January 12 2011

After building our ac power supplies for our breadboards, we were instructed to test if they had continuity . To do this Professor Mason handed us a Packet that demonstrated how to use a multimeter. After taking a crash course on how to use a multimeter we test what the voltage was reading from the power supply (which was 5.15V). Then we were instructed to build varies breadboards under certain conditions. The only frustrating part of this exercise was finding the right resistors. Many times i was forced to use a parallel connection to get the right resistance. Normally this would be an easy task since finding Equivalent resistance is a breeze, however finding the correct resistance from a supply that is very assorted can prove to be frustrating. After finding the correct components I was back on track and competed the three LED exercise by demonstrating if there is more resistance then you will get a dimmer light showing Ohms law of V=IR. After that professor mason showed a supply list of the LED's we had in our kits. He showed that not only does the light bulb need a certain amount of current to flow though it. but also it eats a certain amount of voltage from the power source. This is useful to know if one is going to build a circuit that will have the brightest light. In this exercise we had to demonstrate our knowledge in using Kirchhoff's laws and also Ohms laws to find what the correct resistor to use to achieve the brightest light.