Electronics You Might Not Have Learned In College: Lesson 1 - The Electrical Toolbox

In Electronics You Might Not Have Learned In College: Lesson 1 - The Electrical Toolbox, you'll learn ...

• Wire types, insulation and resistance, current, and voltage specifications
• Wire connection hardware and methods
• Plug connectors for low voltage equipment
• Conduit types and applications

Overview

Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.

Credit: 6 PDH

Length: 90 pages

The “TECHNICIAN’S TOOLBOX” is the beginning lesson of the “ELECTRONICS YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE LEARNED IN COLLEGE” course series. The focus of this lesson is mainly hardware and tools used for low-voltage DC circuits utilized in electronic equipment, such as audio amplifiers and computers, and also higher voltage (over 90 volts) AC hardware used for residential and industrial wiring.

Depending on the specialized branch that engineers eventually choose, there might be instances where they need to “get their hands dirty,” working with the actual hardware that is used to create what they have designed. Due to engineers’ technical nature and curiosity, many are “handymen” who know their way around a hardware store. However, even they might not have picked up enough knowledge to be able to communicate intelligently with Journeymen technicians that are working on their projects. Any Professional Engineer is naturally assumed to know everything about anything related to their area. Sadly, this isn’t always true. The PE will understand many things that the technician doesn’t, but the technician will often know more about his specialized world than the P.E.

This course begins with the basic concepts of voltage, resistance, current, and power because this knowledge is necessary when learning about conductors and electrical hardware. The specifications for even simple wire cannot be understood without knowing the basics of Ohm’s Law.

Once the basic electrical terms are understood, the main body of this lesson provides an overview of many of the tools of the electrical trade that technicians take for granted after years of experience, but are commonly missing in engineering courses, even for Electrical Engineers. This course presents basic technical knowledge that is essential to actually putting electronics to work, such as wire sizes and specifications, wiring tools, connectors, and soldering. It is a technical school for engineers.

Specific Knowledge or Skill Obtained

This course teaches the following specific knowledge and skills:

• Gaining familiarity with the basic concepts of electron and hole migration creating current flow through conductors
• The basic concepts and differences of direct current and alternating current
• The analogy between electricity and flow of water in a pipe
• How to calculate RESISTANCE, VOLTAGE, and CURRENT in simple circuits
• Understanding various types of wire and they are sized using the AWG wire standard along with wire resistance and ampacity
• Different types of insulators and wire insulation
• Single wire and multiconductor cable basics
• Methods of wire identification
• Wire insulation type designations
• Marking and tagging of wires
• Insulated and uninsulated crimp terminals, types, how they are applied, and crimping tools and dies
• Plug connector terminals single and multiple conductor
• Multiple conductor crimp on connectors
• Familiarity with terminal blocks and the methods used to attach wires to them such as screw terminals, barrier terminals, and cage clamp terminals
• DIN rails which are essential to many terminal blocks
• Pluggable terminal types
• Types of metal and plastic conduit

Certificate of Completion

You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 40 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.