What is voltage?

What is voltage?

  January 28, 2017    Aniruddha

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The fundamental rules on which any circuit works are voltage, current and resistance. There is capacitance and induction, but we will dwell into them later.

Voltage, denoted by V, is the driving force of any circuit. It is the source of power and is available in different forms. The most common forms are the battery or the adapter. Voltage can be better understood by thinking it as a water pump pumping the water through a pipe. Voltage is measure in volts (V)

Fig 1. Voltage analogy

Similar to the water-pump driving the water through the pipes, voltage drives the electron through the circuit.  The movement of electrons through the circuit is called current, indicated I.  Note that though the electrons move from the -ve terminal of the voltage to the positive +ve terminal of the voltage, current is considered as flowing from positive +ve terminal to -ve terminal.  The flow of current through various electronics component causes it to work. Current is measure in amperes (A)

Resistance, as the name suggests, is the barrier to flow of the current. It is indicated by R. A wire has close to zero resistance and air has close to infinite resistance. A thicker wire has relatively less resistance than a thin wire. Resistance is measure in ohms (Ω).

The relation between voltage, current and resistance is explained by the Ohm's law.

$$V  =  IR$$

Consequently, given any two, it is easy to solve the equation for current.  This equation is particularly useful because in most circuits you cannot measure the current. The voltage and the resistance can be measured, so you can calculate the current.

Never connect the voltage in a short circuit. A short circuit means that the resistance is zero.  According to the Ohm's law if the resistance is zero, the current will approach infinity and may burn down everything in the path.

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Getting started

Getting started

  January 21, 2017    Aniruddha

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As we get started to learn about Arduino, it is necessary to get ourselves equipped with the necessary tools and components. All of these are optional and you can follow this blog without them, however it would be very useful for you to have them and work along each post.

Arduino Uno R3 or equivalent

You can buy the Arduino make or a cheap clone. Arduino being open source hardware, you should not find any difficulty following this blog with either. I got a cheap one from ebay.com

Basic component kit for Arduino

The kit that I bought ahd the following, but you kit may have different.

• 400 tie point breadboard
• Jumper wires
• Bunch of resistors (10x 220R, 10x 1K, 10x 4.7k, 10x 10k)
• LEDs (10x green, 10x red, 10x yellow, 10x red, 10x blue, 2x RGB)
• 7 segment LED
• Button switch (2x green,  2x red, 2x yellow, 2x red, 2x blue)
• 40P pin header
• 10k potentiometer
• Active buzzer, Passive buzzer
• LD5516 cadmium sulphide photo sensor
• TIP120 TO220 transistor
• Ultrasonic module
• Motor
• 10P female to female dupont cable
• 5.5*2.1 mm DC socket
• 9V battery clip
• USB A-B cable

Arduino IDE to program the Arduino

Download it from Arduino.cc - Softwares

Fitzing software, to create the circuit diagrams and schematics

Download from fritzing.org

Soldering iron kit

Multimeter

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Preface

Preface

  January 20, 2017    Aniruddha

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Recently, I was introduced to a nifty gadget called Arduino.  Having completed my graduation in Electronics, this peaked my interest and so I immediately ordered one.  I received my package in few days and I immediately opened it and then I hit a wall.  Being a professional software developer for 13 years since my graduation had completed eroded what electronics I had learned during my college days.  I was kind of embarrassed and took up the challenge to be the electronics engineer again, albeit as a hobby.

I have lot of questions, like what to do, how to start, where to look for more information and I think you will have the same.  I thought that if I catalog my learning this will be beneficial for someone who is like me starting out fresh. My platform of choice will be Arduino, specifically Arduino Uno, though I will be writing about different platforms occasionally, if and when I come across them.

As I have graduated in Electronics, I unknowingly will make certain assumptions that you might by be unaware of or might find difficult to grasp.  So don't be shy to leave a comment and I will try my best to address them.

Knowledge is power and this my journey to empower myself in the field of single board micro controllers and single board computers. I hope that you join me and together we can make this journey a fun.

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