Conrad 978-3-645-10212-4 Operation Manual
Publishing Information
© 2016 Franzis Verlag GmbH, Richard-Reitzner-Allee 2,
85540 Haar bei München • www.elo-web.de
Author: Burkhard Kainka
Idea/concept: Michael Büge, Burkhard Kainka
Editing: Jenny Pfeiffer
Art & Design Cover: www.ideehochzwei.de
Layout & Composition: Nelli Ferderer • nelli@ferderer.de
ISBN 978-3-645-10212-4
2016/01
Photo Credits
Drawings created with http://fritzing.org/
All rights reserved, including photomechanical reproduction and storage in electronic media. The creation and distribution of copies on paper, on
data media or on the Internet, especially as PDF, is permitted only with the express approval of the publisher; violators will be prosecuted.
Most of the product designations as well as company names and company logos named in this work are as a rule also simultaneously
registered trademarks and should be considered as such. In the main, the publisher follows the manufacturer's spelling for the product
designations.
All circuits shown in this book were developed, reviewed and tested with the greatest possible care. Nevertheless, errors in the book cannot be
completely ruled out. In cases of malice or gross negligence, the publisher and author are liable according to the statutory regulations.
Otherwise, the publisher and author are liable for injury to life, limb or health or for the culpable violation of essential contractual obligations only
according to the Product Liability Act. The claim for damages for the violation of essential contractual obligations is limited to the foreseeable
damages typical of the contract unless a case of mandatory liability according to the Product Liability Act is present.
This product was manufactured in accordance with the applicable European guidelines and thus bears the CE mark. The intended use is described in the accompanying instructions. In the case of any other use or change to the product, you alone are responsible for the adherence to
the applicable rules. Therefore, build the circuits precisely as described in the instructions. The product may be passed on only together with the
instructions and this notice. The symbol of the struck-through rubbish bin means that this product must be taken to the recycling as electronic
scrap separately from the household waste. Your municipal administration can tell you where to find the nearest free collection point.
Safety Notes for Parents and Children
Attention!
Never carry out experiments on mains sockets! The 230 volts of the mains supply are a lethal hazard! All experiments of
this experimenter package must be carried out only with the safe battery voltage of 9 volts. Then there's no danger if you
touch the parts that conduct electricity.
Please tell your child explicitly to read all instructions and safety notes and to be ready to look things up. Notes and rules
for construction of craft projects absolutely must be observed.
Attention!
Eye protection and LEDs: Never look directly into an LED from a short distance, since a direct look can cause retinal damage! This applies especially for bright LEDs in clear housing and particularly for power LEDs. With white, blue, violet and
ultraviolet LEDs, the apparent brightness gives a false impression of the actual danger for your eyes. Special care is required when using collecting lenses. Operate the LEDs as shown in the instructions, but not with higher voltages.
Attention!
Avoid short circuits! A direct connection between the negative and positive terminals absolutely must be avoided, because
wires and batteries can become hot in such a case and because the batteries then quickly become flat. In extreme cases,
wires can become burning hot and the battery can explode. There is a risk of fire and injury. Teach your children about
these dangers and supervise the experiments. If possible, use only normal zinc-carbon batteries (6F20), which provide a
low short circuit current and thus are less dangerous than alkali batteries (6RL61). Never use rechargeable batteries!
Attention!
Not suitable for children under the age of 3 years. There is a suffocation risk because small parts can be swallowed or
inhaled.
Attention!
Suitable only for children aged 8 years and up. Instructions for parents or other responsible persons are included and must
be observed. The packaging and instructions must be kept because they contain important information.
Attention!
Risk of injury! When using tools and when working with wood, metal and plastic, there is a risk of injury. Pay attention to
the age and experience level of your child. Help out with difficult or dangerous steps. Check the safety of the home-made
toys and pay attention to a risk of injury from sharp corners while playing. If necessary, carry out some post-processing; file
off sharp edges and deburr drilled holes or cut edges.
Hello, knowledge-hungry folks!
In this calendar, 24 exciting projects with electronic components are waiting for you. You'll also frequently find info
boxes that explain why the tests work the way they do. If that's too hard for you at the beginning, you can also just
carry out the test for starters. You'll see: after a while, you'll understand the technical relationships almost automatically!
1 Your First DIY LED Lamp
Behind the first door you'll find: a breadboard, a battery clip, a switch, a fuse, a light diode (LED) and a resistor.
Make yourself a little LED lamp! Granted, it's not particularly bright, but it already has a switch and all the important
things you'll also be using in the experiments that follow. In this picture, you see in which holes on the breadboard
that you need to plug the components into.
You can secure the battery clip's connection cable with tape on the edge of the breadboard or stick it underneath
through the board's mounting holes. To do this, you first have to puncture the adhesive film on the bottom with a
needle. It's best to get an adult's help to do this.
There are numbers printed on the breadboard for the positions from left to right and letters for the positions from
top to bottom – you might recognise them from maps.
To plug the components into the breadboard, it's best to take a small pair of flat pliers and insert the wires precisely
from above. Pay attention to the correct position of the connections.
The fuse and the switch will stay in the same position until the last test and don't have to be taken out anymore.
With the LED, you need to pay attention to the assembly direction. The shorter wire is the negative terminal (the
cathode C); the longer wire is the positive terminal (the anode A). From the outside, you can recognise the larger
bracket for the LED crystal on the cathode side. There's also a small flat place on this side of the housing. That's
also the case for the coloured LEDs. In addition, for the white LED, there's a fluorescent yellow colour that covers
the LED crystal. There are coloured LEDs that look almost exactly the same from the outside. But looking at it from
the front through the lens helps you recognise the white LED at any time, even when it's switched off.
The resistor can be installed in any direction. There are coloured rings on it (yellow, purple, red and gold), which
have an important meaning. In this case, they say that the resistor is 4700 Ohm (4700 ).
The battery clip should be installedonto the battery only when everything has been completely assembled and
checked precisely. Then slide the switch!1 to the ON position. Now the light diode (LED) should light up white. The
first little LED lamp is finished!
Attention
Never connect the positive terminal to the negative terminal of the battery because then too much current flows. Your battery will quickly become unusable in that case. In extreme cases, the battery can even explode or wires could become hot
enough to glow and burn.
If it doesn't work, you may have installed the LED the wrong way round. Also check all the other connections and
compare everything exactly with the layout picture.
Circuit Diagrams
A circuit diagram shows the connections of the components in a simplified manner. At first, it might be harder than our
layout picture, since the actual components look different. Once you've got used to it, though, you'll even understand
much better how everything goes together with a circuit diagram.
The battery consists of six battery cells with 1.5 V each. The longer line stands for the positive terminal. The fuse is shown
as a little box with a wire. The switch shows an open connection, so it's already in the "Off" position. The resistor is depicted as a box. And the LED contains an arrow that shows the direction of the current. The two little arrows are supposed
to represent the light that's generated.
In this case, you'll easily recognise that all components form a closed path. That's called a circuit. The path is broken at
only one point, at the already open switch. Circuit diagrams will constantly be shown in the tests that follow. They can help
you understand everything, even better.
2 More Light!
Your first LED lamp wasn't very bright yet. However, behind Door Number 2, you'll find another resistor. The first
resistor had 4.7 kΩ; this one has only 0.47 k (470 = 4.7 kOhm, short 4.7k) and thus lets much more current
through. Your lamp thus gets much brighter.
The Resistor Colour Code
Colour
Ring 1
1st Digit
Ring 2
2nd Digit
Ring 3
Multiplier
Ring 4
Tolerance
black
0
1
brown
1 1 10
1%
red 2 2
100
2%
orange
3 3 1000
yellow
4 4 10000
green
5 5 100000
0.5%
blue
6 6 1000000
violet
7 7 10000000
grey
8
8
white
9
9
Gold
0.1
5%
Silver
0.01
10%
Resistors and Their Coloured Rings
The coloured rings on the resistors represent numbers. They are read beginning with the ring that is closer to the edge of
the resistor. The first two rings stand for two digits, the third for added zeroes. Together they designate the resistance in
ohms. A fourth ring gives the precision. All resistors in this calendar have a gold ring. That means that the given value can
be 5% larger or smaller than stated by the coloured rings.
3 Switchable Brightness
On the third day, you'll find a cable with two small plugs in your calendar. With it, you can build a very special lamp
with which you can select the brightness.
More brightness is sometimes an advantage, but it also has a disadvantage: Namely, the energy of your battery is
used more quickly. That's why the second switch is there. When it's in the ON direction, more current flows and the
LED is brighter. The first switch continues to serve for the lower brightness. And there you have your very special
lamp with two brightness levels.
Actually, there are even three brightness levels. Switch 1 is responsible for the simple bright-ness and Switch 2 for
the tenfold brightness. But when both switches are on, you have eleven times the brightness. Try it once: Switch 2
is on, and Switch 1 is switched on and off alternately. The difference is very slight. Can you still detect it?
Voltage, Resistance and Current
The electrical voltage is measured in volts (V). The battery has 9 V. And one measures the resistance, as you already
know, in ohms (Ω) or kilohms (kΩ = 1000 Ω). But there's yet another very important unit of measurement. The strength of
the electrical current is measured in amperes (A) or, for very small current strengths, in milliamperes (mA = 1/1000 A).
You can calculate how much current flows through the LED when you know how much voltage there is directly at the battery and how much voltage is present at the LED. The battery has a voltage of 9 V. The LED consumes around 3 V. That
still leaves 6 V for the resistor. For the low brightness, you can figure as follows:
Current = Voltage / Resistance
Current = 6 V / 4700
Current = 0.0013 A = 1.3 mA
That's not much; only 1.3 mA flows, although the LED carries 20 mA. But the battery lasts a long time! It could deliver 2000
mA for one hour or 1 mA for 2000 hours. Or your lamp lights up for about 1500 hours with 1.3!mA, so for over two months.
For the greater brightness, you get to about ten times the current (13 mA) and so you're already closer to the permissible
limit of 20 mA. But the battery can handle that for only about 150 hours, that is, barely a week.
4 A Lamp with Two LEDs
Another white LED appears behind the fourth door. Install it in your lamp with everything else. The lamp thus becomes somewhat brighter. The brightness is already enough to read a book by at night. And again, there are two
brightness levels. You decide how much light is used.
Series Circuitry
With series circuitry, the same current flows through two or more consumers. It is a "unbranched electrical circuit" because
there's only one path. That means that the current strength is the same at every point.
Simplified circuit diagram of a series circuit
The voltage is distributed to the consumers in the circuit. In this case, there are two LEDs and a resistor. Each white LED
uses approximately 3 V. Two LEDs thus consume 6 V. And because the battery has 9 V, a voltage of 3 V is left over for
the resistor. So in this case, the battery voltage is distributed in equal amounts to three consumers. The energy consumption is distributed in exactly the same way. The resistor generates only some heat, but the LEDs generate the desired light.
Because only a third of the voltage is present at the resistor this time, only a third of the energy is "wasted." The circuit with
two LEDs in series is thus better than the one with only one LED, where two thirds is lost.
5 Connected in Parallel
Open the fifth door and take out another cable. With this, you can connect the LEDs in parallel. When you've set
everything up correctly, both LEDs light up.
Parallel Circuitry
This time you've built a parallel circuit, which is also called a "branched circuit." The current through the resistor distributes
itself to two LEDs. Half of the current flows through one LED, the other half through the other LED. A small test can prove
that: Remove the cable between both LEDs one time. One LED then goes out, but the other becomes brighter. In other
words, the entire current now flows through it.
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