Lessons arrange the website content into a teaching order. This is useful as a self taught course or as revision. Each lesson consists of an overview, learning objectives, lesson content and a self evaluation. Lesson content is organised in to a logical order but can be revisited at any time to review learning and understanding. Self evaluation "I can" statements expand on the learning intentions. Quizzes and questions are used to test understanding and suggest areas that need to be reviewed.
The lessons follow a similar structure to the WJEC Eduqas GCSE Electronics specification. There are more details in the about section. The learning intentions and examination specification are a suggested starting point when learning about electronics.
Lesson 1: Electrical Safety & Domestic Electricity This lesson looks at how to work safely in an electronics lab when doing practical work and also considers the dangers associated with domestic electricity.
Lesson 2: Circuit symbols, Prefixes & Units An important overview of the units used in electronics and the most common circuit symbols that should be known.
Lesson 3: Current & Voltage Rules Kirchhoff's circuit rules for current and voltage applied to series and parallel circuits.
Lesson 4: Resistance Resistance, the resistor equation and different types of resistors.
Lesson 5: Multimeters How to use a multimeter to measure voltage, current, resistance and more in a circuit.
Lesson 6: Identifying Resistors The resistor colour code and the BS1852 printed code.
Lesson 7: Energy & Power The relationship between Energy, Power, Voltage and Current.
Lesson 8: Series & Parallel Resistors The equations to calculate the combined resistance of components in series and parallel and how standard E24 series values can be used to make any required value of resistor by combining two or more resistors.
Lesson 9: Potential Dividers Also know as voltage dividers, this lesson looks at the theory behind potential dividers, how to use the relevant equation to calculate the output voltage and how to analyze simple potential dividers using ratios.
Lesson 10: Comparator Circuits The properties of an operational amplifier (Op-Amp) and how an Op-Amp is used to make a comparator circuit.
Lesson 11: Bipolar Transistors Using a bipolar transistor as a transducer driver including calculation of base resistor.
Lesson 12: MOSFETs Using a MOSFET as a transducer driver and using the MOSFET equation.
Lesson 13: Diodes, LEDs & Zener Diodes Using diodes, zener diodes and Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) in circuits including current limiting resistor calculations.
Lesson 14: Systems Approach & Switches Adopting a systems approach to circuit design and looking at the various switches that can be used.
Lesson 15: Logic Quite a long lesson covering different aspects of logic such as logic gates, logic circuits, NAND gate equivalents and simple Boolean Algebra.
Lesson 16: Timing circuits The lessons starts by learning about capacitors and how these components can be used to make time delays. Two timing circuits are studied, the monostable circuit and the astable circuit.
Lesson 17: Bistable and Flip-Flop Circuits The lesson considers two important digital circuits - the bistable circuit and the D-Type flip-flop circuit. Several applications of these circuits are considered.
Lesson 18: Counters A long lesson including binary, binary counters, 7-segment displays, display decoders and decade counters.
Lesson 19: Schmitt Inverter A very short lesson about the Schmitt inverter and how it is used as an interface between analogue and digital circuits.
© Paul Nicholls
December 2021
Electronics Resources by Paul Nicholls is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
