Understanding Electrical Diagrams and Control Circuits 'You've made my job much easier, helped our electrical department, and lowered the overall machine downtime in our facilities.' - Nick Meheula, Plant Maintenance, Oahu Transit Services: All maintenance personnel must know how to read and write ladder diagrams - it's an essential skill.
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This instructable will show you exactly how to read all those confusing circuit diagrams and then how to assemble the circuits on a breadboard! For all the electronics hobbyist wannabes this is a MUST-READ instructable.
Knowing how to read circuits is a very useful skill that will help you out all the time. Especially if you start messing around with building little electronics projects. In addition to reading this instructable it may be a good idea for you to read my other instructable 'electronics components and what they do' to get a good understanding of what you are doing when building a project. (woops not done with this yet, i got caught up with other stuff, check back in a week or so).
Okay, so now that we've gone through the basics, lets try to read a real world schematic of a circuit. So lets dissect this circuit!.I have numbered each symbol so that we stay on the same page while im describing each part the first symbol you see is the one with two horizontal lines, one smaller than the other.
Do you remember what this is? You can always look back at the guide. Its a battery. In this case a nine volt battery. If you look back at the polarity chapter you will see that the longer line represents the positive terminal of the battery.
Next you can see that there is a line connecting the positive side of the battery to the second part which if you look back at the guide you will find is a switch with two positions: closed (on), and open (off). Seems backwards? Its not because if you think of that little door like thing on the symbol closing than it would complete the circuit, thus being 'on'. So when we flick the switch closed where does the electricity go next? That squiggly line is a resistor. This is a symbol you REALLY want to memorize. They are in almost every circuit.
Basically in just makes sure that the not too much power from the battery is sucked up by the next part by resisting the flow of electricity. So the final part is the triangle thing. That is a diode (as you can see on that handy chart in this ible). In this case a light emitting diode, or LED. Remember LEDs are polarized so when you actually go to make this circuit make sure you put it in right. Finally you can see that the negative side of the LED connects back to the negative battery terminal and the circuit is complete!
A flash light! You can now continue on to building the actual thing! Building this circuit will bring its own challenges. So, if you want to be walked through check out my instructable: 'making circuits: the beauty of breadboards'. It will go through the exact steps of building this flashlight, including where to buy parts for cheapest. But also teach you more important knowledge for building all sorts of circuits.
(i did actually make this one) important note, the schematic will not tell you all you need to know. In most there will be text seperate telling you exactly what parts to buy, you cant just throw in any resistor or any capacitor and whatnot. I have the details for the parts in this project in the next instructable mentioned above. PLEASE RATE AND COMMENT this is my first ible, i need feedback.
Want to know how to easily read electrical schematic drawings for industrial automation control panels? Whether you are reviewing, installing, troubleshooting or just want to learn, understanding schematic drawings helps speed installation time and reduce down time. Complete PLC control panel schematic documentation is one of the indicators of an outstanding control systems integrator. This video guide is an example of how to read our drawings, and is just one of the services we provide for our clients - learn more about Sweeney Controls at www.sweeneycontrols.com.