Analog Electronics by Hand: Diodes & Rectifiers, Smoothing Ripple, Zener Regulators, Transistor Switches, Op-Amp Amplifiers, Active Filters, Comparators & Real-World Limits
Understand the parts between the battery and the microcontroller. You will rectify a low-voltage sine wave, size a smoothing capacitor for a ripple limit, check a Zener regulator across loads, drive a load with transistor and MOSFET switches, design inverting, non-inverting, summing and difference amplifiers, plot active filters in decibels, set comparator thresholds and find where an op-amp clips or slews, with every cell checked as you go.
One-time payment · lifetime access · lessons, labs, exam and certificate included · no subscription.
About this course
This course works through low-voltage analog circuits with toy models in a spreadsheet. You build one cycle of a sine wave with SIN and pass it through half-wave and full-wave rectifiers, size a smoothing capacitor for a ripple limit and pick it from a fictional series with MINIFS. You check a Zener regulator across six loads, size base resistors for transistor switches and estimate MOSFET temperature rise. You compute inverting, non-inverting, summing and difference amplifiers, tabulate filter gain in decibels and phase with ATAN, set Schmitt-trigger thresholds and finish with a design check for clipping, gain-bandwidth and slew rate.
Lessons
- Diodes & Rectifiers: A Toy Sine Table, a 0.7 V Diode Model, Half-Wave vs Full-Wave Outputs Pro
- Smoothing Ripple: ΔV ≈ I ÷ (f·C), the Capacitor from a Ripple Limit & the Minimum Voltage Pro
- Zener Regulators: Series Resistor, Zener and Load Currents, Power vs Rating & the Load Window Pro
- Transistor Switches: Base Resistors with Overdrive, Saturation Checks, MOSFET Losses & Temperature Rise Pro
- Op-Amp Amplifiers: The Two Ideal Rules, Inverting and Non-Inverting Gain, the Follower & Resistor Pairs Pro
- Summing & Difference Amplifiers: A Toy 4-Bit DAC, Step Size, Resistor Tolerances & Common-Mode Error Pro
- Active Filters & Comparators: Cutoff Frequency, Gain in dB, Phase with ATAN & Schmitt-Trigger Hysteresis Pro
- Capstone – Real-World Limits: Clipping at the Rails, Gain-Bandwidth, Slew Rate & a Design Check Table Pro