A Pragmatic Introduction
to the Art of Electrical
Engineering
Paul H. Dietz
Version 1.0 - ©1998 Paul Henry Dietz - All rights reserved.
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A Pragmatic Introduction to the Art of
Electrical Engineering
i
LICENSE
Rights and Obligations vii
How it Works vii
A Disclaimer viii
CREDITS
How Did We Get Here?
ix
A Book is Born
ix
And I Want to Thank All the Little People... x
PROLOGUE
Electrical Engineering for Fun and
Profit xi
Cold Sandwiches, again? xi
Electrical Engineering as Programming and
Interfacing xii
The Basic Stamp 2 xiii
About This Book xiv
CHAPTER 1
Getting Started with the BASIC Stamp
2 1
The Problem 1
What You Need to Know 1
What is a BASIC Stamp 2? 2
How Do I Wire it Up? 2
How Do I Get to the Software? 5
A First Example Program 5
A Second Example Program 6
A Pragmatic Introduction to the Art of Electrical Engineering
CHAPTER 2
Lights and Switches 8
The Problem 8
What You Need to Know 8
What is Voltage? 9
What is Current? 10
What is an LED? 12
How Do I Interface a Switch? 16
What is a Seven Segment Display? 18
Where Do We Go Next? 20
CHAPTER 3
Maybe 21
The Problem 21
What You Need to Know 22
What is a Voltage Divider? 22
How Do I Solve More Complex Resistive
Circuits? 24
Are There Any Tricks That Can Make This
Easier? 27
What is an Independent Source and What is
Superposition? 30
What is a Digital to Analog Convertor? 32
What’s Next? 33
CHAPTER 4
Guess the Number 34
The Problem 34
What You Need to Know 34
What are the limitations on our DAC? 35
What is an Amplifier? 39
How do you build an Analog to Digital
Convertor? 44
What’s Next? 47
A Pragmatic Introduction to the Art of Electrical Engineering
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CHAPTER 5
Timing is Everything 48
The Problem 48
What You Nee