Purpose of the Instructional Laboratory: Electronics Edition
The electronics instructional laboratory offers an opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience with practical aspects of doing experimental physics. In particular, the electronics course is critical for learning the process of converting physical variables into measurable and useful electronic signals, and for turning electronic signals into desired physical behaviors.
Lab Schedule
Assignments are due 48 hours after the end of lab
Course Resources
Other Resources
Learning:
All About Circuits: Free online textbook, lots of other resources about electronic design. Presented in engineering terminology, which may differ somewhat from language used in physics.
-
-
Talking Electronics: Expansive hobbyist site, terrible web design. May be good inspiration for starting projects.
-
-
Hackaday: Miscellaneous articles with many electronics projects.
-
Bob Pease's articles: Old timer talks about circuits and whatever else crosses his mind. More likely entertaining than educational; Bob was one of the pioneers of analog circuit design in the 60s and 70s.
Hackster.io: General hobbyist project sharing site. Likely to have ideas both great and terrible.
-
Youtube:
Fun:
-
Simone Giertz Previously the self-proclaimed queen of sh*tty robots, now does more meaningful projects
Chip Art Album Collection of photos from art that engineers snuck into the designs of their chips.
https://nandgame.com/ Has you build up the circuity to make a digital computer from the ground up. You start with logic gates and end with a processor that can be programmed
Software:
-
-
Autodesk Eagle: Professional Printed Circuit Board(PCB) design software, free if you create a student account.
Diagrams.net: Free flowchart making tool, includes circuit elements if you use the “More Shapes” button in the bottom left and add “Electrical” from the Other category.
Parts
-
Digikey: Daunting to learn, but massive component database. More focused on industrial-scale applications. Also offers Printed Circuit Board(PCB) manufacturing now.
Mouser: Similar to Digikey, the other industry standard website.
DFRobot: Hobbyist site focusing on robots, sensors, and motors.
Banggood: Larger focus on modules than individual parts, also offers many options for working with robotics/drones. Generally more affordable, but may have longer shipping times
Tayda Electronics: Hobbyist focus, less selection but more reasonable prices on small orders than other sites. Affordable with generally quick shipping.
OSHPark: Service for fabricating PCBs from files, costs ~ 1.70 per square inch. Done in the USA, so may be both faster and more expensive than some services.
Aisler: Another service for fabricating PBCs, housed in Germany.
-
Elecrow: Sell parts, fabricate PCBs, and partner with folks to sell useful modules. Look promising but I haven't worked with them personally.
Stepper Online: Specialty store for stepper motors and drivers, but a great place to go if you need to move something.
-
Digilent: Focus on test & measurement equipment. Their Analog Discovery unit isn't exactly cheap, but it is a scope, power supply, and function generator all in one. Make sure to get the
Academic pricing.
-
Kits:
Mad Lab: Misc kits, might be a good intro to soldering. Jameco is American vendor.
Boldport Club: Cool and strange physical implementations of circuits.
Feedback
The instructional laboratory staff is always interested in feedback. Let us know if you find typos or mistakes, or let us know if you have comments about what you like or don't like about the lab experience.