Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host job and Strickland. I'mond executive producer with I Heart Radio and how the tech area. It is time for a classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally published on June two thousand fifteen. It is titled The Basic Components of Electronics. I bet you'll never guess what it's about. Don't be alarmed. I'm going in medias race. This is the middle of the email here or really the end. Lastly, I was hoping in the future to see topics covered like how electronics work, transistors, capascitors, chips, etcetera. I worked at Radio Shack for five years and got really interested in electronic components, but found them pretty confusing. That is perfectly understandable. I still have to look up the various components and remind myself what each one does, because I don't tend to work with electronic circuits that frequently, and I know in general what needs to happen, but sometimes I forget the specifics because there's a lot of stuff there, and if you aren't familiar, if you're not always working in that world, it can very easily slip away from you. And we are talking about lots of different components that you measure using different units, And after a while you just start to you know, if you again, if you're not just naturally inclined to this kind of stuff, you start to pull your hair out. Except in my case that's already been done for me, so I just kind of rubbed my head. So let's start with the basics. And I know this is going to sound incredibly basic, but we have to build a foundation before we can start talking about the components. So electronics are all about leveraging electricity. Not a big surprise, you're you're leveraging electricity in order to do something to accomplis something like a radio is meant to receive and amplify radio signals and and convert them into acoustic signals so that you can actually hear them. That that's a simple example. A flashlight is meant to channel electricity to end up powering a light bulb, which is essentially a resistor. We will talk about those that heats up. We're talking about a basic incandescent light bulb here um and gives off light as a result. That's your basic use of that kind of electronics. So we're gonna talk about how electronics control electricity. These basic components are all used to do that so that you can accomplish whatever the goal of your electronic device is. Now, most electronic devices have lots and lots of different components to them, sometimes worked in various configurations, whether they're in series or in parallel. I'm not going to get into all of that because that's be on what I really wanted to focus on in this episode. Instead, in this episode, I want to talk about the very basic components and what they are intended to do. These are the things that make up the circuits that you would see in physical circuitry. So if you ever have, uh, you know, an old electronic device and you were to take it apart and you saw all these little weird do dads on a circuit board, I'm gonna tell you what those do dads do. Dad. Alright, So first we describe an electronics materials is having electrons that fall into certain energy bands or electronic bands. Now, the two important ones that to talk about are the valence band and the conduction band. Electrons and the conduction band are able to move freely through the material in question. Assuming the conduction band isn't totally full, you can think of it kind of like a think of it like a nightclub. It's a nightclub that's maybe you know, full, so you can still move through it freely. Now that nightclubs packed, you're not going anywhere, so there has to be you know, almost but not quite full for you to be able to move around. That's the conduction band. That's the basics of electrical conductivity. UH. Whereas the valance band is kind of this um this this basic energy level, and there is a gap between the valence band and the conduction band. UH. It is called the band gap. And depending upon the material, that band gap will be of a certain size, and in some cases the gap is insurmountable. You cannot get electrons from the valence band into the conductance band, and you cannot get them to flow, at least not under normal operating circumstances. So in that sense, think of you've got a like a holding room before you can get into the nightclub, and the the doorway going into the nightclub has got a big old bouncer, and that big old bouncers not letting anyone through that's your band gap. You cannot there's no one even collectively, all of you working together, you're not gonna be able to budge that bouncer. That would be as if you were in a non conducting material and I'll get into more of that later. Whereas if you're in a room where there's a wide open door and you're allowed to go through as long as someone else is coming in, that would mean that you could flow through properly. You've got you got electrical electrical conductivity going on there, and I'll talk more about that in a second. I realized this analogy isn't perfect, but I'm just trying to simplify things for those who haven't really taken this kind of class in physics. So a large gap would represent a great deal of energy needed to move electrons from the valence band to the conductance band, and sometimes that gap is so large as to be impossible to cross again under normal operating conditions. So let's look at the basic materials that we talk about in electronics, conductors, insulators, and semiconductors. Pretty simple to understand. Conductors have high electrical conductivity. That means they facilitate the flow of electrons uh. They have a nearly full but not completely full conduction band. Electrons can move freely through this material in response to an electric field applied to that material. So you apply an electrical field to this material, it will then allow electrons to flow through freely. This is the stuff that moves electrons from point A to point B. You apply a voltage across it, you get electrons to flow. That's current, Although technically current flows from positive to negative as opposed to the flow of electrons, which is from negative to positive. We can thank lots of early thinkers for that confusion. So current flow and electron flow are in opposite directions, Thank you, Benjamin Franklin. Uh. Alright, So then you've got insulators. These do not have electrons within the conduction band, or they have a full conduction band, so again no room for electrons to move around, so there are no free electrons. They impede the flow of electrons through that material, and most solids fall into this category. Metals are uh an exception, but most solids are insulators. So at normal operating parameters, you wouldn't be able to apply a strong enough electric field to make them conduct electricity. So you could apply an electric field to these things, but it wouldn't be able to jump that gap between the valence band and the conductance band, so it would just stop. You wouldn't have any electrical flow through that at all. So we use insulators for things like insulation on wires where we wrapped the wires in that to help prevent leakage or interference, because, as we've talked about many times on this show, the flow of electricity is also very closely related to magnetism and vice versa. So you have to be able to limit interference between different wires if you don't want there to be that interaction obviously, otherwise you can end up causing shorts, which is when you have an unintended connection between two different elements of a circuit and it allows electricity to pass from one to the other, almost like you think of it like a short cut, you know, when we say an electrical short and it means that the device itself will not work properly because the electricity is not flowing through the pathway you had intended it to go in. All right, then we've got semiconductors, and we'll talk more about them a little bit later, but in general, semi conductors have an almost empty conduction band and an almost full valence band, and the band gap is relatively narrow, so if you don't apply a strong enough electric field, it acts as an insulator. But when you apply the right amount of energy and electric field, it will allow electrons jump from the valence band to the conductor band and move freely within the material. You do this by doping the material, which is when you insert impurities into the semiconductor on purpose. Doping a semiconductor, which is all about introducing impurities specifically at at predetermined levels, will determine the energy levels required to do this, and that's the basis for solid state electronics. We'll get into more about semiconductors towards the end of this. And we also have to remember voltage and current, something that I always have trouble remembering. So voltage is a lot like water pressure, all right. That's that's the the amount of electrical pressure being applied, and the higher the voltage, the more electrons want to move from the concentration of electrons to the more positive side. Now, the actual flow of electricity is the current, so they are related but not the same thing. So voltage and current, and then you multiply those two de patent together and you get the power. So voltage times current equals power. Alright, So those are your basics. Now we're gonna go through and talk about the very individual components and what they do. So first we have resistors. Resistor does pretty much what it sounds like. It does. It resists but does not halt the flow of electricity. I'm gonna talk a lot about electricity in terms of water because it is a useful analogy, and it's also very common to talk about the similarities between electricity flowing and water flowing when you're discussing these components. So let's say that you have two different pipes. You've got a brand spanking new pipe. It's shiny and beautiful and free from any any irregularities, and it allows water to flow through the minimum of resistance. That water is just flowing right through easily. You've got a second, old, gnarly pipe, and this one's got calcium build up in it. They're all these bumps and stuff on the inside. So water actually encounters resistance friction if you will, as it's flowing through, and it does not flow through as easily. Resistors are like that old gnarly pipe, and they are invented on purpose for specific reasons. So why would you want to have an electronic component that actually slows down or impedes the flow of electricity for some reason. Well, sometimes you have to limit the amount of electricity that can flow through part of a circuit within a given amount of time, sort of like how a faucet going back to water, how fauce it can limit how much water it can flow through your water pipes into your sink. So you wouldn't want just an on off switch for the water coming into your home. That water is at a much higher pressure, know it's it's a higher pressure to deliver the water to your house. And if all you had wasn't on off switch and you flipped it, you would have water blasting through the pipe according to the amount of pressure that was built up behind it. That'd be a little bit nerving, especially if you just wanted to have a nice, frusty glass water. So you want to have some sort of limiter on that to control the amount of water that's or the pressure of the water that's coming in. So resistors reduced the amount of voltage placed on other electronic components within a circuit by restricting the amount of current that can flow through the resistor. The reason why this is important is that we cannot create a battery for every single type of electronic device that's out there. It's not practical. So batteries different batteries. Different types of batteries have different voltages. So you could, in theory, develop a battery specifically for a particular type of electronic device that would not require resistors because the battery is providing exactly the voltage needed for whatever electronic components are in net. But it's not practical to do that for everything. We want standardized batteries, and then we use things like resistors to help control the voltage in those electronic components so that the right amount of voltage is applied to those specific parts of the electronic circuit, rather than having to have a billion different types of batteries. That would not be practical. So there are many different types of resistors designed to work on specific amounts of electrical power. Now, some have changeable resistor values dependent upon the amount of voltage placed across them. They're called nonlinear or voltage dependent resistors. Resistor values can also change when the temperature of the resistor changes UH. Different types of resistors do this. Some can also be mechanically adjusted. So it all depends upon what you need the resistor form. Why what you needed to do, that's what would determine which type of resistor you would use. The unit of measurement for a resistor is the ohm oh h M. Resistor values are ten percent apart from each other, and resistors are color coded with bands of color or or rings of color. So the first ring represents the first digit of the resistors value. So what you would do is you would look at the first ring, whatever color it was, you would cross reference that with the with a color UH index, and we'll tell you what the value of the resistor is for the first digit. The second ring tells you the value of the second digit. So then you've got the two the two digits that are involved. The third tells you the power of ten to multiply by, so it might be ten thousand, and then you would multiply. Let's say that your first two digits are a twenty two and seven, and you would multiply that by ten thousand. You have twenty seven thousand homes. There and the fourth ring would tell you the tolerance of the resistor plus or minus whatever percentage. Uh. So the physical size the resistor and the amount of power it can handle tends to be proportional. So in other words, the larger the resistor, the more power it can handle. In general, So those are resistors covers that basic component. Now let's move on to capacitors. Alright, So capacitors are similar to batteries and that it's a means of storing electrical energy, but unlike batteries, instead of creating an a uh, electrical flow through a chemical reaction that is steady the entire time, it is designed to release a it's it's entire stored electrical charge all at once. So let's say they've got two leads of a capacitor. You have a difference in voltage across us these two leads. That's when a capacitor is charged, So one lead has a greater build up of electrons than the other lead does. Uh. Now, if you were to connect the leads together, you would short them. You would have a discharge of that capacitor, and the voltage would equalize across the two, so you get a release of a quick burst of electricity, so capacitors can pass alternating current freely. A C current will just pass through a capacitor as if it were not really there. Direct current, however, will charge a capacitor. It will have that build up of electrons on one side while the other side doesn't get that build up of electrons, and then you have that difference in voltage. Alternating current just will pass back and forth through it without any problems. So capacitors contain the same fundamental parts. You have at least two conductive plates separated by a non conductive material that's the dielectric. The amount of charge held a capacitor is measured in units called faret's. But a faret is a large amount of capacitance, so large that you don't really talk about a ferret. Instead we end up talking about micro ferrets, which are about a well, which are one million of a ferret, so much smaller. Ferret, by the way, not ferret, two different things. Nice Marmot capacitance is dependent upon surface area, so it's directly proportional to the surface area of those leads, those those capacity plates. Um it is indirectly proportional to the distance between the plates so the greater the distance between the plates, the lower the capacitance. Uh. It's also uh dependent upon the dielectric constant of the insulating material. And they are used for things that need a quick release of electricity rather than a steady flow. So for example, a traditional flash on a camera. So you've got an old camera and you've got the the the flash, Uh, you know it bursts in this quick burst of light. Will It needs that quick It needs access to a quick burst of electricity in order to do that, and that's what capacitors are good for. And it takes some time for the capacitors to build up the charge again so it can do it another time. That's sort of you know, if you're using the old ones, you hear that noise. It's the the discharge and then charging of the capacitors that require you to take a moment between taking pictures with those old style camera flashes. Now, obviously newer ones use different a different approach, but you often have capacitors that actually provide the electricity for those Now, the voltage of a capacitor cannot change instantly, it's important to remember, and quick voltage changes in a capacitor produced large current changes. Capacitor store energy in an electric field. The reason I mentioned all that is because we're now going to talk about inductors, and inductors are kind of, um, the opposite of capacitors, or really maybe not even opposite is the right way of saying it. In many ways that they behave in opposite ways than capacitors do. But we'll get to that. We'll be back with more of this classic episode of tech stuff after this quick break. So basically, an inductor at its most basic level is a coil of wires, so sometimes we just call them coils and not inductors. Uh. They deal with what is the electrical equivalent of momentum. So if you're familiar with momentum, essentially, this is that idea that you get a you know, objects in motion tend to stay in motion. So let's say you've got a large mass moving at a particular velocity. It has a certain amount of momentum and you have to overcome that momentum to slow down and stop that uh, that that mass. So it's the same type of thing with inductors, except we're talking about the electrical equivalent of momentum. We're talking about the flow of electricity. So again going back to the water analogy, Let's say that you've got a water hose, a really long one, several hundred feet long, and you've coiled it up so it's in a nice long coil and it's filled with water. There are gallons of water inside this hose, and the end of the hose is tilted at such an angle so the water is not just flowing right out. You put a plunger into the other end and you start to press on the plunger to push the water out. Now, all of that water is not just going to simultaneously start to move together. It actually is going to take some time for the pressure you are applying to exert enough force to push the water out to overcome the inertia within that coil of water hose. And once you get that water coming out at the speed at which it can come out and you let go of the plunger, the plunger is going to continue going down that tube because of inertia. That's the same sort of thing with inductors, except instead of water, we're talking about electricity. So coils of wire will pass D C current but will block a C current. So in other words, direct current can flow through an inductor, but alternating current would be blocked because it cannot flow the opposite way through the coil. So that makes it the opposite of capacitors. Remember, capacitors would pass alternating current that can flow straight through, but would block direct current. Direct current would charge a capacitor a capacitor, but could not just flow through the capacitor. In this case, direct current can flow through an inductor, but a c altering current would be blocked. The standard unit of inductance is the henry. I wish I could tell you why, but I honestly don't know. I'm sure some of you out there, you electricians, are very familiar with the reason why and could tell me and feel free to I I honestly do not off hand. No, the inductance of a coil is indirectly proportional to the length of the coil, but directly proportional to the cross sectional area of the wire, So, in other words, the gauge of the wire is important here. It's also proportional to the square of the number of turns in the coil, and it's directly proportional to the permeability of the core material. Now, the core is whatever this coil is wrapped around. Now it could be wrapped around air, or it could be wrapped around something like iron, which is incredibly effective. So those are that's what we're talking about with the cords, whatever the wire or is coiled around. So when current first starts flowing into the coil, the coil wants to build up a magnetic field. We talked about this again and again that you start running electricity through a coil of wire that's coiled around like an iron core, like a nail, and you start to you create an electro magnet. Well, once that field is built. While while the magnetic field is building, the coil inhibits the flow of current through the wire, But once the field is built, current can flow normally through the wire. So if you were to have an inductor hooked up to a light bulb, let's say and you flip a switch so that you know, technically in an electronics we'd say that you close the switch, so you have created a closed path so electrons can flow through. The electrons would flow through the inductor, which would start to build up a magnetic field. So at first you would get the light bulb coming on. Then it would start to dim a bit because as that magnetic field is getting built up the lightbulb, you know, the electricity would be it did to the light bulb, it would actually act as sort of a resistor, and the light bul would start to get dimmer. But then eventually that that magnetic field would get charged up as much as it can because it's direct current, not alternating current, and you would reach a level where it was stabilized. Current would flow fine. At that point, you could actually turn off the switch, you can open it. In other words, the magnetic field around the coil would keep current flowing through the coil until that magnetic field collapsed. So even though you turn the switch to off, because you have an inductor, that light bulb would stay lit until the magnetic field and the inductor collapsed, in which case it would stop inducing current to flow through and the light bulb would go off. So the experience you would have is turn the switch on, light bulb comes on, light bulb starts to get dim, light bulb gets bright again, You turn the switch off, light bulb stays lit for a while, and then turns off. That's what it would look like to you, So pretty interesting to me now. So, an inductor stores energy in its magnetic field, and it tends to resist any change in the amount of current flowing through it, thus making it different from capacitors. Because capacitors store things an electric field, inductor store things energy, not just things. Capacitor store energy and electric fields, and inductor store energy and magnetic fields. And capacitors resist changes to voltage, whereas inductors resist changes to current. So really interesting about that. We've got more to say in this classic episode of tech stuff after these quick messages. So because of this relationship between inductors and capacitors, these two different components are sometimes referred together as duel components because they they are opposites that complement one another. The current in an inductor cannot change instantly the quick current changes produced the large voltage, and inductors store their energy in those magnetic fields. That's what sets them opposite of capacitors, because they are all the opposite of those things. And you might wonder, well, what are inductors used for. I mean, that light bulb example seems kind of crazy. Well, they're used for lots of stuff. For example, if you've ever gone to uh, like traffic lights, that are the respond to the presence of vehicles. Most of those are using inductors. So underneath the pavement where you're driving on top of you know, there are giant coils of wire, and when you stop your car at a stoplight that has one of these systems, your car starts to act as the core for that inductor loop. You've got this massive amount of steel that's right there that affects the inductance of the that cable. You of a meter attached to the cable that measures the inductance. So when it measures a change in inductance, that meter knows there's a vehicle at that location and sends that information to the control unit for the traffic system and thus changes the traffic cycle so that you get a green light faster. So if you're ever at one of those intersections where the the light cycles depend heavily upon whether or not their cars present at the intersection, that's generally speaking, what is happening. You've got these inductors. The inductance changes, sends the message to the meter, or rather the meter detects the inductor the change in inductance and then sends that onto the traffic control system. That will then, at least in theory, gets you on your way a little faster. So that's inductors. Now let's take a look at transformers, which are more than meets the eye. So I'm not talking about autobots in Decepticon, as much as I would love to do that, instead of talking about the basic electronic component. So let's say you've got a single core, like like that iron nail. Let's say and you put multiple coils of wire over this same iron core, and then you force a DC current through one of those coils of wire, not all of them, just one. Now, as that current charges, it will induce current to flow through the other coils wrapped around that same core, and constantly changing the voltage of that primary coil. The one that you've got attached to some sort of voltage generator, will cause currents that change in a similar fashion in the other coils. Now, if the other coils have more loops than the primary coil, the voltage will be greater, but the current will be lower. I'll explain that in a second. So let's say we've got we'll make it really simple. We'll just do two coils. Let say we've got an iron core and we've got a primary wire coiled a fund it ten times, and we have a second wire coiled in the same direction around that iron core, but it is coiled twenty times, and we apply a varying voltage across the primary wire. The voltage across the second wire will be twice as much because there are twice as many coils, but the current will be half as much as that in the primary coil. And that's because you have to conserve power. You cannot create or destroy power. You have to conserve it. And power, like I said earlier, is equal to voltage times current. So if we double the voltage, but ultimately the power in the secondary coil has to be the same as the primary coil, and the only way to address that is to have the current. So that's you know, that's what happens. So if the second coil is coiled in the same direction as the primary, like I was saying before, the voltage is in the same polarity as that of the generator the primary coil. If second coil is coiled in the opposite direction of the primary coil, then the voltage is in the opposite polarity from the primary coil. Polarity is really important, but also pretty complicated, So I'll probably spend another episode to explain that concept because it's really a bit much to go into right now. But anyway, this is the basics for power transmission using alternating current. It's the reason why we have alternating current distributing our power instead of direct current. So then that old Tesla versus Edison argument, really i should say Westinghouse versus Edison argument, where Edison was saying direct current was best and westing Us was saying no alternating current was best. The things that let alternating current win out over direct current where that using transformers you could boost the voltage to huge high voltage numbers, which were great for power transmission. You could transmit over vast distances using high voltage wires, and then you would use other transformers on the opposite end to step down the voltage until you reach the level that was safe for homes, which in the United States is two forty volts. Uh. Now, keep in mind that when you're talking about transmission voltages, it could be anywhere between a hundred fifty five thousand to seven d sixty thousand volts, So we're talking huge differences here, and it's all because you can use this basic element of electronics with these transformers to step up or step down the voltage simply by using different coils along a core. So that was incredibly useful. You could end up transmitting power over great distances. Direct current, however, is very different. It is most efficient if it is close to whatever the load is on the line. So the load is whatever the electricity is meant to power. So in the case of homes, you would want the power plant to be relatively close to the homes that are receiving electricity. If you were using direct current, um this is you know, it would be incredibly useful to have direct current powering our homes because most of the stuff we have relies on direct current. It actually has to convert the alternating current that comes to the house into direct current. You have these converters that are part of the electronics that allow it to do that. If you had direct current being uh supplied directly to your house, you wouldn't need the conversion part of those devices. However, you wouldn't be able to transmit it over great distances like you can with alternating current. So in case you're wondering about the power grids in the United States. We I mentioned that you have those those high voltage lines that are carrying between a d to center sixty volts. When you get to distribution levels, you step down that voltage to less than ten thousand volts typically, and then you get to distribution busses that have transformers that reduce it further to seven thousand, two hundred volts or less. And then you have the homes that are connected to a final transformer that step it down again to the voltage of volts or so. So incredibly useful and here at how stuff works. Recently, as of the recording of this podcast, we had a lovely transformer fire right next to the building we work in, which cut power to our part of the building for some time. So if you've ever been near a transformer when it's blown, it's a pretty spectacular thing. It's usually lots of sparks and a really loud bang and often requires the work of dedicated personnel to repair. And it does also typically mean that you have a loss of power for at least a localized area. Pretty impressive when it happens. Luckily, it doesn't happen all that frequently the electrical storms and areas of or times of great use can make the more vulnerable. Now let's move on to semiconductors and how they are used in electronics. So we've got lots of different uses for semiconductors. I'm going to talk about two specific ones. There are diodes. Diodes are really useful. They allow current to flow in only one direction, so it's like a one way channel or a valve. So electricity flowing one way is fine, but it cannot flow back the other way, and semiconductor doping allows for this to happen. Remember I mentioned earlier. Doping is when you have introduced impurities into the semiconductor material to give its specific UH features. So there are two different types that we're going to talk about. There's IN type layers of semiconductors, so you can think of that as an excess of electrons. It has lots of negative electrons that are just ready to flow out of there. And then you have of P type layers, and these have electron holes or at least you know, in other words, of the capacity to take on electrons. So if you pair this together, you get what's called a P N diode, which all only allows electricity to flow in one direction. It can the electrons can come through UH and flow to the holes, but they can't go the other way, so very useful and electronic components where you need to direct the flow of electricity along a particular path and prevent it from coming back through that pathway. Transistors are another type of semiconductor that use a small amount of current to control a large amount of current. So while a diode is p n, transistors are either P n P or N p n, and if you apply an electrical current to the center layer, which is also known as the base, electrons will move from the N type side to the P type side, and that initial small current allows for much larger current to flow through the material at that point. So transistors act as switches or amplifiers. Incredibly useful. So when we talk about transistors in solid state electronics, these are the things that allow us to build logic circuits. And it's because we can allow electrons to either flow or prevent them from flowing. It's also why things like electron tunneling can be such a problem. Electron tunneling is a quantum effect, so you can think of an electron as not really existing in a specific point in space at any given time, but rather having the potential to exist in an area of space at any point in time. So think of it like a cloud where an electron could be, and that cloud covers all the potential places the electron could be, and there's different probability for different parts of the cloud. If your transistor gates are so small, so narrow, so thin, I guess I should say not narrow, that the cloud of potential can overlap the transistor gate. That means there is the possibility that at some point the electron could exist on the other side of the transistor gate, even if the gate never opened. And if there's a possibility, that means sometimes it does appear on the other side of the gate. We call it electron tunneling. It's not really tunneling. It's just if there is the possibility they could be on the other side, sometimes it is on the other side, which means that you cannot actually control the flow of electrons. In that case, it would mean that your transistors would be ineffective in doing what they're supposed to do. They wouldn't really be able to act to switches reliably and you would get errors in your computations. I might work most of the time and then only some of the time not work, but even then that's problematic, which is one of the engineering challenges that transistor designers and multi around their microprocessor designers encounter all the time, you know. Finding new materials that are better at acting as transistors switches it's a big part of it. And coming up with different architectures to really take advantage of electron flow is another big part of it, all right. So those are the basics the basic electronic components that you can talk about with, you know, if you're looking at it from a very high level. Obviously there's tons of other stuff that I didn't get into, and some of it just requires you to pair up or otherwise put into series or parallels some of the components I've mentioned to to get whatever effects you want. I hope you enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff as we covered the basic components of electronics. It's probably something I'll end up covering again in various Tech Stuff tidbits episodes where I really focus on specific components and their place in electronics and their purpose. Because us you can always do a better job, right. I mean, I'm always proud of the work I do, but I also recognize when I could do it even better, and I think it's about time I try and do that. If you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, reach out to me on Twitter to handle for the show is tech Stuff hs W, and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host job and Strickland. I'mond executive producer with I Heart Radio and how the tech area. It is time for a classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally published on June two thousand fifteen. It is titled The Basic Components of Electronics. I bet you'll never guess what it's about. Don't be alarmed. I'm going in medias race. This is the middle of the email here or really the end. Lastly, I was hoping in the future to see topics covered like how electronics work, transistors, capascitors, chips, etcetera. I worked at Radio Shack for five years and got really interested in electronic components, but found them pretty confusing. That is perfectly understandable. I still have to look up the various components and remind myself what each one does, because I don't tend to work with electronic circuits that frequently, and I know in general what needs to happen, but sometimes I forget the specifics because there's a lot of stuff there, and if you aren't familiar, if you're not always working in that world, it can very easily slip away from you. And we are talking about lots of different components that you measure using different units, And after a while you just start to you know, if you again, if you're not just naturally inclined to this kind of stuff, you start to pull your hair out. Except in my case that's already been done for me, so I just kind of rubbed my head. So let's start with the basics. And I know this is going to sound incredibly basic, but we have to build a foundation before we can start talking about the components. So electronics are all about leveraging electricity. Not a big surprise, you're you're leveraging electricity in order to do something to accomplis something like a radio is meant to receive and amplify radio signals and and convert them into acoustic signals so that you can actually hear them. That that's a simple example. A flashlight is meant to channel electricity to end up powering a light bulb, which is essentially a resistor. We will talk about those that heats up. We're talking about a basic incandescent light bulb here um and gives off light as a result. That's your basic use of that kind of electronics. So we're gonna talk about how electronics control electricity. These basic components are all used to do that so that you can accomplish whatever the goal of your electronic device is. Now, most electronic devices have lots and lots of different components to them, sometimes worked in various configurations, whether they're in series or in parallel. I'm not going to get into all of that because that's be on what I really wanted to focus on in this episode. Instead, in this episode, I want to talk about the very basic components and what they are intended to do. These are the things that make up the circuits that you would see in physical circuitry. So if you ever have, uh, you know, an old electronic device and you were to take it apart and you saw all these little weird do dads on a circuit board, I'm gonna tell you what those do dads do. Dad. Alright, So first we describe an electronics materials is having electrons that fall into certain energy bands or electronic bands. Now, the two important ones that to talk about are the valence band and the conduction band. Electrons and the conduction band are able to move freely through the material in question. Assuming the conduction band isn't totally full, you can think of it kind of like a think of it like a nightclub. It's a nightclub that's maybe you know, full, so you can still move through it freely. Now that nightclubs packed, you're not going anywhere, so there has to be you know, almost but not quite full for you to be able to move around. That's the conduction band. That's the basics of electrical conductivity. UH. Whereas the valance band is kind of this um this this basic energy level, and there is a gap between the valence band and the conduction band. UH. It is called the band gap. And depending upon the material, that band gap will be of a certain size, and in some cases the gap is insurmountable. You cannot get electrons from the valence band into the conductance band, and you cannot get them to flow, at least not under normal operating circumstances. So in that sense, think of you've got a like a holding room before you can get into the nightclub, and the the doorway going into the nightclub has got a big old bouncer, and that big old bouncers not letting anyone through that's your band gap. You cannot there's no one even collectively, all of you working together, you're not gonna be able to budge that bouncer. That would be as if you were in a non conducting material and I'll get into more of that later. Whereas if you're in a room where there's a wide open door and you're allowed to go through as long as someone else is coming in, that would mean that you could flow through properly. You've got you got electrical electrical conductivity going on there, and I'll talk more about that in a second. I realized this analogy isn't perfect, but I'm just trying to simplify things for those who haven't really taken this kind of class in physics. So a large gap would represent a great deal of energy needed to move electrons from the valence band to the conductance band, and sometimes that gap is so large as to be impossible to cross again under normal operating conditions. So let's look at the basic materials that we talk about in electronics, conductors, insulators, and semiconductors. Pretty simple to understand. Conductors have high electrical conductivity. That means they facilitate the flow of electrons uh. They have a nearly full but not completely full conduction band. Electrons can move freely through this material in response to an electric field applied to that material. So you apply an electrical field to this material, it will then allow electrons to flow through freely. This is the stuff that moves electrons from point A to point B. You apply a voltage across it, you get electrons to flow. That's current, Although technically current flows from positive to negative as opposed to the flow of electrons, which is from negative to positive. We can thank lots of early thinkers for that confusion. So current flow and electron flow are in opposite directions, Thank you, Benjamin Franklin. Uh. Alright, So then you've got insulators. These do not have electrons within the conduction band, or they have a full conduction band, so again no room for electrons to move around, so there are no free electrons. They impede the flow of electrons through that material, and most solids fall into this category. Metals are uh an exception, but most solids are insulators. So at normal operating parameters, you wouldn't be able to apply a strong enough electric field to make them conduct electricity. So you could apply an electric field to these things, but it wouldn't be able to jump that gap between the valence band and the conductance band, so it would just stop. You wouldn't have any electrical flow through that at all. So we use insulators for things like insulation on wires where we wrapped the wires in that to help prevent leakage or interference, because, as we've talked about many times on this show, the flow of electricity is also very closely related to magnetism and vice versa. So you have to be able to limit interference between different wires if you don't want there to be that interaction obviously, otherwise you can end up causing shorts, which is when you have an unintended connection between two different elements of a circuit and it allows electricity to pass from one to the other, almost like you think of it like a short cut, you know, when we say an electrical short and it means that the device itself will not work properly because the electricity is not flowing through the pathway you had intended it to go in. All right, then we've got semiconductors, and we'll talk more about them a little bit later, but in general, semi conductors have an almost empty conduction band and an almost full valence band, and the band gap is relatively narrow, so if you don't apply a strong enough electric field, it acts as an insulator. But when you apply the right amount of energy and electric field, it will allow electrons jump from the valence band to the conductor band and move freely within the material. You do this by doping the material, which is when you insert impurities into the semiconductor on purpose. Doping a semiconductor, which is all about introducing impurities specifically at at predetermined levels, will determine the energy levels required to do this, and that's the basis for solid state electronics. We'll get into more about semiconductors towards the end of this. And we also have to remember voltage and current, something that I always have trouble remembering. So voltage is a lot like water pressure, all right. That's that's the the amount of electrical pressure being applied, and the higher the voltage, the more electrons want to move from the concentration of electrons to the more positive side. Now, the actual flow of electricity is the current, so they are related but not the same thing. So voltage and current, and then you multiply those two de patent together and you get the power. So voltage times current equals power. Alright, So those are your basics. Now we're gonna go through and talk about the very individual components and what they do. So first we have resistors. Resistor does pretty much what it sounds like. It does. It resists but does not halt the flow of electricity. I'm gonna talk a lot about electricity in terms of water because it is a useful analogy, and it's also very common to talk about the similarities between electricity flowing and water flowing when you're discussing these components. So let's say that you have two different pipes. You've got a brand spanking new pipe. It's shiny and beautiful and free from any any irregularities, and it allows water to flow through the minimum of resistance. That water is just flowing right through easily. You've got a second, old, gnarly pipe, and this one's got calcium build up in it. They're all these bumps and stuff on the inside. So water actually encounters resistance friction if you will, as it's flowing through, and it does not flow through as easily. Resistors are like that old gnarly pipe, and they are invented on purpose for specific reasons. So why would you want to have an electronic component that actually slows down or impedes the flow of electricity for some reason. Well, sometimes you have to limit the amount of electricity that can flow through part of a circuit within a given amount of time, sort of like how a faucet going back to water, how fauce it can limit how much water it can flow through your water pipes into your sink. So you wouldn't want just an on off switch for the water coming into your home. That water is at a much higher pressure, know it's it's a higher pressure to deliver the water to your house. And if all you had wasn't on off switch and you flipped it, you would have water blasting through the pipe according to the amount of pressure that was built up behind it. That'd be a little bit nerving, especially if you just wanted to have a nice, frusty glass water. So you want to have some sort of limiter on that to control the amount of water that's or the pressure of the water that's coming in. So resistors reduced the amount of voltage placed on other electronic components within a circuit by restricting the amount of current that can flow through the resistor. The reason why this is important is that we cannot create a battery for every single type of electronic device that's out there. It's not practical. So batteries different batteries. Different types of batteries have different voltages. So you could, in theory, develop a battery specifically for a particular type of electronic device that would not require resistors because the battery is providing exactly the voltage needed for whatever electronic components are in net. But it's not practical to do that for everything. We want standardized batteries, and then we use things like resistors to help control the voltage in those electronic components so that the right amount of voltage is applied to those specific parts of the electronic circuit, rather than having to have a billion different types of batteries. That would not be practical. So there are many different types of resistors designed to work on specific amounts of electrical power. Now, some have changeable resistor values dependent upon the amount of voltage placed across them. They're called nonlinear or voltage dependent resistors. Resistor values can also change when the temperature of the resistor changes UH. Different types of resistors do this. Some can also be mechanically adjusted. So it all depends upon what you need the resistor form. Why what you needed to do, that's what would determine which type of resistor you would use. The unit of measurement for a resistor is the ohm oh h M. Resistor values are ten percent apart from each other, and resistors are color coded with bands of color or or rings of color. So the first ring represents the first digit of the resistors value. So what you would do is you would look at the first ring, whatever color it was, you would cross reference that with the with a color UH index, and we'll tell you what the value of the resistor is for the first digit. The second ring tells you the value of the second digit. So then you've got the two the two digits that are involved. The third tells you the power of ten to multiply by, so it might be ten thousand, and then you would multiply. Let's say that your first two digits are a twenty two and seven, and you would multiply that by ten thousand. You have twenty seven thousand homes. There and the fourth ring would tell you the tolerance of the resistor plus or minus whatever percentage. Uh. So the physical size the resistor and the amount of power it can handle tends to be proportional. So in other words, the larger the resistor, the more power it can handle. In general, So those are resistors covers that basic component. Now let's move on to capacitors. Alright, So capacitors are similar to batteries and that it's a means of storing electrical energy, but unlike batteries, instead of creating an a uh, electrical flow through a chemical reaction that is steady the entire time, it is designed to release a it's it's entire stored electrical charge all at once. So let's say they've got two leads of a capacitor. You have a difference in voltage across us these two leads. That's when a capacitor is charged, So one lead has a greater build up of electrons than the other lead does. Uh. Now, if you were to connect the leads together, you would short them. You would have a discharge of that capacitor, and the voltage would equalize across the two, so you get a release of a quick burst of electricity, so capacitors can pass alternating current freely. A C current will just pass through a capacitor as if it were not really there. Direct current, however, will charge a capacitor. It will have that build up of electrons on one side while the other side doesn't get that build up of electrons, and then you have that difference in voltage. Alternating current just will pass back and forth through it without any problems. So capacitors contain the same fundamental parts. You have at least two conductive plates separated by a non conductive material that's the dielectric. The amount of charge held a capacitor is measured in units called faret's. But a faret is a large amount of capacitance, so large that you don't really talk about a ferret. Instead we end up talking about micro ferrets, which are about a well, which are one million of a ferret, so much smaller. Ferret, by the way, not ferret, two different things. Nice Marmot capacitance is dependent upon surface area, so it's directly proportional to the surface area of those leads, those those capacity plates. Um it is indirectly proportional to the distance between the plates so the greater the distance between the plates, the lower the capacitance. Uh. It's also uh dependent upon the dielectric constant of the insulating material. And they are used for things that need a quick release of electricity rather than a steady flow. So for example, a traditional flash on a camera. So you've got an old camera and you've got the the the flash, Uh, you know it bursts in this quick burst of light. Will It needs that quick It needs access to a quick burst of electricity in order to do that, and that's what capacitors are good for. And it takes some time for the capacitors to build up the charge again so it can do it another time. That's sort of you know, if you're using the old ones, you hear that noise. It's the the discharge and then charging of the capacitors that require you to take a moment between taking pictures with those old style camera flashes. Now, obviously newer ones use different a different approach, but you often have capacitors that actually provide the electricity for those Now, the voltage of a capacitor cannot change instantly, it's important to remember, and quick voltage changes in a capacitor produced large current changes. Capacitor store energy in an electric field. The reason I mentioned all that is because we're now going to talk about inductors, and inductors are kind of, um, the opposite of capacitors, or really maybe not even opposite is the right way of saying it. In many ways that they behave in opposite ways than capacitors do. But we'll get to that. We'll be back with more of this classic episode of tech stuff after this quick break. So basically, an inductor at its most basic level is a coil of wires, so sometimes we just call them coils and not inductors. Uh. They deal with what is the electrical equivalent of momentum. So if you're familiar with momentum, essentially, this is that idea that you get a you know, objects in motion tend to stay in motion. So let's say you've got a large mass moving at a particular velocity. It has a certain amount of momentum and you have to overcome that momentum to slow down and stop that uh, that that mass. So it's the same type of thing with inductors, except we're talking about the electrical equivalent of momentum. We're talking about the flow of electricity. So again going back to the water analogy, Let's say that you've got a water hose, a really long one, several hundred feet long, and you've coiled it up so it's in a nice long coil and it's filled with water. There are gallons of water inside this hose, and the end of the hose is tilted at such an angle so the water is not just flowing right out. You put a plunger into the other end and you start to press on the plunger to push the water out. Now, all of that water is not just going to simultaneously start to move together. It actually is going to take some time for the pressure you are applying to exert enough force to push the water out to overcome the inertia within that coil of water hose. And once you get that water coming out at the speed at which it can come out and you let go of the plunger, the plunger is going to continue going down that tube because of inertia. That's the same sort of thing with inductors, except instead of water, we're talking about electricity. So coils of wire will pass D C current but will block a C current. So in other words, direct current can flow through an inductor, but alternating current would be blocked because it cannot flow the opposite way through the coil. So that makes it the opposite of capacitors. Remember, capacitors would pass alternating current that can flow straight through, but would block direct current. Direct current would charge a capacitor a capacitor, but could not just flow through the capacitor. In this case, direct current can flow through an inductor, but a c altering current would be blocked. The standard unit of inductance is the henry. I wish I could tell you why, but I honestly don't know. I'm sure some of you out there, you electricians, are very familiar with the reason why and could tell me and feel free to I I honestly do not off hand. No, the inductance of a coil is indirectly proportional to the length of the coil, but directly proportional to the cross sectional area of the wire, So, in other words, the gauge of the wire is important here. It's also proportional to the square of the number of turns in the coil, and it's directly proportional to the permeability of the core material. Now, the core is whatever this coil is wrapped around. Now it could be wrapped around air, or it could be wrapped around something like iron, which is incredibly effective. So those are that's what we're talking about with the cords, whatever the wire or is coiled around. So when current first starts flowing into the coil, the coil wants to build up a magnetic field. We talked about this again and again that you start running electricity through a coil of wire that's coiled around like an iron core, like a nail, and you start to you create an electro magnet. Well, once that field is built. While while the magnetic field is building, the coil inhibits the flow of current through the wire, But once the field is built, current can flow normally through the wire. So if you were to have an inductor hooked up to a light bulb, let's say and you flip a switch so that you know, technically in an electronics we'd say that you close the switch, so you have created a closed path so electrons can flow through. The electrons would flow through the inductor, which would start to build up a magnetic field. So at first you would get the light bulb coming on. Then it would start to dim a bit because as that magnetic field is getting built up the lightbulb, you know, the electricity would be it did to the light bulb, it would actually act as sort of a resistor, and the light bul would start to get dimmer. But then eventually that that magnetic field would get charged up as much as it can because it's direct current, not alternating current, and you would reach a level where it was stabilized. Current would flow fine. At that point, you could actually turn off the switch, you can open it. In other words, the magnetic field around the coil would keep current flowing through the coil until that magnetic field collapsed. So even though you turn the switch to off, because you have an inductor, that light bulb would stay lit until the magnetic field and the inductor collapsed, in which case it would stop inducing current to flow through and the light bulb would go off. So the experience you would have is turn the switch on, light bulb comes on, light bulb starts to get dim, light bulb gets bright again, You turn the switch off, light bulb stays lit for a while, and then turns off. That's what it would look like to you, So pretty interesting to me now. So, an inductor stores energy in its magnetic field, and it tends to resist any change in the amount of current flowing through it, thus making it different from capacitors. Because capacitors store things an electric field, inductor store things energy, not just things. Capacitor store energy and electric fields, and inductor store energy and magnetic fields. And capacitors resist changes to voltage, whereas inductors resist changes to current. So really interesting about that. We've got more to say in this classic episode of tech stuff after these quick messages. So because of this relationship between inductors and capacitors, these two different components are sometimes referred together as duel components because they they are opposites that complement one another. The current in an inductor cannot change instantly the quick current changes produced the large voltage, and inductors store their energy in those magnetic fields. That's what sets them opposite of capacitors, because they are all the opposite of those things. And you might wonder, well, what are inductors used for. I mean, that light bulb example seems kind of crazy. Well, they're used for lots of stuff. For example, if you've ever gone to uh, like traffic lights, that are the respond to the presence of vehicles. Most of those are using inductors. So underneath the pavement where you're driving on top of you know, there are giant coils of wire, and when you stop your car at a stoplight that has one of these systems, your car starts to act as the core for that inductor loop. You've got this massive amount of steel that's right there that affects the inductance of the that cable. You of a meter attached to the cable that measures the inductance. So when it measures a change in inductance, that meter knows there's a vehicle at that location and sends that information to the control unit for the traffic system and thus changes the traffic cycle so that you get a green light faster. So if you're ever at one of those intersections where the the light cycles depend heavily upon whether or not their cars present at the intersection, that's generally speaking, what is happening. You've got these inductors. The inductance changes, sends the message to the meter, or rather the meter detects the inductor the change in inductance and then sends that onto the traffic control system. That will then, at least in theory, gets you on your way a little faster. So that's inductors. Now let's take a look at transformers, which are more than meets the eye. So I'm not talking about autobots in Decepticon, as much as I would love to do that, instead of talking about the basic electronic component. So let's say you've got a single core, like like that iron nail. Let's say and you put multiple coils of wire over this same iron core, and then you force a DC current through one of those coils of wire, not all of them, just one. Now, as that current charges, it will induce current to flow through the other coils wrapped around that same core, and constantly changing the voltage of that primary coil. The one that you've got attached to some sort of voltage generator, will cause currents that change in a similar fashion in the other coils. Now, if the other coils have more loops than the primary coil, the voltage will be greater, but the current will be lower. I'll explain that in a second. So let's say we've got we'll make it really simple. We'll just do two coils. Let say we've got an iron core and we've got a primary wire coiled a fund it ten times, and we have a second wire coiled in the same direction around that iron core, but it is coiled twenty times, and we apply a varying voltage across the primary wire. The voltage across the second wire will be twice as much because there are twice as many coils, but the current will be half as much as that in the primary coil. And that's because you have to conserve power. You cannot create or destroy power. You have to conserve it. And power, like I said earlier, is equal to voltage times current. So if we double the voltage, but ultimately the power in the secondary coil has to be the same as the primary coil, and the only way to address that is to have the current. So that's you know, that's what happens. So if the second coil is coiled in the same direction as the primary, like I was saying before, the voltage is in the same polarity as that of the generator the primary coil. If second coil is coiled in the opposite direction of the primary coil, then the voltage is in the opposite polarity from the primary coil. Polarity is really important, but also pretty complicated, So I'll probably spend another episode to explain that concept because it's really a bit much to go into right now. But anyway, this is the basics for power transmission using alternating current. It's the reason why we have alternating current distributing our power instead of direct current. So then that old Tesla versus Edison argument, really i should say Westinghouse versus Edison argument, where Edison was saying direct current was best and westing Us was saying no alternating current was best. The things that let alternating current win out over direct current where that using transformers you could boost the voltage to huge high voltage numbers, which were great for power transmission. You could transmit over vast distances using high voltage wires, and then you would use other transformers on the opposite end to step down the voltage until you reach the level that was safe for homes, which in the United States is two forty volts. Uh. Now, keep in mind that when you're talking about transmission voltages, it could be anywhere between a hundred fifty five thousand to seven d sixty thousand volts, So we're talking huge differences here, and it's all because you can use this basic element of electronics with these transformers to step up or step down the voltage simply by using different coils along a core. So that was incredibly useful. You could end up transmitting power over great distances. Direct current, however, is very different. It is most efficient if it is close to whatever the load is on the line. So the load is whatever the electricity is meant to power. So in the case of homes, you would want the power plant to be relatively close to the homes that are receiving electricity. If you were using direct current, um this is you know, it would be incredibly useful to have direct current powering our homes because most of the stuff we have relies on direct current. It actually has to convert the alternating current that comes to the house into direct current. You have these converters that are part of the electronics that allow it to do that. If you had direct current being uh supplied directly to your house, you wouldn't need the conversion part of those devices. However, you wouldn't be able to transmit it over great distances like you can with alternating current. So in case you're wondering about the power grids in the United States. We I mentioned that you have those those high voltage lines that are carrying between a d to center sixty volts. When you get to distribution levels, you step down that voltage to less than ten thousand volts typically, and then you get to distribution busses that have transformers that reduce it further to seven thousand, two hundred volts or less. And then you have the homes that are connected to a final transformer that step it down again to the voltage of volts or so. So incredibly useful and here at how stuff works. Recently, as of the recording of this podcast, we had a lovely transformer fire right next to the building we work in, which cut power to our part of the building for some time. So if you've ever been near a transformer when it's blown, it's a pretty spectacular thing. It's usually lots of sparks and a really loud bang and often requires the work of dedicated personnel to repair. And it does also typically mean that you have a loss of power for at least a localized area. Pretty impressive when it happens. Luckily, it doesn't happen all that frequently the electrical storms and areas of or times of great use can make the more vulnerable. Now let's move on to semiconductors and how they are used in electronics. So we've got lots of different uses for semiconductors. I'm going to talk about two specific ones. There are diodes. Diodes are really useful. They allow current to flow in only one direction, so it's like a one way channel or a valve. So electricity flowing one way is fine, but it cannot flow back the other way, and semiconductor doping allows for this to happen. Remember I mentioned earlier. Doping is when you have introduced impurities into the semiconductor material to give its specific UH features. So there are two different types that we're going to talk about. There's IN type layers of semiconductors, so you can think of that as an excess of electrons. It has lots of negative electrons that are just ready to flow out of there. And then you have of P type layers, and these have electron holes or at least you know, in other words, of the capacity to take on electrons. So if you pair this together, you get what's called a P N diode, which all only allows electricity to flow in one direction. It can the electrons can come through UH and flow to the holes, but they can't go the other way, so very useful and electronic components where you need to direct the flow of electricity along a particular path and prevent it from coming back through that pathway. Transistors are another type of semiconductor that use a small amount of current to control a large amount of current. So while a diode is p n, transistors are either P n P or N p n, and if you apply an electrical current to the center layer, which is also known as the base, electrons will move from the N type side to the P type side, and that initial small current allows for much larger current to flow through the material at that point. So transistors act as switches or amplifiers. Incredibly useful. So when we talk about transistors in solid state electronics, these are the things that allow us to build logic circuits. And it's because we can allow electrons to either flow or prevent them from flowing. It's also why things like electron tunneling can be such a problem. Electron tunneling is a quantum effect, so you can think of an electron as not really existing in a specific point in space at any given time, but rather having the potential to exist in an area of space at any point in time. So think of it like a cloud where an electron could be, and that cloud covers all the potential places the electron could be, and there's different probability for different parts of the cloud. If your transistor gates are so small, so narrow, so thin, I guess I should say not narrow, that the cloud of potential can overlap the transistor gate. That means there is the possibility that at some point the electron could exist on the other side of the transistor gate, even if the gate never opened. And if there's a possibility, that means sometimes it does appear on the other side of the gate. We call it electron tunneling. It's not really tunneling. It's just if there is the possibility they could be on the other side, sometimes it is on the other side, which means that you cannot actually control the flow of electrons. In that case, it would mean that your transistors would be ineffective in doing what they're supposed to do. They wouldn't really be able to act to switches reliably and you would get errors in your computations. I might work most of the time and then only some of the time not work, but even then that's problematic, which is one of the engineering challenges that transistor designers and multi around their microprocessor designers encounter all the time, you know. Finding new materials that are better at acting as transistors switches it's a big part of it. And coming up with different architectures to really take advantage of electron flow is another big part of it, all right. So those are the basics the basic electronic components that you can talk about with, you know, if you're looking at it from a very high level. Obviously there's tons of other stuff that I didn't get into, and some of it just requires you to pair up or otherwise put into series or parallels some of the components I've mentioned to to get whatever effects you want. I hope you enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff as we covered the basic components of electronics. It's probably something I'll end up covering again in various Tech Stuff tidbits episodes where I really focus on specific components and their place in electronics and their purpose. Because us you can always do a better job, right. I mean, I'm always proud of the work I do, but I also recognize when I could do it even better, and I think it's about time I try and do that. If you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, reach out to me on Twitter to handle for the show is tech Stuff hs W, and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.