Greg's Basic Electronics

Instructional eBooks

Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
By GS Carpenter

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NOTE... This eBook is the companion book to "Introduction To Basic

Electronics" and that book should be read first.

Now it's time to actually get some hands-on experience with some
simple basic circuits.

IMPORTANT: Please read through this before you start to build.

Before we get started, there are a couple of things we need to talk about. One
is soldering techniques and the other is getting the right components you
need to complete this very important section of this mini course.
Soldering
Proper soldering is so very important in todays printed circuit world. One bad
solder joint can cause an entire project to fail.
The good news is that it's pretty easy to learn if you get started on the right
foot and do a little practice.
Although most people will build these circuits using a solderless breadboard, I
will be building them on a piece of circuit board material so you can see how
it's done.
It's perfectly OK if you use solderless breadboard to build yours.
Parts
As far as components go you will need a few 1/4 watt resistors. (1) 470 ohm,
(2) 1000 ohm and (1) 10K ohm will get you started.
You will also need a few red or green LEDs and a few NPN general purpose
small signal transistors like the 2N2222 and a 2200 microfarad 16 volt or
more capacitor.
You can pick all of these up at many electronic parts outlets online or places
like Radio shack.
OK let's build some simple circuits and make them work.
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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:
Remember at the start of this mini course we talked about resistors and
Ohms Law? Well we are going to build a simple circuit and see it in action.
On these diagrams I've also included the symbol for common ground
connection
For those of you that are using solderless circuit board, it represents the row
of connected holes you have chosen as the negative or ground of your board.
The copper on the top of the board I work with represents common ground.
Copper is a great conductor so this works very well to tie everything together.
Notice how the negative side of the battery connects to common ground. This
is known as a negative ground system and is now standard around the world
and I will use it for all these circuits.

The battery symbol is our 9 volt battery. The negative terminal (black wire)
connects to one of the ground terminals on your circuit board.
Important:
Do not connect the battery to the connector until after you have the resistors
in place.
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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:
Separate out all the parts into groups of resistors, LED's, the transistor, the
capacitor and the battery connector.
I find that ice cube trays or muffin tins work great for this.
Start with two 1000 ohm resistors. (brown black red)

If you are soldering, heat up your soldering iron and tin (melt some solder) on
the top of lug #1. See photo.

Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:
Now take one 1K ohm resistor and bend a small hook in the end of one of the
leads.
Insert the hook into lug #1 on the terminal strip and apply heat from your iron
to the other side holding the resistor by the body and not the wire. The solder
will flow around the wire and the wire will get very hot fast.

Important Tip
Resistors are not polarity sensitive so it doesn't matter which end you use.
Your resistor should look like this when you're done.

With solderless board, just plug the resistor into one of the rows of holes.

Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:
Now bend the leads at 90 degree angles and solder the second lead to lug #3
as shown. Add some solder if it's needed.

Do the same with the second 1K ohm resistor soldering it to lug #3 and lug
#4. See the photo below.

You now have two 1K resistors wired in series with one end connected to
ground because lug #4 is grounded.

Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:

Notice that there is not a lot of solder on the lugs and you can still see
through each hole.
Also notice how the solder joints are shiny and not a dull gray. Shiny indicates
a good solder joint. The dull gray would indicate that not enough heat was
applied and is known as cold solder joint.
I left the leads long on these parts so you can reuse them again in another
project. If this was a permanent installation, we would cut the leads so that
the body of the part was down close to the top of the terminal strip.
Next solder the red wire from wire from the battery connector to lug #1 and
the black wire to lug #4 or anywhere on the copper board.

Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:
Here is the layout of a typical solderless breadboard. The solid lines show
how the holes are connected together.

I use the horizontal rows "x" and "y" (top and bottom) as the positive and
negative power source.
Here's how you could wire circuit one...

Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:

R1 -1000 ohm resistor

J1 Jumper wire
R2 -1000 ohm resistor
Battery Connector
Red wire goes to top row "x" hole 1
Black wire goes to bottom row "y" hole 1

Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:
Now it's time to connect the battery and jump back! No just kidding!
With the power applied to this resistor circuit, and if you have a voltmeter, lets
take some voltage readings.
Hold the black negative lead of the voltmeter to connect to the circuit ground.
That's where the black wire from the battery connects.
Using the red positive lead and setting the meter to read DC volts, measure
the voltage at the center of the two resistors.
If you don't have a voltmeter just follow along with your mind.
What do you read?
If everything is correct you will read 4.5 volts. Why?
It is because the circuit is a series resistor type, so the total resistance is 1K +
1K which is 2K right?
So take a look and you'll see that we have 9 volts applied across 2 ,000 ohms
of resistance.
If we divide that 2000 into two equal segments of 1000 ohms each, then each
resistor must have half the voltage across it.
OK lets look at it a different way, the total resistance is 2K ohms and the
applied voltage is 9 volts, what's the current flow in that circuit?
(I=E/R) 9 divided by 2000 is 0.0045 amps or 4.5 milliamps.
So 4.5 mA is flowing through each 1000 ohm resistor.
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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:
Now lets find the voltage drop across a 1000 ohm resistor with 0.0045 amps
flowing through it. (E=IR)
So that is 0.0045 times 1000 and it equals 4.5 volts!
So we have two resistors with 4.5 volts across each that means the total is 9
volts.
Wow! See Ohms Law Does Work!
This type of circuit is called a voltage divider.
The voltage at the point in the middle is determined by the ratio of the
resistors.
Important Tip:
Remember that in a series resistor circuit the total current flows through each
resistor, so each resistor has the same amount of current flowing through it
regardless of the resistor's value, it's the voltage across each resistor that's
different.
For example, if we use the same circuit but made one of the resistors say 470
ohms and the other 2000 ohms let's see what happens.
The total resistance is 2470 ohms and the applied voltage is 9 volts, so
solving for I we have 9 volts divided by 2470 ohms which is 3.6 milliamps.
This means 3.6 ma is flowing through each resistor and if we look at the
voltage drop across each we find that the 470 ohm has (E=IR) 0.0036 times
470 is 1.71 Volts and the 2000 ohm has 7.2 Volts.
The sum of those two voltages is 8.9 volts. Which is the applied voltage. The
reason it is not exactly 9 volts is that we rounded off the results. And if you
use your voltmeter to measure these voltages you may find that they don't
seem to match up exactly and this is because the resistors are not exactly
1000 ohms.
They will vary a few percent from their marked value. This is real life hands
on stuff!
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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:
OK let's do one more quick example only this time with resistors in parallel.
Remember we said that the total resistance of resistors in parallel is always
less than the resistance of the lowest value resistor.
The simple formula for this is

Another way of looking at it is, if the two resistors in parallel are both the
same value then the total is . For example if we have two 1000 ohm (1K)
resistors in parallel the total resistance of the two in parallel would be 500
ohms.
Now let's do the real life experiment. Make sure the battery is disconnected
and then solder, or jumper if you're using solderless, another 1000 ohm (1K)
resistor across the first resistor on your board.
Now we have the classic series parallel resistor circuit.

So let's crunch the numbers and see what's going on.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Parallel Resistor Circuit
CIRCUIT ONE:
We have two 1K resistors in parallel so their total resistance is 500 ohms.
We also have a 1K resistor in series.
The total resistance of this series parallel arrangement is 1500 ohms! Wow
this sure isn't rocket science! Or is it?
The applied voltage is 9 volts (if you connect the battery) and the total current
is 9 / 1500 = 6ma. But here's where things change.
The total circuit current is 6 ma but current flowing through all the resistors is
not the same because two of them are in parallel.
The single resistor has the full 6 ma going through it, but the two in parallel
have only 3 ma going each of them because the current has two ways to go
so it divides up.
Since both resistor's are the same value it divides equally, 3 ma each so the
total still remains at 6 milliamps.
OK now when your head stops spinning and you finally have all of this figured
out in your mind, then go on to the next circuit.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Light Emiting Diode Circuit
CIRCUIT TWO:

This time we will do something that's even more fun. For this circuit you will
need the same old battery supply, a 1K ohm resistor (use one of the others
from before) and a light emitting diode.
Before we start let's talk a little about diodes. Diodes are one way devices.
What I mean is that current flows one way through the part and will not go the
other way unless you raise the voltage to a point that the diode breaks down
and shorts.
This means that diodes are rated by maximum forward current and peak
reverse voltage.
Diodes consist of an anode and a cathode. With a positive voltage applied to
the anode in respect to the cathode, current will flow.
When a negative voltage is applied the diode will shut off and no current will
flow.
Here's a close up photo of a glass diode. The black band on one end
indicates the cathode end.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
A Series Resistor Light Emiting Diode Circuit
CIRCUIT TWO:

Let's build this circuit. I'm going to solder one end of a 1K ohm resistor to the
anode of the LED diode and then solder the cathode to ground.
OK I know what you're thinking, which one is the anode?
Why of course, it's the one that's not the cathode.
The cathode is identified by a marking. Look closely at the base of the diode
and see if there is a flat side. If so, the wire nearest the flat is the cathode.
Sometimes the cathode wire is made shorter than the anode wire.
Important Tip:
In a standard, non light emitting diode, the cathode is often marked with a bar
and that's why in the schematic symbol for a diode the cathode has the
straight up and down line or bar.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT TWO:

A Series Resistor Light Emiting Diode Circuit

So where do we start here? It's the same series circuit as the resistors except
this time we replaced one of the resistors with an LED.

Here is what the soldered version looks like.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT TWO:

A Series Resistor Light Emiting Diode Circuit

Here is the solderless breadboard version.

R1 = 1000 ohms
J1 = Jumper wire
D1 = LED diode
Connect the battery. The diode should light. If not disconnect the battery and
reverse the connections to the LED. Try it again. When it works you know you
have the resistor hooked to the anode.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT TWO:

A Series Resistor Light Emiting Diode Circuit

Lets take some voltage readings.

Connect the black meter probe to the copper ground or negative terminal of
your solderless breadboard.
Set the meter for DC volts.
Connect the battery and make sure the diode is lit, then read the voltage at
the connection between the 1K ohm resistor and the diode.
I bet you don't read 4.5 volts this time!
Depending on your diode, you should see a reading of around 1.5 volts or a
little more. Where did the rest of the voltage go? It is dropped across the 1K
ohm resistor due to the amount of current the diode draws.
The small voltage you measure across the working diode is the forward
voltage, that is the voltage required across the diode junction to make it
conduct and light.
Rocket Science Time...
So if we measure say, around 2 volts across the diode then 7 volts must be
dropped across the resistor since we started with 9 volts.
We can find the current flowing through the diode and resistor now, since we
know the voltage drop across the resistor (7 volts) and we know the
resistance (1K) .
I=E/R So 7 volts divided by 1000 is 0.007 amp or 7 ma.
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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT TWO:

A Series Resistor Light Emiting Diode Circuit

Lets do another experiment with this same circuit.

Unsolder the 1K resistor and replace it with the 470 ohm resistor.(yellowviolet-brown) Connect it back to the battery and turn it on.

Do you see any change?

The difference is the LED should be brighter since around twice the current is
flowing through it.
The forward voltage across a diode remains relatively the same regardless of
the current until so much current flows, that the diode junction burns up.
So you would call R1 either a "droping resistor" or a "current limiting resistor".

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT THREE:
A Transistor Switch
Hang on, things get really exciting now.
For this one you will need the 9 volt battery, a 10K resistor (brown black
orange), a 470 ohm resistor, a LED and an NPN transistor.
As you recall from the chapter nine, bipolar transistors have three sections.
They are the emitter, the collector, and the base.
Using an NPN bipolar transistor, when you apply a positive voltage to the
collector through a load resistor then a small positive voltage applied to the
base will cause a large change in collector current.
What we are going to do here is use this transistor as a switch.
When we apply a positive voltage to the base through the 10K current limiting
base resistor, the transistor will turn on and the resistance between the
collector and the emitter will become very low allowing current to flow through
the LED and the 470 ohm resistor.
When we disconnect the voltage from the base the transistor will turn off
and the resistance between the collector and emitter will become very high
stopping any current from flowing through the LED and it will go out.
OK, so much for the theory, lets see if we can make it work.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT THREE:
A Transistor Switch
Starting with the transistor, see if you can identify the three leads that are the
emitter, base and collector.
The package that your transistor came in should help you find them with a
printed diagram on the back.
Also sometimes if you look very closely you can read the little EBC letters on
the transistor itself, which identify the Emitter, Base and Collector.

Here's a photo of the two types of cases for small transistors. You most likely
have the one on the right. If you have the other type, notice the small metal
tab. This tab is near the emitter wire.
So now looking at this transistor from left to right you have #1 the Collector,
#2 the Base and #3 the Emitter.
Let's build this circuit.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT THREE:
A Transistor Switch

Start with the 470 ohm resistor soldered between lug #1 (+9volts) and lug #2.
Next solder the LED anode to lug #2 and the cathode to lug #3. You may
need to add a little extra solder here. See photo.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT THREE:
A Transistor Switch
Now take the transistor and carefully solder the emitter lead to lug #4
(ground).
Now bend the leads so they reach the other two lugs.
The leads are short so this may take a little patience.
Solder the base to lug #5 and the collector to lug #6. See photo.

Now before we go on double check the transistor to make sure that the lead
near that small tab on the case (the emitter lead) is soldered to lug #4 the
ground lug.
This will not work if you have the collector and emitter reversed and could
burn up the transistor so make sure.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT THREE:
A Transistor Switch

10K resistor (brown black orange)

Solder the 10K resistor to the transistor base lead, lug #5, and let the other
end hang free. See photo.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT THREE:
A Transistor Switch

Next take a short length of hook up wire remove about 1/4 inch of insulation
and tin both ends. (melt solder on both exposed wire ends)
Solder one end to the collector, lug #6 and the other to the LED cathode lug
#3. This connects the LED to the transistor. Take a look at the diagram.
Now the free end of the 10K resistor is point B in the diagram and the
connection between the positive battery wire and the 470 ohm resistor (lug
#1) is point A.
Here is the solderless board version.

25

R1 = 470 R2 =10K EBC=emitter, base, collector

Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT THREE:
A Transistor Switch

Before we put in the battery, make sure nothing is left unsoldered and
everything is wired correctly if you're using the solderless board.
Stop and take a look at the circuit and you will see we have a series circuit of
the battery (supply) the 470 ohm resistor, the LED, and then the transistor
and back to the battery through the common ground.
If everything checks out, connect the battery.
Absolutely nothing should happen if you did it right. The transistor is not
forward biased because the 10K base resistor is hanging free, so the LED
cannot light.
Now take the free end of the 10K resistor, (point B), and connect it with your
fingers to lug #1 point A or anywhere along the +9 volt power buss on the
solderless board.
The LED should light. Release the resistor and it goes out. The transistor is
acting as a switch.
The base emitter junction of the transistor is a diode and when you apply a
forward bias though the 10K resistor (R2) it conducts, this causes the
collector emitter junction to conduct and the circuit is complete. The LED
lights.
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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT THREE:
A Transistor Switch

OK drag out your voltmeter lets take some voltage readings. Again connect
the black meter probe to the negative side of the supply and set the meter to
DC volts.
Turn on everything (put in the battery) and connect points A and B with a wire.
The LED should light. Now measure the voltage at the junction of A and B.
You see 9 volts right?
Measure the voltage on the base of the transistor without touching any other
wires. You should see about 0.5 volts.
This is the forward bias voltage of a silicon transistor. The remaining 8.5 volts
is dropped across the 10K base resistor.
The value of 10K for the base resistor causes the transistor to be completely
on but the transistor is not a completely on or off device.
You could experiment with different values of base resistor, to make the LED
dimmer by using a higher value of resistor or brighter with a lower, but don't
go below about 1K as a base resistor or you will risk blowing the base emitter
junction in the transistor out from way too much base current.
Besides, once the transistor is completely on the LED won't get any
brighter!

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT THREE:
A Transistor Switch

What use could you find for this circuit? There are lots of them.
Perhaps if you soldered two long wires to points A and B and removed the
insulation from the ends you could use it as a water detector.
If the ends of the two wires came in contact with water, since regular water is
a conductor, the LED would light.
Perhaps warning you of a flooded basement.
See if you can think of two or three more uses for this circuit.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT FOUR:
Capacitor Charge And Discharge

Let's work a little with a capacitor

Again you will need the 9 volt battery, a 1K resistor, a 470 ohm resistor, a red
or green LED and the 2200 microfarad (uF) capacitor.
As you recall (I hope) capacitors store energy as an electric field between two
metal plates separated by an insulating material. The type of capacitor we are
using here has an electrolytic solution between the plates which allows it to
contain a dense electric field in a small physical size.
This solution causes the capacitor to be polarity sensitive. These type of
capacitors always have a marking to show you which end is positive (+) or
negative (-).
Let's take a look at the circuit. What I want to show you here is a capacitor in
action. Charging and then discharging, exactly what capacitors enjoy doing.
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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT FOUR:
Capacitor Charge And Discharge

Lets take a look at this circuit.

We have the 9 volt battery feeding a 1K and a 470 ohm resistor in series to
the LED. We also have a large value capacitor (2200uF) between the two
resistors to ground. Right?
OK here's what will happen.
The capacitor is discharged so it wants to grab all the energy it can which at
this point, gives it a near zero ohm resistance. So think of it as a zero ohm
resistor right now.
Look again at the diagram and think about what happens when a zero ohm
resistor is placed where the capacitor is.
You will see current flow from the battery through the 1K resistor through the
imaginary 0 ohm resistor back to ground. Do you see that?
All the current is flowing through the 1K resistor.
No voltage is applied to the 470 ohm resistor and LED because the capacitor
is at zero ohms holding everything at ground which is zero volts.
If this helps, since the capacitor is right now at zero ohms you can think of it
as piece of wire across the terminals.
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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT FOUR:
Capacitor Charge And Discharge

Now some time has gone by and the capacitor is charging, its resistance is
going up and up as it charges and when it's completely charged it's
resistance will be extremely high in the millions of ohms.
How long will this take?
That is dependent upon the value of the series resistor and in this case it's
the 1K.
Making the resistor or the capacitor larger will increase the time to charge and
making it smaller will decrease the time.
This is known as the RC time constant.
Back to the circuit, as the capacitor charges it draws less and less current
which is the same as saying it's resistance is going up and up.
Now remember way back to the two resistors in the series circuit, when the
two resistors were equal in value the voltage across them was the same.
In our circuit it was 4.5 volts across each, which equaled the applied voltage
of 9 volts.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits

CIRCUIT FOUR:
Capacitor Charge And Discharge

OK, so at some point the capacitor's internal resistance will be passing 1K

and at that moment we will see 4.5 volts across it.
That same 4.5 volts is also being applied to the 470 ohm resistor and LED.
The LED should be dim but getting brighter now.
More time has gone by and the capacitor is now fully charged. It's internal
resistance is now in the megohms so it is essentially out of the circuit and all
we have are the two resistors and the LED in series, across the 9 volt battery.
At this point the LED is at it's brightest.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits

CIRCUIT FOUR:
Capacitor Charge And Discharge

Here's how to build it.

Start with the capacitor.
Solder the negative lead, the one near the band or mark that indicates the
negative lead on these type of capacitors.
IMPORTANT TIP:
This applies only to capacitors with leads, surface mount types also have a
band, but it indicates the positive end of the capacitor.
I really found that out the hard way!
Solder the negative lead of the cap. to lug #4 ground and the positive lead to
lug #3.
Next solder the LED cathode to ground (lug #4) and then the 470 ohm
resistor to the anode lug #5 and to lug #6.
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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT FOUR:
Capacitor Charge And Discharge

Next run the piece of hook up wire from lug #6 over to lug #3. That ties the
470 ohm resistor to the capacitor as in the diagram.
Now solder the 1K ohm resistor from lug #1 (+9volts) to lug #3 and you're set
to go.
Here's what the solderless board looks like. R1=1K R2=470 C1=2200uF D1= LED

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT FOUR:
Capacitor Charge And Discharge
OK Now lets test this thing...
While watching the LED hold the battery to the connector, but don't snap it in.
The LED will fade on as the capacitor charges, but... now remove the battery
from the connector.
The LED stays on without the battery and then slowly fades out.
When the battery was been removed the capacitor began discharging
through the LED until it was discharged.
Watch and try it again.
When you disconnected the battery the capacitor became the "battery" and
powered the circuit until it was discharged.
Does this mean that a capacitor is a battery?
No. A battery uses chemical reactions to produce voltage and current. It
doesn't store energy, like most people think, it produces energy.
When you recharge a battery you are reversing the chemical reactions back
to where they started so they can do their thing again.
On the other hand a capacitor stores its energy as an electric field, but
doesn't produce any energy on it's own.
Now let's jump out and into the real world of everyday electronics and let me
show you something that will surprise you, because you will discover that you
now know exactly how it works!
Here it is... It's a common low voltage DC power supply.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT FIVE:
Low Voltage DC Power Supply

You don't need to build this, I just thought we could take a few minutes and
look at something you have learned about without knowing it.
You might recognize C1, R1 and D2 from the circuit you just built.
Now I added some new symbols, the power plug, a fuse F1 an on/off switch
SW1. Everything else you will recognize from the course. T1 is a step down
power transformer and L1 is an inductor.
Now let's run through it.
Remember, we are using AC voltage here so the primary winding of the
transformer T1 is 'seeing' a changing current and changing magnetic field.
This changing field induces a voltage in the "secondary" winding of T1. The
amount of voltage depends on the turns ratio of the windings. If the
secondary has fewer turns then the primary you have a "step down"
transformer. If it has more than the primary, it's a "step up" transformer.
In this low voltage power supply we will call for a step down to 12 volts AC.
If we used a 10:1 transformer and applied 120 volts AC to the primary we
would see 12 volts AC on the secondary.
(Trivia) Back in the 'old days' this would be called a filament transformer and
would be used to power (light up) the filaments of 12 volt vacuum tubes.

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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
CIRCUIT FIVE:
Low Voltage DC Power Supply

OK, from the top of T1's secondary a wire connects to the anode of diode D1.
It's very important to connect to the anode as we want a positive voltage.
If it got connected to the cathode we would get a negative voltage and the
supply would not work. It would damage the capacitor and if the capacitor
failed as a short, then the fuse would blow and hopefully protect the diode
and the transformer! So watching polarities is extremely important!
The diode D1 conducts only on the positive half cycles of the alternating
current from the transformer, so the output of the diode is positive pulses, the
positive half of the input sine wave.
Next a wire connects to the inductor L1 and then from L1 to capacitor C1.
The combination of L1 and C1 forms a low pass filter. Each time a positive
pulse arrives at C1 it charges up, then during the time between pulses it
discharges supplying current to the load until the next pulse arrives. This
filtering action is what gives a nice smooth DC output.
Next a wire connects to R1. This resistor is called a dropping resistor and is
used to reduce or drop the voltage supplied to D2 the LED diode. The LED is
forward biased and will light when the power supply is turned on.
If there is no load on the power supply (as in this drawing) then the LED will
slowly go out when the supply is switched off due to the capacitor C1
discharging though the LED until it has completely discharged.
See, you pretty much knew exactly how that worked without me explaining it
to you. OK you are ready to go out on your own because you now have a
good basic understanding of basic electronics.
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Introduction To Basic Electronics

Building Simple Circuits
If you were able to build all of these circuits and get them to work, then you
are ready now to build real projects on your own.
Be sure to visit my website. There you'll find a list of other simple to build
projects like audio amplifiers and AM broadcast radios.
So don't stop now because you really on your way to understanding
electronics, a very important skill in todays world.
Greg Carpenter
gregsbasicelectronics.com
P.S.
I thought you might like to see the corner of my workshop where I design and
build these circuits to show you that it doesn't take hardly any room at all to
do this.

Have fun with your new skills.

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