Guide

So, you've arrived at the Diamond+ Electronics page, so now what??!

These pages were designed as a basic course in Electronics which gives knowledge of some simple concepts of building with Electronics alongside a good range of practical tasks. 

If you follow through the Building and Testing Circuits pages sequentially, they will provide you with the skills needed to build basic and some slightly more advanced circuits.  I have limited the theory so that you can concentrate on building but there is no reason why you can't research the circuits you see here and go into as  much detail as your studies or your personal interests require. This whole section makes an assumption that you are proficient in using Prototype Board (Breadboard) If you are not, please go through the exercises here before you start. 

The practical tasks are not designed to stand alone, many of these circuits can be connected together to form larger and more complex systems. For example, A Monostable 555 circuit can be used to trigger an Astable 555 circuit which can in turn control a Decade Counter. I encourage you to not just build with these circuits but to create with them. 

Over my many years in Electronics Education, I have trained hundreds if not thousands of students whose projects have been built with these fundamental building blocks. This has then led the students to research, design and build more complex systems making them expert Electrical and Electronic Engineers.  

I am asked more and more for project ideas and sessions based not only on Analogue Electronics but on Digital based platforms. Whilst I don't profess to be an expert in this field, I have endeavoured to provide some good examples of circuits and potential projects which can be built with the 'Arduino' system. Please feel free to use the Arduino pages and explore your creativity.  One must however, never forget that the fundamentals of Electronics lie in neatness and accuracy of building and whilst some students find solace in programming, there must always be a piece of Hardware for it to attach to and the pain of fault finding a circuit can be limited if the circuit is neat and easy to follow.

I find it painful when a student hands me a circuit which doesn't work and asks me to check through a spiders web maze of wires (my eyes are rolling now!).  

I hope you enjoy building, creating and learning with Diamond+  Electronics. 

Jon Fullwood