Analog Electronics by Hand: Diodes & Rectifiers, Smoothing Ripple, Zener Regulators, Transistor Switches, Op-Amp Amplifiers, Active Filters, Comparators & Real-World Limits

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Build one cycle of a 12 V (peak) toy sine wave with SIN, pass it through a half-wave and a full-wave bridge rectifier with a fixed 0.7 V diode model, compare the average outputs with the ideal value and chart all three curves.
• Compute the ripple frequency of half- and full-wave boards, the capacitance needed for a ripple limit, pick the next larger value from a fictional series with MINIFS, and check the actual ripple and the lowest voltage the board sees.
• Compute the series-resistor current at the lowest and highest input, split it into Zener and load current for six loads, compare the Zener power with a fictional rating and find the load window that stays in regulation and within rating.
• Size base resistors for four loads with a gain and an overdrive factor, round down to a fictional series with MAXIFS, check how hard each transistor is driven, then compute the conduction loss and junction temperature of a MOSFET switch.
• Compute gain and output of four op-amp stages from their resistors, see the follower as a non-inverting stage with Rf = 0, then choose the feedback resistor from a fictional series that gets closest to a target gain.
• Split codes 0–15 into bits with INT and MOD, compute the output of a toy summing DAC with weighted resistors and its step size, then measure how resistor tolerances turn a common-mode voltage into an output error in a difference amplifier.
• Compute the cutoff of an RC filter, tabulate low- and high-pass gain in decibels and phase with ATAN over nine frequencies, then set the two thresholds of a Schmitt trigger and compare its switch count on a noisy signal with a plain comparator.
• Amplify a toy sensor signal and clip it at the supply rails with MIN and MAX, compute the usable bandwidth from the gain-bandwidth product and the highest undistorted frequency from the slew rate, decide which gain passes all three checks and chart the clipped waveform.