Re: Very basic beginning electronics

JeffM (jeffm_@xxxxxxxxx) writes:
nnisevich@ gmail.com wrote:
I would like to see some interest in basic, for beginners... like:
what does a diode do, and what is it for; what is a transistor
and what is the difference between a PNP or NPN.

You don't get to Electronics 101 until you complete Electricity 101

I don't know, I kind of skipped all that and didn't get lost.

I think too many here are reading too much into the post.
"Difference between a PNP and NPN" could simply be wanting to
know what polarity goes to their collector. "Diodes allow
current to flow one way", and they are commonly used to rectify
AC voltage to get a resulting DC voltage.

One problem is that the hobby electronic magazines have gone away.
They used to be the introduction to the hobby, and people could build
things without needing to know much, yet the practice of drooling over
the schematics and reading the "how it works" section of the article helped
to raise their technical ability. And those practical examples were
the impetus for seeking out more detail in the books.

There is a lot of "basic" informatin that one accumulates that way that
has little do with "understanding" yet in effect does help to bring
understanding.

Obviously if someone is asking such vague questions, they do need to
hit the books Or dig up old hobby electronic magazines at the used
book stores (though I think any such magazines have pretty much disappeared
from such stores by this point). But sometimes people just want
practical bits of knowledge, and they don't care how a diode works,
just what it does and how to use it.

Michael
.

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