Resistors – OppoverBakke

Electronics basics: Ohm's law

This is a post to explain the basics of electronics, starting with Ohm’s law.

Ohm’s law describes the relationship between the voltage, current and resistance in a circuit, and it is one of the basic physical laws that controls how circuits work.

We need to understand this law in order to select the correct resistors to use in our circuits and to control how much current will flow. We also need to know how much power our circuit will draw and how much power each component will dissipate. Too much power and things will heat up too much, burning out.

And yes, this post does contain garden hoses…

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Arduino traffic lights simulator, part 1

This is a great little project for learning about Arduino programming as well as LEDs and resistors.

I’ll show how to build a traffic light simulator on a breadboard and write an Arduino sketch to control it. This first part is about building the circuit, while the second part will focus on the sketch.

And: No soldering required.

Parts

You will need the following parts. I’ve provided links to product description pages, in case you’re not sure what to get.

1 x Arduino compatible. I’m using an Adafruit Pro Trinket 5V.
1 x Solderless breadboard
2 x Red 3mm LEDs
2 x Yellow 3mm LEDs
2 x Green 3mm LEDs
6 x 220Ω resistors, 1/4W axial
8 x Breadboard jumper wires

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