User | Post |
HyperLamer
Posts: 4396/8210 |
Bingo. You sunk my battleship. *evacuates* |
windwaker
Posts: 1524/1797 |
Yeah, so that represents them being soldered together at that point. |
HyperLamer
Posts: 4384/8210 |
When wires cross through a dot, it means they're connected to eachother. |
windwaker
Posts: 1516/1797 |
Ah, I see.
So I went to RS and bought a 555 timer, some 1k and 4k resistors, and some LEDs. I successfully powered an LED using a 4k resistor, go me.
I'm going to ask a really, really, really stupid question, and then I'm going to disregarding ever asking it.
In this image (and just about all schematics), what're the wires leading into the dots? Does that mean they somehow join the circuit? |
HyperLamer
Posts: 4376/8210 |
Any old copper wire is usually fine for small electronic projects. If you plan to work with an AC outlet (100 or 120 or 240 or however many volts your country uses) though you will need something relatively thick. (If in doubt, recycle something's power cord. ) For the LED, it depends on the LED itself but 5 volts should be plenty. Generally with any sort of light you can vary the current depending on what you want from it; the more power, the brighter it lights up but the faster it wears out. Too much will blow it though. (Number one rule of electronics - too much current will blow anything.) The board you're looking at is a PCB - printed circuit board. Unfortunately you probably can't do much in the way of making your own. What you can do is buy similar boards at Radio Shack (or prefferably any other electronics store) which have several holes in them. These are pretty nice since you can mount all your parts in the holes and solder them together, and even leave things that way if you're satisfied with it. Some boards also have certain parts pre-connected, so watch what you buy. You'd generally be best with one that doesn't have any parts connected, but some projects would work better with one - for example, something that uses a flash-ROM; you can just plop the chip on the board and solder wires to another hole that's connected to the pin, thus no having to solder the chip itself in place so you can remove it easily. |
windwaker
Posts: 1511/1797 |
I decided to start a new thread for this.
What I'm basically wondering now, is how I know what type of resistors to use. The more Ohm, the less electricity gets through. I plan on using a 9V battery, and set up a few logic circuits with some LEDs for practice; what type of resistors would one use if they were trying to power an LED with a 9V battery? Giving it the entire nine volts would blow it out, I'd assume.
Edit: also, is there any particular type of wire I should use? I have a lot of wire from when I messed around soldering keyboards and messing with phones. And what about the board (don't know what it's called; it's this, or more specifically the green that the parts are mounted on. What's that called?)? |