C BASIC COMPONENTS
Resistors: are used to reduce or limit the amount of current flowing in a circuit.
Resistor opposes the flow of current. The opposition is called resistance, and it
is measured in Ohms. Larger unit of resistance are kilo ohms and Mega ohms.
1kilo ohm is = 1000 Ohms and 1 Mega ohms = 1000,000 Ohms.
A small resistor offers little resistance to the flow of current, and a larger
resistor offers larger resistance and thereby offers a small current to flow.
How to determine the value of resistor
Resistor value are generally printed on to the body of the resistor as number or
letters when the resistor body is big enough to read the print, such as large
power resistors. But when the resistor is small this specification must be shown
in some other manner as the print would be too small to read.
So to overcome this, small resistors use coloured painted bands to indicate
both their resistive value and their tolerance with the physical size of the
resistor. These coloured painted bands produce a system of identification
generally known as a RESISTOR COLOUR CODE.
The resistor colour code markings are always read one band at a time starting
from the left to the right.
Below shows the resistors colour table:
Colour Band 1,2,3 value 3rd or 4th band Tolerance
multiplicator or
no. of zeros
Silver --- 10-2 =1/100 or + or – 10%
0.01
Gold --- 101=1/10 or 0.1 + or – 5%
Black 0 100 =1 -
Brown 1 101 + or -1%
Red 2 102=100 +or – 2%
Orange 3 103=1000
Yellow 4 10 4=10000
Green 5 105=100000 +or – 0.5%
Blue 6 106=1000000 +or – 0.25%
Violet 7 107=10000000 +or – 0.1%
Grey 8 108=100000000
White 9 109=1000000000
None - +or -20%
Examples; 1. Resistor has a colour band of red, yellow, black and gold.
Determine it resistance value.
Answer;
Colour Values Multiplicator Tolerance
Red 2
Yellow 4
Black 100=1
Gold +or -5%
So we would have 24 Ohms + or – 5% as the resistance.
Eg 2. Yellow, violet, red and gold
4 7 * 100 +or – 5%
= 4.7k ohms +or – 5%
Assignment.
Determine the resistor colour of the following resistor value
1. 2K Ohms + and – 5%
2. 470 Ohms +and -10%
3. 100 Ohms +and – 5%
4. 170K Ohms
5. 16K Ohms
A small resistor offers little resistance to the flow of current, whilst a
larger resistor offers a lager resistance and thereby cause a small current to
flow.
All conductors have resistance which is given by Ohms law which state
that; the current flowing through a conductor is directly proportional to the
voltage applied across it, providing all physical condition (eg. Temperature)
remain constant. This can be express as resistance of conductor in Ohms, is
equal to the voltage across the resistor in volts divided by the current flowing
through the resistor in amps. Using letters this can be written as R = V/I where
V =pd, I = current and R = resistance.
Resistors in Series and Parallel
It is possible to connect more than one resistors to a source of emf as we
have below; the diagram below shows two ways resistors can be connected to
a battery.
a. b.
one can calculate two or more resistors in series and parallel using
the given formular below;
A. resistors in series
Rt=R1+R2+R3 ……
Eg. Two resistors of 10 ohms and 5 ohms are connected in series to a
source in a circuit, determine the total resistance in the circuit.
Answer; Rt=R1 + R2
Rt=10+5
Rt = 15 ohms.
B. resistors in parallel
1/Rt =1/R1 + 1/R2 + 1/R3……
Eg. 1/Rt = 1/10 + 1/5
1/Rt = 6/20
Rt = 20/6
Rt =3.33 ohms
Exercise
in the 1850s, Gustav Robert formulated two more laws relating to electric
circuits. Those laws, named after him enable us to write down equations to
represent the circuit mathematically.
Kirchhoff’s law 1 state that; the sum of current flowing in to any junction in a
circuit is always equal to the sum of current flowing away from the junction.
all I into a junction = all I out of a junction
Eg. 1. Fine the values of the current marked
Law 2 state that; the sum of the potential difference (pd) in any closed loop of
a circuit is equal to the sum of the electromotive forces in the loop.
∑Esource =∑IR
Eg.
Conductor, insulator and semi-conductor
Conductors; this are materials that allows current to flow through them
easily.eg. of conductor materials are as follow;
1. copper
2. aluminium
3. wet wood
4. human body
5. sea water ( pure water is a poor conductor of electricity)
6. silver etc.
why conductors conduct electricity easily?
Conductors are good conductors because there are no obstacles blocking
the flow of current to the conduction band unlike insulator where there is
large forbidding gap preventing the easy flow of current. In conductor, with
a little spark the electrons are easy to move to the conduction band as the
valence electron and conduction band are over-lap each other as shown in
the diagram below;
Insulators
Insulators are materials that offers a large resistance to the flow of current
through them.eg. of insulators are as follow;
1. dry wood
2. plastics
3. glass
4. pure water
5. rubber etc.
The energy band structure of an insulator is shown below;
Semiconductor
Semi-conductors are materials that exhibit both properties of conductor
and insulator. They behave as conductor in some instance (higher
temperature) and an insulator in other instance (at low temperature).
Two of the most commonly used semiconductor materials are; silicon
and germanium. gallium arsenide is other examples of semiconductor.
Energy band diagram of semiconductor is shown below;
Semiconductors can be divided into;
1. intrinsic semiconductor
2. extrinsic semiconductor
Intrinsic; semi-conductor materials are refers to as intrinsic when
they are in pure state. In this instance, conductivity is low.
Extrinsic; when an impurities are added to pure semiconductor
material to make it more active is refers to as extrinsic. And the
process of adding these impurities is called doping.
Under extrinsic we have
1. N-type (when a small amount of pentavalent impurity like; a.
phosphorus b. antimony c. bismuth etc) is added to a pure
semiconductor it is called N-type extrinsic semiconductor) and
2. P-type semiconductor (when a small amount of trivalent
impurity eg. Boron, indium, gallium aluminum etc is added to
pure semiconductor is called P-type extrinsic semiconductor).
DIODE
Diode is a two terminal electronic component that conduct current in
one direction. It has low resistance in one direction and high resistance
in the other direction.
Diode is made from semi-conductor materials. Pure silicon does not
have any free electrons so therefore in making diode one part of silicon
is doped with n-type impurity and other is doped with p-type impurity
and this makes it more conductive.
Diode have two terminals such as cathode (negative) and anode
( positive).
Types of diode
1 Rectifier
2 zener diode
3 L.E.D
4 photo diode etc.
L.E.D
The L.E.D is made up of a PN junction enclosed in a transparent plastic.
The colour of the plastic depend on the colour of the light.
The colour of the light is determine by the wave-length in turn, depend
on the impurities added during the process of doping. The following
table indicates the colour of light produce by various materials;
1. Gallium phosphide (Gap) --- Red or Green visible light.
2. Gallium Arsenide phosphide (GAASP)---Red or yellow visible light.
3. Gallium arsenides (GaAS) ---infrared (invisible)
Application of L.E.D.
a. Indicator lamps on radios and electronic gadgets.
b. Read out display
SYMBOL
ZENER DIODE
The zener diode is a semiconductor device which usually operates in
the revers bias, even though when forward biased, it would operate
like a rectifier diode.
APPLICATION
They are used in regulating dc voltage.
Symbol of zener diode
CAPACITOR
A capacitor is a device that store electric charge.
In its simplest form, it consists of two parallel metals plates separated by an
insulator called dielectric. The symbol for fixed and variable capacitor are given
below;
The capacitance(C) of a capacitor measures its ability to store charge and is
stated in farads (F). The farad is sub divided in to smaller more convenient
units. Microfarad and Nano farad
There are four things to considered when selecting a capacitor;
1. the tolerance
2. stability
3. the working voltage; this is the largest voltage (d.c or a.c) which can be
applied across the capacitor and is often mark on it .eg 30V etc, if the
voltage exceeds, the dielectric breaks down and permanent damage
may result.
4. The leakage current; No dielectric is a perfect insulator but the loss of
charge through it as leakage current should be small.
TRANSISTORS
Transistors are three terminals semiconductor device use for
amplification and as a switches. They are semiconductor device which
means, transistors can be conductive by allowing current to flow
through or non-conductive by blocking current to flow through them.
Hundreds of different transistors are available with an identification
code. In American system, transistors always start with 2N followed by a
number. Eg. 2N3053. In the continental system, the first letter gives the
semiconductor material (A =germanium, B=silicon) and the second letter
gives the use (C indicates an audio frequency amplifier, F a radio
frequency amplifier, for example; BC108 is a silicon audio amplifier.
How to test a Transistor
RECTIFICATION
FULL WAVE RECTIFICATION
Steps to follow in building rectification
1. Take any two (2) diode and connect their cathodes to obtain positive
(+)
2. Take another two diodes and connect their anodes to obtained
negative (-)
3. Take the remaining free terminals and connect their cathode to
anode to obtain common (ac)
