Components: #1 Intro + Resistors

The electronic components. Your phone, computer, TV, lights, everything out there that feeds off of electricity wouldn't be here without them. Every one of them: resistors, capacitors, diodes, batteries, solenoids, transistors, wires, MOSFETs, gates, ICs, relays... the list goes on and on my friend. Each one of these little wonders has their own unique job, and when you combine these components correctly, you may just come out with something as useful and awesome as a computer. 

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Here are what some of the components look like in the real world. When you're designing a circuit, you don't just jump in and start soldering things together, you design it sort of like you would with a blueprint. Go to a piece of paper and draw it out! Then with a little math magic (or a computer program), you could see if it works. If you want to go onto making circuits, then you're going to need to know what each component does and how to draw it out. 

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The resistor. This component is probably one of the most used ones out there. Remember how back in lesson 2 we didn't want too much coming out of the spout? Reason is, if there was too little resistance, too much would come out and your cup would overflow, but if the resistance was too high and not enough water was coming out, your cup would sit there for days. Well this is why this component is so important. The units used for measuring resistance is in "ohms." Now, looking at the picture to the left, you may be wondering how you can tell how many ohms each resistor provides. Well that's easy. First one is 330, second 33k, 560, 150k and so on. Now, how can I tell? The colored bands that wrap around each one. Black = 0, Brown = 1, Red = 2, Orange = 3, Yellow = 4, Green = 5, Blue = 6, Purple = 7, Grey = 8, and White = 9. Now, if the resistor has three bands and one off to the side, the first two will tell you what the first two digits are and the third will tell you what the multiplier is ("a" and "b" times 10 ^ "x" power) So, if a resistor has, in this order, a red band, a purple band, and a yellow band, you know that the first two digits are 2 and 7 and the multiplier is 10 to the 4th power. Now for the math! 27 x 10^4 = 27k. That resistor is 27k ohms. Pretty easy, huh? It especially is once you have the color codes memorized like yours truly. Blue stands for 5, yellow for 4, grey for 8, black for 0. I am just that good. Now, I said earlier that there is usually 4 bands on there... we only talked about 3. So, what's that fourth band for? Not all resistors are perfect. Some have a plus or minus percentage from the stated value due to it being near impossible to make a component perfect. Now, the color codes are different for this band, but luckily, chances are, you won't need to learn them. The only two you'll need to know it Gold which is +-5% and Silver which is +-10%. So, if a resistor of 220 ohms has a silver band on it, it means the true resistance is somewhere between 198 - 242 ohms. If we have a 1k ohm resistor with a gold band, then the rating will be 950 - 1050 ohms. Easy enough, right? For additional info, click here.