Beginner's Guide to Reading Schematics, 4th Edition

3

Components and Devices

On a road map, symbols indicate geographical features such as cities, highways, airports, railroad tracks, and other landmarks. The same rule applies to schematics in electricity and electronics. Specialized symbols portray conductors, switches, resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors, and other circuit elements. Whenever engineers invent a component or device, they create a new schematic symbol for it.

Tip

In this chapter, you’ll see common schematic symbols for some (but by no means all) of the components that you’ll find in electrical and electronic systems. In the back of this book, Appendix A provides a more comprehensive listing.

Resistors

Resistors rank among the simplest electronic components. As the ...