Roadmap / Hardware
Circuit Theory
The starting point for all hardware. Voltage needs a reference point, and that reference is ground.
Goal Calculate the voltage and current at each node of a schematic.
- 01Voltage, current, resistance3D lab
Voltage is a difference between two points. Start with ground and potential.
- 02
- 03Kirchhoff's laws3D lab
Current into a node equals current out; voltages around a loop sum to zero.
- 04Series, parallel, voltage dividers3D lab
Two resistors dividing a voltage. You meet it at every ADC input and sensor.
- 05Thevenin and Norton equivalents
Reducing a circuit to one source and one resistor to see output impedance.
- 06Superposition
Solving a multi-source circuit one source at a time and adding the results.
- 07Capacitors and the RC time constant3D lab
A capacitor resists sudden voltage change. τ = RC is the time to reach 63%.
- 08Inductors and RL circuits
An inductor resists sudden current change, and why the kick on turn-off is dangerous.
- 09AC and impedance
Resistance that depends on frequency. Calculating AC circuits with phasors.
- 10Filters and resonance
The RC low-pass cutoff 1/(2πRC), and LC resonance.
Hit the cutoff frequency of an RC filter
Choose a resistor and capacitor, calculate the cutoff frequency, and confirm it with the charging curve in the lab.
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