoldering techniques; safety concerns.

Lesson 4: Diodes and Rectification. Solid-state devices explained; basic operational principles of diodes; the common types of diodes; referencing; full-wave and half-wave rectifiers; testing bridge rectifier modules.

Lesson 5: Capacitors and DC Filtering. Kinds of capacitors and their construction; important capacitor operating principles; filter capacitors; designing raw DC power supplies.

Lesson 6: Transistors and Voltage Regulation. Operating principles of transistors; common transistor types and configurations; transistor-amplifier comparisons; impedance matching.

Lesson 7: Special-Purpose Diodes and Opto-Electronic Device. Zener, Schottky, and varactor diodes; diacs; tunnel and fast recovery diodes; noise and transient suppression diodes; a brief look at quantum physics; practical circuit projects.

Lesson 8: Audio Amplification. Transistor biasing and load considerations; amplifier classes; audio amplifier output configurations and operational basics; high-quality audio systems.

Lesson 9: Power Control Devices and Circuits. Silicon-controlled rectifiers; the triac; UJTs; diacs; neon tubes; using thyristors in power-control circuits; how to build a soldering iron controller.

Lesson 10: Field-Effect Transistors (FET) and Batteries. FET operational principles; how to build a high-quality mosfet audio amplifier; additional practical circuit projects; battery types; how to build a general-purpose battery charger.

Lesson 11: Integrated Circuits. Operational amplifiers; IC or hybrid audio amplifiers; IC voltage regulators; special-purpose ICs; improving the lab-quality power supply; how to build a quad-outputpower supply; additional practical circuit projects.

Lesson 12: Digital Electronics and Computers. logic gates; logic symbols; multivibrators; digital clocks; shift registers; digital memory devices; using a logic pulser and probe; analog signals.

Lesson 13: Resonance and IC Filters. Inductive and capacitive reactance; reflected impedance; resonance; passive filters; integrator and differentiator circuits; waves; harmonics.

Lesson 14: Diagnosing Analog and Audio Circuits. Troubleshooting digital and analog equipment and audio-amplifier consumer chips; narrowing the problem; block diagrams; using a bench power supply; signal tracing; output devices; troubleshooting basic low-frequency amplifier circuits; audio distortion problems.

Lesson 15: In-Circuit DiscreteSemi-Conductor and Troubleshooting. How to troubleshoot the PN junction diode and bipolar and FET circuits; how transistor circuits, diodes, zener diodes, UJT oscillators, and thyristors operate; transistor and resistor arrays; voltage regulator ICs and consumer IC chips; understanding analog switches; optical isolators.

Lesson 16: AM, FM, TV and RF Troubleshooting Techniques. Modulation; transmission and reception of RF signals; watts, transmitters, and components; radio receivers; TV; AM and FM detectors; microvolt signals in receivers.

Lesson 17: Diagnosing Pulse and Digital Circuits. Pulsed waveforms; source and load instruments; the originating pulse and processing pulse circuits; digital IC references; understanding digital schematic diagrams; digital gates; how to troubleshoot digital circuits.