Electrical Fundamentals is essentially an academic skills class whose overt purpose is to develop some very basic analysis skills along with some limited awareness of electronic test equipment. Over the years all schools have realized that with electronics technology exploding in the marketplace it is important for every science and engineering student to have some practical skills along with the academic ones. For some students this electronic stuff is pretty familiar and for others it is not at all so. Because of this we will begin by just doing some basic identification of devices and dismantling of electronics objects.
Purpose:
For the student to gain some experience identifying and working with electronic components.
Procedure:
- You will be handed some sort of electronic equipment. Possibly a CD drive of some vintage. Your first task is to learn how to disassemble the equipment non-destructively. Taking the time to be non-destructive allows you to explore your manual assembly skills and to experience some of the surprising things that happen in these sorts of objects. You will also have some frustrating experiences with stripping, breaking, or losing small parts which would be critical to find if you had to put this back together in working order.
- Once you have the equipment "field stripped" you will identify an example of each of the following devices (electronic elements are usually refered to as devices) on the printed circuit (PC) board(s) that were part of the equipment. For each device you will make note in your notebook (seems brilliant yes?) what clues and cues there were to help you recognise such a device in the future. If there appears to be no such device on your PC board then find an example of one on the additional PC boards that your instructor will leave conveniently around the lab:)
resistor |
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motor (DC) |
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edge connector |
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pin type plug |
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transistor |
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monolithic IC |
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DIP switch |
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LED |
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- Select a region of your PC board which contains a DIP IC and at least 6 other devices of at least two kinds. Creat a clear circuit drawing of this region of the PC board that meets criteria for a "good" drawing -- here's a link to a description of what this means from a standard electrical engineering text call Horowitz and Hill.
- Find two devices on your PC board that have identifying numbers. Do a quick web search for data sheets for these devices and describe in your own words what the device is supposed to do. I want you to have some experience trying to track down information about electronic components and attempting to interpret what you find.
- Have me check your notebook before you call it done. Be sure your notebook is consistent with the practices outlined in the previous lab link.
