• Measured in Gauge
• Bigger number = thinner wire

• Two basic Flavors
• Solid
• Stranded
• Several types of packaging
• Bare bus bar hook-up
• For hard-wired prototyping of circuits
• Insulated hook-up
• For connecting components in a circuit
• Paired cable
• For electrical cords, speaker cable, audio cable, etc.
• Twisted pair cable
• For reduced electromagnetic interference
• Electrical 3-wire cable
• For electrical cords, household wiring
• Coaxial cable
• For signal carrying cable, like TV

• Multi-conductor cable
• For connecting components in a circuit

• Ribbon cable
• For connecting components in a circuit

• Cat-5 cable
• For ethernet connections

• Switches open or close a circuit
• Various flavors
• SPST (Single Pole, Single Throw)
• SPDT (Single Pole, Double Throw)
• DPST (Double Pole, Single Throw)
• DPDT (Double Pole, Double Throw)
• Various mechanisms

	DIP Switch		Knife Switch		Push­button
	Rocker Switch (SPST)		6-Position Rotary Switch		Slider Switch (DPDT)
	Tactile (Tact) Switch (SPST)		Toggle Switch (DPDT)		Toggle Switch (SPDT)

Relays are a kind of switch, but use electricity to "flip the switch"

Used to separate different kinds of voltages and currents

A three terminal resistor with a sliding contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. For us, we mostly use it with two terminals of the three, connecting one terminal to the resisting material and another to the sliding contact, creating a "variable resistor"

Trim Potentio­meter

Trim Potentio­meter

Dial Potentio­meter

A capacitor stores electrons. It consists of an insulating, or dielectric, layer between two conductors. When a voltage is applied to one of the conductors, an electric field occurs in the insulator which holds an equal but opposite charge on the other conductor

Ceramic Capacitor

Electro- lytic Capac­itor

Tuning Capacitor

• Measured in farads
• 1 farad stores 6.28 x 10 to the 18th electrons
• Uses
• Combined with resistors for timers
• Handy for smoothing voltages

Diodes limit the direction electricity can move in

General Purpose Rectifier Diode

Zener Diode

Useful for preventing voltages from wandering in the wrong direction, like in a circuit with a motor…

A special kind of diode (which works like a diode and limits the direction electrons can flow) that emits light

Red LED

Two color LED

RGB LED

A transistor is made of a solid piece of a semiconductor material, with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current flowing through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be much larger than the controlling (input) power, the transistor provides amplification of a signal.

The transistor is the fundamental building block of modern electronic devices, and is used in radio, telephone, computer and other electronic systems. Some transistors are packaged individually but most are found in integrated circuits. (wikipedia)

Low voltage

Higher voltage

Another form…

• They come in two polarities
• NPN (P-channel)
• PHP (N-channel)
• For us, they're great for making little switches

Integrated circuits are many components shrunk very small in a single "integrated" package"

8 pin

40 pin

Com­puter CPU

Coils of wire around a piece of metal with an electric current passing through it creates an electromagnetic. An energized coil can pass its energy to another coil in its proximity through the magnetic field. Through this a coil can reduce the current put in one side and out the other (a step-down transformer) or increase it (a step-up transformer). Power Supplies use this to change currents.

High voltage

Microphones

Turns soundwaves into electrical voltages

Speakers

Turns electrical voltages into soundwaves

• Both use a magnet moving through an coil of wire, which generates an electrical current (microphone) or produces motion (speaker)
• A speaker can be turned into a big microphone and a microphone can be turned into a tiny speaker