Here you find learning material in the form of circuit simulations, that lead you to the understanding of amplifiers and other signal conditioning circuits that we use throughout the course. Feel free to experiment with them, they are editable and saved via the encoded URL. You cannot destroy them and it is easy to share edited versions. Here is an introduction to the circuit simulator.
- The foundation of understanding electric circuits is Ohm's law.
- A very powerful concept is the voltage divider, it allows us to attenuate (but not amplify!) any voltage in any circuit
voltage divider with even resistors
- We will use the OpAmp (=operational amplifier) to amplify the small signals from our microphones to usable and less noisy signals before we digitize them in the computer. The opamp (= operational amplifier) is a three port device and its circuit diagram is a triangle. It has a positive and a negative input terminal and an output terminal. The most basic opamp circuit is the "comparator".
- the opamp's output can also directly follow one of its input voltages, but providing more current. This is the basis building block of opamp based amplifier and is called "voltage follower" or "buffer".