Chapter 3
Supplying Power for Your Electronics Projects
In This Chapter
Looking at how power supplies work
Buying preassembled power adaptors
Understanding what happens inside a power supply
With very few exceptions, electronic circuits require a power supply of some sort. Although some projects run off solar power or more exotic power sources, such as wind turbines, fuel cells or nuclear reactors, most of the projects you build are going to get their power from one of two sources: batteries or an electrical outlet. (After a tiny incident, we’ve been asked not to build another nuclear reactor in our garage!)
Electrical outlets have the compelling advantage over batteries of not dying on you at an inopportune moment (barring a power cut), although unless you use really long extension cords, you can’t take your project very far from the outlet.
We show you how to employ power from an electrical outlet, and describe using power adaptors and how power supplies work.
Powering up from Your Electrical Outlet
Most electronic circuits require a relatively low direct current (DC) voltage, typically in the range of 3 to 12 volts (V). Getting that range of voltage out of batteries is easy; ...
