User manual

3.6 | Photo Transistor
To determine brightness, modern electronics often use photo
transistors. The learning package includes a part that looks very
similar to a white light emitting diode, except that it is a photo
transistor. It not only looks different from the normal bipolar
transistors but also has no base connection. The base, i.e. the
input of a normal transistor that is responsible for the current
control between the collector and emitter is the light falling
into the housing in a photo transistor. The light hits the silicon
there and makes a lower or higher current flow between the
collector and emitter depending on the light strength.
3.7 | LC-Display
The main actor of this learning package is the blue-white LCD.
The learning package uses an LCD with two rows 16 columns with
5 x 8 dots each. These displays can now also be purchased
separately in any good electronics store or online store for a
few Euro. They are available in green, blue, amber, yellow and
a few special colours that are usually more expensive. In our
case, a blue LCD is installed. The LCD controller installed is
a KS0066/HD44780 that is produced by many manufacturers - more
on this later.
Before you can use the LCD in the experiments, you need to solder
the enclosed 16-pin pin strip into the contacts of the LCD. For
this, plug the pin strip with the short contacts into the LCD
from behind and solder only one contact on first. This way, you
can align the pin strip cleanly at a 90°-angle. When the pin strip
has been aligned, you can solder on the other pins. If you have
no soldering gun yet, get a cost-efficient hand-held soldering
gun with an output between 20 and 30 W and electric wire solder.
This investment will pay off when dealing with Arduino™ and
electronics in any case.
FIRST FUNCTION TEST
Wire your first experiment as shown in the figure. Be careful
to not bend or even break the pins of the jumpers.
At the end, check the circuit for accuracy again carefully to
avoid damage to parts.