Table of Contents
Purpose of the Instructional Laboratory: Electronics Edition
Physics instructional laboratories have a goal different from research laboratories. Here you are not expected to “discover” what you have already heard in lectures or read in textbooks. Instead, the 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.
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Internals of a 741 Op-amp chip, from Ken Shirriff's website.
Lab Schedule
| Week | Dates | Monday/Tuesday Lab | Wednesday/Thursday Lab |
| 1 | March 30 - April 3 |
| |
| 2 | April 6-10 | Experiment 1: DC Circuits | Experiment 2: Capacitors |
| 3 | April 13-17 | Experiment 3: Diode Circuits | Experiment 4: Transistors I |
| 4 | April 20-24 | Experiment 5: Transistors II | Experiment 6: Op-amps I |
| 5 | April 27 - May 1 | Experiment 7: Op-amps II | Experiment 8: Op-amps III |
| 6 | May 4-8 | Experiment 9: Temperature Servo I | Experiment 10: Temperature Servo II |
| 7 | May 11-15 | Experiment 11: Temperature Servo III | Experiment 12: Group Audio I |
| 8 | May 18-22 | Experiment 13: Group Audio II | Experiment 14: Gates |
| 9 | May 25-29 | No lab M / Experiment 15: Flip Flops | Experiment 15: Flip-Flops / Experiment 16: FPGA I |
| 10 | June 1-5 | Experiment 16: FPGA I / Experiment 17: FPGA II | Experiment 17: FPGA II / No lab Th |
Course Resources
General Course Information
- Laboratory Instructions (PHYS 226)
- Lecture website
- Course syllabus
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.
- Fundamental Analog Electronics by Brian Lawless: Previously published textbook, now out of print. Author is hosting it in its entirety on his website.
- Talking Electronics: Expansive hobbyist site, terrible web design. May be good inspiration for starting projects.
- Sparkfun: Tutorials and parts vendor.
- Adafruit: Tutorials and parts vendor.
- Hackaday: Miscellaneous articles with many electronics projects.
- Music From Outer Space: Tutorials specific to making analog synthesizers.
- 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.
Software:
- Falstad Circuit Simulator: Online circuit simulator with good visual interface.
- Micro-cap Circuit Simulator: Free professional grade circuit simulation software for Windows.
- 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.
- Mouser: Similar to Digikey, the other industry standard website.
- 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 printed circuit boards from files, costs ~ 1.70 per square inch.
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.