We are lucky to live in an age where electronic devices abound..
However, what makes these electronic devices so amazing is that we often wonder what makes them work, what makes them so successful, and how.
Electronics are an amazing thing, you never see what’s going on inside them, but you can witness what they can do..
In this article, WONDERFUL PCB helps you understand circuit boards by explaining circuit board components.
Capacitor
Capacitors are probably the most common components on circuit boards and are the first choice for circuit board assemblies.
However, we use fewer capacitors than resistors. The basic function of a capacitor is to store an electric charge in it, a capacitor consists of two metal plates with a dielectric in between, the two plates store opposite charges and the dielectric helps to separate them. In this way, current starts flowing through the circuit.
There are many ways to classify capacitors. However, we mainly classify capacitors based on their dielectric material. This is because the dielectric material is responsible for giving the capacitor key properties;
The denser the dielectric material, the more charge a capacitor can store on its plates; that’s why we tend to use good quality materials to make capacitors in order to get higher capacitance..
A typical capacitor has two wires protruding from a metal plate.. We use these wires to attach the capacitor to the board assembly.
Resistance
We use resistors in most circuit board assemblies and most of us are familiar with their function;
Resistors are an integral part of circuit board components, they are very popular and fairly easy to work with.
The flow of electric current.. So resistors help to dissipate electrical energy in the form of heat. There are several types of resistors and there are different ways of classifying them, and the materials they are made of usually vary because we use different materials for different purposes.
Another different approach to circuit board assemblies is the way the wires are brought out, and the most common type in this regard is the axial resistor.
Beginners and hobbyists often prefer to use axial resistors because of their ease of integration into any circuit. There are rings around each resistor, these rings are a color code indicating the resistance value of that particular resistor, these rings also tell us about the possible tolerances of the resistor.
Potentiometer
A potentiometer is basically an advanced form of a simple resistor. Simple resistors have a fixed resistance value.. However, the resistance value of the potentiometer can be changed if desired.
There are many types of potentiometers, but the most common are linear and rotary, and you can change the resistance of a linear potentiometer by dragging a linear slider. On a rotary potentiometer, you can turn a knob to change the resistance. The resistance changes as the slider moves over the semi-circular base resistance.
We use rotary potentiometers a lot in everyday applications, one of the most common applications is using them in circular faders in music players and similar audio equipment, they work by controlling the amount of current delivered to the amplifier. Potentiometers When designing complex devices, their performance needs to be changed through fine tuning.
Inductor
Inductors are one of the three members of the passive linear components of the circuit board, the other two are capacitors and resistors, inductors are also mainly used to store energy in them, but they store energy by generating a magnetic field, and capacitors are used for Stored energy is obtained through the use of static electricity.
There are many types of inductors out there, some are simple and others are more complex. However, metal coils are the most common and best understood inductors you will come across. The magnetic field a coil can generate depends on the number of turns in the coil, so the more turns, the greater the inductance.
We often see inductors wound around some magnetic cores, which come in different shapes and sizes, whose main purpose is to enhance the magnetic field when current passes through the conductor.
So this core allows us to filter completely. Block specific signals. This is very useful to us because we can use it for many applications, including reducing interference with communication devices and extending battery life, among others.
Diode
Diode is one of the most important components of circuit board components and its main purpose is to make the current flow only in the set direction.
Current can flow from the positive terminal to the negative terminal and vice versa, but not at the same time, so a diode does this by providing infinite resistance in one direction and zero resistance in the other.
So we can use this feature to block the flow of current in undesired directions, one of the most popular diodes are LED diodes (commonly known as light emitting diodes), we mainly use these diodes to emit light, these diodes are easy to solder..
However, we have to orient them correctly, otherwise the LED may not light up.
Transformer
Transformers are mainly used to transfer electrical energy from one device to another, when we transfer electrical energy through multiple configurations, the electrical energy is increased or decreased.
This increase or decrease in voltage is often observed, similar to what we see in common inductors. There will always be a series of coils around the metal core, at least two coils, one of which acts as the secondary and the other as the primary. Secondary coils refer to the configuration through which electrical energy will pass.
We often see transformers on large electric poles, these transformers are called industrial transformers, and are used to reduce the voltage when passing the line, this reduction is usually in the range of hundreds of thousands.
Hence, this voltage becomes available in our daily life and in ordinary households by using transformers.
SCR
These are an integral part of circuit board components, which is why engineers love to use them.
We also call them thyristors because they are very similar to diodes and transistors. Some experts suggest that they resemble two transistors that work together.
They have four layers of silicon and contain only three wires.. they are not used as amplifiers, they are only used as switches..
One of the main points to remember is that we only need one pulse to activate the switch, on the other hand we have to constantly supply current to the transistor to pass the amplification. Therefore, they are more suitable for a large number of switching power supplies.
Transistor
Transistors are known by most electronics experts as the fundamental building blocks of electronics, they are an essential building block of circuit boards, and billions of them can be found within a single IC.
However, we should not think of them as complex tools. Instead, they’re ordinary electrical switches and simple amplifiers, with transistors that come in various shapes and sizes.
The most common type is the bipolar transistor. Other categories include PNP and NPN variants.
There are three pins inside a bipolar transistor. There’s a collector, a distributor, and then that’s what matters.
When a small amount of current flows through an NPN transistor, it flows from the base to the emitter, but this triggers another setup where the current becomes larger. This larger current then flows from the emitter to the collector.
On the other hand, PNP transistors behave exactly opposite to NPN transistors. There is another popular type of transistor we call a FET or Field Effect Transistor.
They allow current to flow through them using the existing electric field to activate another circuit setup.
Crystal Oscillator
These are the most important circuit board components in complex devices and we mainly use them in clocks because they allow us to make critical circuits that allow us to keep stable and accurate time.
They consist of a piezoelectric body, which is basically a crystalline material, that generates a periodic electrical signal, which generates a signal during its oscillations.
So we design them in such a way that they are vibration stable. Its vibrations are related to specific frequencies, so we can use them to make inexpensive and accurate watches. Therefore, we also use them in other important devices such as quartz watches and microcontrollers.
Integrated Circuit
When we shrink certain circuits and electronic components and embed them in semiconductor thin films, they are called integrated circuits.
They allowed us to embed many electronic components in a single chip, a staggering capacity that allowed us to build the first calculators.
So now they allow us to create state-of-the-art smart devices and revolutionary supercomputers.
Integrated circuits act as central processing units, or essentially the brains of larger circuits. There are different types of integrated circuits, but most are in black plastic casings.
Switches and Relays
They are the most basic of circuit board components, yet we often forget their importance: switches allow us to control the flow of current in any given circuit; switches allow us to move between closed and open circuits.
They come in all shapes and sizes.. however, some of the most common include sliders, levers, keys, buttons, and rotary.
Electronegative switches, on the other hand, are called relays. The relay works through a solenoid, so the solenoid acts as a temporary magnet while the current flows through it. Therefore, they act as switches, so larger amounts of current can be improved.
Sensor
Sensors are those circuit board components that can detect a change in their atmosphere and, once such a change is detected, they tend to generate a signal reflecting the change.
These electrical signals are then sent to different components of the circuit board, so the sensor basically converts physical energy into electrical energy.
Therefore, we often think of sensors as transducers.
There are different types of sensors that serve different purposes, some of the more popular ones include temperature sensors, humidity sensors, pressure sensors, light sensors, and motion sensors.
They are very common and we use them a lot in our daily life, for example, we use LEDs to detect IR signals in TV remotes.
We also use fire and humidity sensors in fire and smoke alarms, so we can also use the sensors as components of circuit boards to optimize different industrial processes.
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