Introduction: Basic Electronic Components for Beginners
Hello Everyone,
It’s essential to get familiar with Basic Electronic Components before you start working on electronic circuits. There are many electronic components like resistors, capacitors, Transistors, Switches, Diodes, etc.
In this article, you can get a brief overview of a few of the most commonly used basic Electronic Components.
Step 1: Resistors
Resistors are the basic of all electronic components. A resistor is a passive electrical component to create resistance in the flow of electric current and is measured in Ohms. The behavior of an ideal resistor is dictated by the relationship specified by Ohm’s law V=IR. Where V stands for Voltage, I stands for Current and R is a resistor constant of proportionality, whereas Voltage across a resistor is proportional to the current.
Based on the requirement, resistors are either connected in series or parallel. Color bands around the component body indicate the value and tolerance of the resistor.
Calculate register ohm value and tolerance based on Color code:
Step 2: Capacitor
The capacitor has two terminals. It’s a device that stores electric charge and electric energy in an electric field. The capacitor’s unit is capacitance and is expressed as the electric charge ratio on each conductor to the potential difference between them. The capacitance value of a capacitor is measured in farads(F). Capacitors, like resistors, can combine in parallel or series within a circuit.
What are Capacitors used for?
The capacitor is used in AC to DC conversion, for coupling and decoupling, in timers, for signal processing and as sensors, etc.
Capacitors have many shapes in sizes but at the core they have two electrically conducting plates separated by a dielectric insulting material.
The equation for capacitor design is:
C = εA/d
Where C is Capacitance; ε is permittivity, a term for how well dielectric material stores an electric field; and A is the parallel plate area.
Step 3: Transistor
The transistor is a semiconductor a device that is commonly used for amplification or switching purposes of electronic signals and electrical power.
Transistor consists of 3 terminals, namely emitter, collector, and base. Transistors in a computer are packed inside n number of tiny microchips and are also placed singly in some devices.
Emitter – The Emitter stores the large section of the majority charge carrier.
Collector – The collector collects the large portion of the majority charge carrier supplied by the emitter.
Base – The middle segment of the transistor is known as the base. The base manifests two circuits, One with an emitter for the input circuit and a collector for the output circuit.
Step 4: Switches
One of the most basic electrical components are switches and also the most widely used component in electrical engineering. A switch is used to connect or disconnect the conducting path in an electrical circuit. The switch needs an external force to make these changes in electrical signals. When you push down or flick a switch, you allow the current to flow through to the rest of the circuit.
Types of switches:
Toggle switches – Toggle switch is a type of switch that is operated by moving a lever or handle back and forth to open or close an electrical circuit. An Example of a toggle switch is the light system used in household wiring.
Push button switches – A push button switch is a two-position device that when pressed activates to 0 state otherwise in its natural 1 state. Calculator, push-button telephones are the example of pushbutton switches.
Selector switches – Selector switch also called rotary switch can be controlled by on or off of different currents circuits by rotating the handle. It is used when two or more position options are available.
Step 5: Diodes
Diodes are the two-terminal electronic component which allows the flow of current in one direction only and blocks the current that flows in the opposite direction. Two terminals of the diode are known as Anode and Cathode. The Diode having 0 resistance in one direction and infinite resistance in the reverse direction is to be an ideal diode.
Arrowhead in the image indicates the direction of flow of conventional current in the forward-biased condition.
Most commonly used diodes types:
Zener Diode: The Zener Diode allows current in a backward direction when the applied voltage reaches the breakdown voltage called Zener voltage. It acts as the voltage regulator.
Light Emitting Diode (Led Diode): These diodes are used to convert electrical energy into light energy. This type of diodes is implemented in street lights and house lighting.
Constant Current Diodes: Used in regulating the voltage at a particular current.
To understand other types of diodes
Step 6: Motors
Motors is a device that converts electrical power into mechanical power. Concerning the direction and magnitude of the current flowing through the coil, we can change the direction and magnitude of the magnetic field produced by it.
The most common types of motors are:
DC motors: DC stands for Direct current and is responsible for taking electrical power through direct current and convert that energy into mechanical rotation.
Application of DC motors – Lathe machines, drilling machines, fans, elevators, rolling mills, etc.
Working principle of DC motors – Whenever a current-carrying conductor is placed perpendicular to the magnetic field, it experiences a mechanical force. Fleming’s left-hand rule decides the direction of the force.
Servo motors: servo motors, also called control motors, come with great precision and high efficiency when compared to other regular motors. Servo can be AC or DC.DC servo motor performance depends only on voltage, whereas AC servo motors performance depends on both frequency and voltage.
The output shaft of servo motor can be moved to a particular angle, velocity, and position based on the code provided to it.
Application of servo motor – Robotics vehicles, conveyor belts, camera autofocus, printers, etc.
Stepper motors: Stepper motor, as the name suggests, these motors do not rotate continuously. Instead, they rotate in steps. stepper motor operates in 3 modes, namely full step mode, half step mode, and micro-step mode, depending on the number of steps performed for each 360-degree rotation of the motor shaft.
Application of stepper motor – hard disk drives, robotics, antennas, telescopes, etc.
Step 7: Potentiometer
The potentiometer is an electric device with three terminals used to control speed, voltage or frequency. It also has a knob on the top for controlling a variable. The devices can be controlled based on the resistance that is applied.
A potentiometer works similar to the voltage divider except for the fact that it has variable outputs.
Application of potentiometer
- LCD brightness
- Setpoint or offset trimming
- Households
- Sound controllers, etc.
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