Engineering Electronics

Links

• What is Important, Voltage, Current or Power?
• Exam I ENGR 356 Tips
• Lab Write Up Documents
  • Ten tips for your Engineering Notebook
  • Fast Functional Writing
  • Graphsmanship
  • Common Mistakes
  • Short Report Format
• Function Generator Manuals
  • An example of a function generator manual.... This may give you a bit of an idea how to write your manual for the Function Generator Lab.
  • A really simple function generator, but still a little more complicated than yours. However, you will notice the hysteresis oscillator is used in it too.
• Operational Amplifiers, Theory and Practice, by James Roberage
• Semiconductor Animations

Common Emitter/Common Collector Amplifier Example

LTSpice Getting Started Guide LTSpice is a good simulator and runs on Windows, Linux (under wine), and OS X.

• How to connect LTSpice and Gnu Octave for Analysis

Qucs Simulations

• United States Frequency Allocations
• Mentor Graphics PCB Design
• Ceramic Capacitors Change Value with Applied Voltage and Temperature (especially small surface mount ones)
• Quadrature Signals Explained
• Steve Long's and Mark Rodwell's Communications Electronics Course. See especially Steve Long's Notes at the end of the page. They are good.
  • Resonators and Q
• Twin T Bandpass Filter with Adjustable Q

Software Defined Radio Links

• • R2 DSP (an early software defined radio using a dedicated DSP)
  • Softrock and Theory
  • Softrock Build Instructions and Notes
  • Softrock Yahoo Interest Group
  • This is a very interesting article on optimizing the performance of the Softrock radio. It is good design review of the Softrock receiver.
  • Firefly SDR uses Dan Tayloe's mixer.
  • This collection of Software Defined Radio publications is fantastic.
  • SDRadio
  • RA3WDK SDR Receiver (uses diode mixers)
  • Open High Performance Software Defined Radio
  • Tayloe Mixer
    • Octave Simulation of a Tayloe Sampling Mixer
  • M-Audio Delta 44 Sound Card Manual This manual has useful specifications for determining the gain necessary for your software designed radio project.
  • Filter Design in 30 seconds
  • Bandpass Filter Calculator
  • Quite Universal Circuit Simulator Useful for designing and simulating circuits. Can synthesize filter circuits.
  • What is an Si570 and why do I want one?
  • The Si5351 is a good cheap programmable oscillator with either three or eight outputs. It has pretty good phase noise.
    • It is used by ham radio enthusiasts with Arduino controllors.
  • First steps in Software Defined Radio (SDR)
  • Mixer theory
  • A very nice 115 slide powerpoint presentation on mixers from Iowa State University. It discusses metrics of mixers, and has a very nice discussion of the different types, advantages and disadvantages of each.
  • Theory and Comparison of Various RF Mixers
  • Serbian SDR and other radios
  • TinySDR and others
  • Elektor SDR
  • A nice pictorial description of I/Q data
  • Jim William's very helpful video of mixers and especially I/Q ones using the Tayloe method

• SDR Using Realtek RTL2832U
  • FunCube Upconverter
  • The Wiki on this SDR.
  • An HF Converter for this SDR
  • List of compatible tuners
  • USB Pinouts and Other Details
• Phase Locked Loops
  • Phase Locked Loop Circuits, S. Long, UCSB
• Gilbert Cell Mixers
• LVDS to PECL Interface
• Positive Supply for ECL logic
• Voltage regulators put out noise that can make for poor SDR receiver performance. Here is a clever solution. It also works for instrumentation amplifiers and other noise sensitive circuits.

Wideband Transformers

• • Wideband Transformers
  • More Wideband Transformers
  • Transmission Line Transformers Tutorial by Chris Trask
  • Transmission Line Transformers, by Jerry Sevick (who wrote the book)
  • Design of HF Wideband Power Transformers

Choosing a Core for a Transformer or Inductor

• • Toroidal Cores
  • Micrometals Catalog

Capacitors

• • Murata's comparison of monolithic ceramic capacitors as compared to Tantalum capacitors. Note that monolithic ceramic capacitors values decrease if you put larger DC voltages across them though. The effective series resistance and temperature behavior are much better though.
  • The markings on capacitors are often based on pF. There will be three digits, like 104 for 0.1uF. The first two digits are the digits of the value, and the next number is the number of zeros to add after that to denote the capacitance in pF. Thus 104 in 10 * 1e4 pF.

• • Radio Development
  • Introduction to Software Defined Radio

• • Si570 Libraries
  • The USB to Si570 interface design files
  • Schematic

SMITH Chart

• • Interactive tutorials on how SMITH charts work

• Parasitic Capacitance
  • Dealing with parasitic capacitance in step-up transformer design

Vector Network Analyzer Links

• Vector Network Analyzer Basics
• Austin QRP Club Vector Impedance Analyzer
  • The interesting VIA schematic diagram. More diagrams of the connections to the STM32F4 Discovery Board are on the same web site.
• A short review of various antenna analyzers, and their block diagrams...
• A Comprehensive Chapter on S Parameters by Orfandis of Rutgers
• Cascading Scattering Parameters and Calibration of a VNA Using the Short, Open, Load, Through (SLOT) Method
• The entire book about electromagnetic waves and antennas is here.
• 2017 VNA Design Notes
  • 2017 VNA Testing Software Setup

Kicad

• • Good Kicad Tutorial Video 1
  • Good Kicad Tutorial Video 2
  • KiCad Step By Step Tutorial PDF
  • KiCad schematic and layout Guides
  • Kicad Quick Schematic Part Creator
  • KiCad Tutorial
  • Mini Tutorial
  • Installing KiCad for Windows and more video
  • KiCad Schematic to Layout Tutorial - CuriousInventor Guides
  • DPRG KiCad tutorial 3
  • How to design a circuit board by Doug Paradis using KiCAD
  • Ampacity of Wires and Circuit Board Trace Widths
  • Track width for certain temperature rise Calculater
  • A video on using the new (May 2014) push and shove router...
  • Freerouter Java program now open source and available here. Note that it isn't available any longer as a java applet on the web.
  • Video on using the new Module Editor
• Circuit Board Layout Hints
  • Reduce the likelihood of noise and oscillation problems.
  • Ten Best Practices of PCB Design
  • Daniel Colls - Parallel traces are often susceptible to cross-talk. These should be separated by at least 2 trace widths for cross-talk reduction. when talking about Circuit Layout.
  • Andrew Bylard - Use a stripline circuit when you have two parallel ground planes to give enhanced noise immunity against the propagation of radiated RF emissions.
  • Dealing with harmful PCB effects article
  • PCB Trace and Spacing Info
  • Trace Impedance Matching
  • Add test points at key locations and make it easy to probe (and other tips)
  • Make bypassing loops as small as possible in area and length (Page 10)
  • Some good, and some not so good EMC Design Principles
  • Common layout, prototyping, and schematic issues to avoid
  • Grounding in Mixed Analog and Digital Boards part 1
  • Grounding in Mixed Analog and Digital Boards part 2
  • Partitioning in Mixed Signal Boards
  • Silicon Labs Design Notes
  • Staying Well Grounded
  • PCB Thermal Design
  • Thermal Design Considerations for Surface Mount Layouts
  • The Engineer's Guide To High Quality PCB Design
  • Some good rules of thumb are in this app note from Micrel.
  • Some good PCB guidelines considering how to approach fine pitch layout, and spacing between components, the board edges, etc.
  • PCB Layout Checklist: Check this before sending out your board!
  • Printing and Etching Circuit Boards
  • Kicad Specific PCB Hints

Contributors

• 2013 Contributors

1. Eric Wilson
2. Michael Swan
3. Alexander Beckner
4. Brian Clark
5. Brian Lenz
6. Travis deFluiter
7. Tobias
8. Heidi Tupper

• 2012 Contributors

1. Fleming, Trent
2. Kara Moon
3. User:Daniel.Colls
4. Andrew Bylard
5. Ted Shaw
6. Denver Lodge
7. Benjamin Maloon

• 2010 Contributors

1. Fong, Greg
2. Henry, Ben
3. Lau, Chris
4. Shepherd,Victor
5. Vier, Michael

• 2011 Contributors

1. Haddad, Brian
2. von Pohle, Michael
3. Blaire, Matthew (Included in my name tag is Experimentation with LTspice)
4. Cody Lorenz

2010 Articles

• Ideal vs. Non-ideal Op Amps
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Basic Op Amp circuits
• Key Facts from Reading Chapter 1
• Golden Rules
• Integrator_Amplifier (by Ben)
• Circuit Board Layout Wisdom

Draft Articles

These articles are not ready for reading and error checking. They are listed so people will not simultaneously write about similar topics.

• Chapter 3 Problems by Ben
• Disecting an Instrumentation Amplifier via Superposition
• Reading from Chapter 4

Draft Articles awaiting review

• Feedback in Amplifiers

Contributing Articles

• Generalized Transmitter (in progress, Luke)
• Generalized Receiver (in progress, Luke)
• Electronics Receiver (in progress, Kevin)
• Generalized Receiver (Nick Christman)
• Generalized Receiver Explanation (Jodi Hodge)
• Eric's Generalized Receiver Explanation (Eric Clay)
• Yet another Generalized Receiver Explanation (Joshua Sarris)