Simple circuit design projects will give you the basics.
Are you preparing for a career in electronics engineering or information technology? Are you a passionate audiophile? Are you just curious about electronics? Then chances are good that you're trying to learn about electronic circuits. The best way to do this is to build some simple electronic circuit projects and actually put the principles you have been studying to the test, to see how they really work.
Crystal Radio
Although modern radios can be very high-tech pieces of equipment, at heart the radio is a very simple circuit. The crystal radio is radio stripped down to its bare essentials. Building a crystal radio receiver will explain the basics of radio reception, and teach you something about the history of radio technology. All it takes is a radio antenna, two capacitors, a coil and a crystal diode. Make a simple resonant tank out of the coil and a capacitor, attach it to the antenna, and run the output through the diode and the other capacitor, for filtering. You'll be able to hear actual radio broadcasts from this through ordinary headphones. If you use a variable capacitor, you will be able to tune it to different stations.
Amplifier
If you are an audiophile or a professional musician, you might be interested in building your own amplifiers to fine-tune your equipment to your own standards. The common emitter amplifier is a simple types of amplifier, and building one can give you a good solid grounding in electronic amplification principles. You'll need two resistors, two batteries and a single transistor for this inexpensive project.
Voltage Inverter
A voltage inverter converts direct current into alternating current. Voltage inverters are necessary for running many modern devices from a storage battery, instead of plugging them directly into a wall outlet. Building a voltage inverter is a good way to learn principles of alternating and direct current. You can build your own with just a little effort using common resistors, capacitors, coils and transistors.
Voltage Rectifier
A voltage rectifier is the opposite of a voltage inverter. It converts alternating current into direct current. This sort of device is necessary for charging batteries from a generator or running small tools off of household current. It is a good project to build alongside the voltage inverter. It is a very simple circuit, requiring only four diodes.
Tags: direct current, voltage inverter, alternating current, current into, inverter converts, simple circuit