User manual

A resistor with the yellow, violet, brown and gold coloured rings has the value 470  with a tolerance of 5%. In the

educational kit there are two resistors with the following values:

470 Ω yellow, violet, brown

1 kΩ brown, black, red

22 kΩ red, red, orange

470 kΩ yellow, violet, yellow

NPN transistors

Transistors are components for amplifying small currents. The educational kit contains two silicon NPN transistors

BC547B. The terminals of the transistor are called emitter (E), base (B) and collector (C). The base terminal is in the

middle. The emitter lies to the right if you look at the labelling and the terminals point downward.

Fig. 7: The NPN transistor BC547 (B_NPN.jpg)

PNP transistors

The PNP transistor BC557B has the same terminal sequence and differs from an NPN transistor only in the polarity. In

the schematic symbol the emitter arrow points inward.

Fig. 8: The PNP transistor BC557 (B_PNP.jpg)

MOSFET

Even the field effect transistor (MOSFET) BS170 doesn’t look outwardly different to a bipolar transistor. You can only

identify it by the imprint. The terminals of the transistor are called source (S), gate (G) and drain (D). The source

terminal lies to the right if you look at the labelling and the terminals point downward.

Fig. 9: The MOSFET transistor BS170 (B_FET.jpg)

Capacitors

The capacitor is an important component in electronics. It consists of two metal surfaces and an insulation layer. If you

apply electric voltage, between the capacitor plates an electric force field forms in which energy is stored. A capacitor

with a large plate surface and a small distance between the plates has a large capacitance and thus stores a lot of

charge with a given voltage. The capacitance of a capacitor is measured in farads (f).

The insulation material (dielectric) increases the capacitance compared to air insulation. The ceramic disc capacitors

use a special ceramic material with which large capacitances are achieved with a small design. The educational kit

contains a ceramic disc capacitor with 10 nF (labelling: 103, 10,000 pF) and two with 100 nF (labelling: 104,

100,000 pF).