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BASIC ELECTRONICS COMPONENTS

TUTORIAL FOR ROBOTS

Power
Resistors
Capacitors
Diodes

Electronics can at first seem extremely complicated to understand and learn. One look at
a circuit board with all those little blinky LED's and black chips and unidentifiable circle
pointy things can make anyone quit before starting.

But actually electronics can be much simpler than you think. Learning electronics is more
like learning a foreign language alphabet. At first glance it is all a bunch of squiggles. But
actually each letter has its own pronounciation and its own rules of use. And certain
combinations of letters in a certain order form a word of some meaning. And a
combination of words forms a sentence. This is the same for a circuit board. Each tiny
component, such as a resistor or capacitor or transistor, has special rules and abilities.
Combining a few into a circuit can create interesting effects. Combine a bunch of
unrelated circuits together and suddenly you have a robot. So your first step would just to
be to learn and understand the smallest of the components. Once there you can learn
about combining them. Just like learning a foreign alphabet, no?

Ok first a quick crash course in electron physics.


All electronics is designed to manipulate a flow of electrons. Electrons have mass and
volume so you can almost think of electrons in circuits as water flowing through
plumbing. The analogy is amazingly helpful if you think about it. Also note, the more
electrons you have in one place, the higher the voltage. The more electrons moving
together, the higher the current. The same as with water.

POWER
Power is simply the energy required to do something. If you are moving a large amount
of electrons, and moving them through something that is resistant of that movement,
power is used. Power is voltage times current. Power is also voltage squared divided by
resistance.
P=I*V
P = (V^2)/R

Ground and Source


Source is the positive part of your circuit. The plus end of your battery would go here.
Ground is the negative node of your circuit. When you design your circuit, imagine a
flow of electrons coming from the source, and heading to the ground. A quick note, in
reality electrons move from gound to source. The confusion has historical reasons I dont

Author - John Palmisano


want to get in to. But just know this fact, and pretend electrons move from source to
ground.
Now think of this as water. Water flows down the easiest quickest path between these
two points. More resistance to flow, less will flow.

RESISTORS
These do exactly what they say. They resist the flow of electrons. These are necessary for
several reasons:
- they can control how much current goes down each wire
- they can control power usage
- they can control voltages (since current, resistance, and voltage are interrelated)

The last point is important as it is the basis of Ohm's law, V=IR. Voltage = Current x
Resistance. For example, suppose you take a resistor and connect the two ends of a
battery with it. You know that your battery is 9V (or whatever) and you know the resistor
is 3Kohm (determined by the color stripes on the resistor), so 9V divided by 3Kohm is
.003amps (3 milliamps). So why is this information useful? Well now that you know the
current, you can determine other useful things such as power. P=IV. You will notice that
if you increase resistance, you decrease current. If you decrease current, you decrease
power use. Put a 1ohm resistor between the battery and it will get so hot it could burn
because of the power use. Use a 100Kohm resistor and almost no power at all will be
used.
So about determining the value of a resistor, all resistors have the value labled on them.
You will notice colored stripes on the resistor. Each stripe means a certain number. This
has been explained a billion times online already so I won't, just google search 'resistor
color tutorial.'
Click for a quick resistor color code reference chart.

Author - John Palmisano


CAPACITORS
Now suppose you want to control how the current in your circuit changes (or not
changes) over time. Now why would you? Well radio signals require very fast current
changes. Robot motors cause current fluctuations in your circuit which you need to
control. What do you do when batteries cannot supply current as fast as you circuit drains
them? How do you prevent sudden current spikes that could fry your robot circuitry? The
solution to this is capacitors.

Capacitors are somewhat complex in theory, but most people can get by on the basics
which I will explain here. Capacitors are like electron storage banks. If your circuit is
running low, it will deliver electrons to your circuit. If your circuit is in excess (such as
when your robot motors are turned off), it will store electrons. In our water analogy, think
of this as a water tank with water always flowing in, but with drainage valves opening
and closing. Since capacitors take time to charge, and time to discharge, they can also be
used for timing circuits. Timing circuits can be used to generate signals such as PWM or
be used to turn on/off motors in solar powered BEAM robots.
Quick note, some capacitors are polarized, meaning current can only flow one direction
through them. If a capacitor has a lead that is longer than the other, assume the longer
lead must always connect to positive.

How do capicitors charge over time? This Capacitor Charge Curve Chart should help.
The discharge rate would be the direct inverse. Theoretically (as made obvious by the
graph) a capacitor can never be fully charged or discharged, but in reality this is never the
case.

So how can you use capacitors in your robot?


Power surge/drainage management.
The problem with using robot components that drain a large amount of power is
sometimes your battery cannot handle the high drain rate. Motors and servos being
perfect examples. This would cause a system wide voltage drop, often reseting your
microcontroller, or at least causing it to not work properly. Just a side note, it is bad to
use the same power source for both your control circuitry and your motors. So don't do it.
Or suppose your robot motors are not operating at it's full potential because the battery
cannot supply enough current, the capacitor will make up for it. The solution is to place a
large electrolytic capacitor between the source and ground of your power source. Get a

Author - John Palmisano


capacitor that is rated at least twice the voltage you expect to go through it. Have it rated
at 1mF-10mF for every amp required. For example, if your 20V motors will use 3
amps, use a 3mF-30mF 50V rated capacitor. Exactly how much will depend on how often
you expect your motor to change speed and direction, as well as momentum of what you
are actuating. Just note that if your capacitor is too large, it make take a long time to
charge up when you first turn your robot on. If it is too small, it will drain of electrons
and your circuit will be left with a deficit. It is also bad to allow a large capacitor to
remain fully charged when you turn off your robot. Things could accidently short and fry,
such as curious kitties that get too close. So use a simple power on LED in your motor
circuit to drain the capacitor after your robot is turned off. If your capacitor is not rated
properly for voltage, then can explode with smoke. Fortunately they do not overheat if
given excessive amounts of current. So just make sure your capacitor is rated higher than
your highest expected.

Capacitors can also be used to prevent power spikes that could potentially fry circuitry.
Next to any on/off switch or anything that that could affect power suddenly should have a
capacitor across it.

Capacitors can eliminate switch bouncing. When you flip a mechanical switch, the
switch actually bounces several times within a microsecond range. Normally this is too
small of a time for anyone to care (or even notice), but note that a microcontroller can
take hundreds of readings in a single microsecond. So if your robot was counting the
number of times a switch is flipped, a single flip can count as dozens. So how do you stop
this? Use a small ceramic capacitor! Just experiment until you find the power
capacitance value.

Capacitors can improve efficiency and longevity of electric motors up to 100%. Place a
small ceramic capacitor of like 10uF across the two leads of your motor. This works
really well with el-cheap-o motors. Not much effect with high-end expensive motors
however. These capacitors will also signficantly reduce EMI (Electro Magnetic
Interference) and system noise too.

DIODES
Diodes are what you would use to ensure current flows in only a single direction. A great
water analogy to a diode is a dam. Water never flows up a damn. But the analogy goes
even further. With diodes, there is always a voltage across it (typically .7V forward
voltage). Meaning if you have a diode come after a 7.2V battery, the voltage would then
be 6.5V. This is just like a dam in that the water level will always drop. Doesnt current
already always flow in only a single direction? No. RC circuits, or circuits involving AC
power, or circuits that are noisy (such as with motors), involve currents that changes
directions. So why would you only want current to flow in a single direction? Many
many reasons. But for a beginner, you need to protect your circuitry from noise. A

Author - John Palmisano


microcontroller would fry if current went the wrong way. Motor drivers and MOSFETs
would too. Diodes are also useful for dropping high voltages to a lower more usable
voltage.

This below chart represents the current vs voltage curve typical of diodes. As you can
see, the current passing through a diode changes non-linearly as voltage changes linearly.

There is another special diode called a zener diode. With the water analogy, a zener
diode is like a dam, but with a pump at the bottom pumping water back to the top. Zener
diodes allow current to flow in reverse as well as forward. The forward voltage is still
around .7V, but there is a different reverse voltage of around negative ~2.3V. You will
probably never need to use a zener diode.

The LED, a light emitting diode, is also a well . . . diode. When using an LED make sure
you always place a resistor (~100 ohm) in series with it. The LED will fry otherwise.

Source - www.societyofrobots.com

Author - John Palmisano

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