Week 2 - Workshop : debugging circuits

13 february 2020

During this lesson Loes explained us how electronic circuits work. To experiment with these circuits, she handed out some debugging templates. We had to attach an 3-volt battery to some copper tape. The copper tape only conducts on the top side, you to complete the circuit we had to fold the template in a ccertain manner to make the top sides touch. On this circuit we had to attach a LED. When you made the folds properly, so the top sides of the copper tape would touch, the LED lights up. When there is no load on the circuit, and the power of the battery can flow back freely to the battery, a short circuit will occur, and the battery will drain itself. There will be a danger of heating as well.

We were also practicing with the variables of a electric circuit.

R= resistance, measured in Ohm. V = volt (DC), to measure how much power an object uses. I = Current, measured in Ampere. How much power goes through te circuit.

To measure such values, we can use a multimeter. With two probes, you can touch parts of an electric circuit and measure the different values we discussed above.

In this case, we folded the paper to complete the circuit.

In this case, we used a special kind of pressure-sensitive tape to complete the circuit

Ohm's Law

Ohm's Law is all about the relation between Volt (V), Resistance (R) and Current (I). In an electrical circuit, current is passing through a resistor between two points, andd is related to the voltage difference between the two points. You can measure the resistance needed in an electrtical circuit by using this formula:

R = V/I

Because the elements in this formula are related to each other, you can also calculate the voltage and current the other way around :

V = R * I

I = V/R

For example, if we know that we are using a 3 volt battery, and there is a current of 10 ohm, we want to calculate the resistance needed on the circuit.

R = 3 / 0,006 = 500. We need a resistance of 500 ohm in this circuit.