Electronics 101

Last term we introduced you to microcontrollers with a whistle stop tour of programming some Arduinos, building basic circuits (learning about PWM in the process) and ultimately wiggling some servos.

Now that we have your feet wet, this term we plan a more comprehensive experience of electronics, building up to the big LED light table build. For the next few nights:

• Building our own TV-Be-Gone designs onto breadboards. We will tell you about the different components, what they are for and why they are there.

• Electronics testing. Once we have a prototypes it is time to learn how to use an oscilloscope to see our TV-Be-Gones sending out their IR transmission. We will show you have to set the right triggers, how to test the circuit with a multimeter. Think all PSU’s you buy are equal? We will also put a few switching power supply wall warts onto the scopes to separate the good from the ugly.

• Soldering. We have our prototypes built and tested. Now is time to transfer them to the PCBs. We will guide you through the industrial PCB manufacturing process and teach you how to solder the components onto your own boards. We will also do some homebrew pcb producing in this session, so that you can make your own prototypes at home.