Zen’s Electronics Design Mastery
Design and build connected, solar-powered electronics, from Ohm’s law to an IoT capstone.
Design-mastery track: fundamentals → analog → digital → embedded → a connected IoT capstone.
Before you start: None
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Module 1: DC Fundamentals
Extra practice:
- Using a multimeter
- Battery internal resistance
- Cells in series and parallel (LiFePO4)
- Series-parallel network
- Current divider
- Fuses and fault current
Module 2: DC Circuit Analysis
Extra practice:
Module 3: Capacitors, Inductors & Time
Extra practice:
Module 4: AC & Reactance
- Using an oscilloscope
- Peak, peak-to-peak and RMS
- Reactance of L and C
- RC low-pass filter
- RC high-pass filter
Extra practice:
- Oscilloscope: comparing two signals
- RLC series circuit
- RLC parallel circuit
- Single-phase AC circuit
- Three-phase star (Y)
- Three-phase delta (Δ)
- Light with one switch
- Staircase light: two 3-way switches
- Outlet circuit: three outlets on a 20 A breaker
- House panel: main breaker and four branch circuits
- RCD protection: someone touches a live wire
Module 5: Diodes & Power Supplies
- Diode forward and reverse bias
- LED and its series resistor
- Half-wave rectifier
- Bridge rectifier and filter
- Zener shunt regulator
- 12 V → 5 V regulators
Extra practice:
- Basic transformer
- LM317 adjustable regulator
- 10,000 mAh power bank · 4 × 18650
- 20,000 mAh power bank · 4 × 21700
- 42,000 mAh LiFePO4 power bank · 7 × 32700
- 100 Ah 12 V LiFePO4 battery (4S17P, 32700 cells) with charger
Module 6: Transistors
Extra practice:
- Common-emitter amplifier
- Inductive load and the flyback diode
- Darlington pair
- H-bridge motor driver
- Push-pull output stage
Module 7: Op-Amps & Analog ICs
- Inverting amplifier
- Non-inverting amplifier
- Voltage follower (buffer)
- Summing amplifier
- Difference amplifier
- Schmitt trigger
Extra practice:
- Integrator
- Op-amp relaxation oscillator
- Sallen–Key low-pass filter
- 555 astable (LED flasher)
- 555 monostable (one-shot timer)
- Comparator with a light sensor
- Instrumentation amplifier
Module 8: Digital Electronics
- AND gate
- OR gate
- NOT gate
- NAND gate
- XOR gate
- Half adder
- SR latch (memory from two gates)
- D flip-flop
- 4-bit ripple counter
Extra practice:
- NOR gate
- NAND as a universal gate
- Full adder
- 2-to-1 multiplexer
- BCD decoder and 7-segment display
- JK flip-flop
- Synchronous counter (74HC161)
- Shift register (74HC164)
- Logic levels and families
Module 9: Microcontrollers & Embedded
Extra practice:
- Wi-Fi and HTTP to the cloud
- Send an SMS with the A7670 LTE module
- Interrupts and debouncing
- Deep sleep and battery life
- SPI bus: MAX7219 display
- I²C sensor: accelerometer tilt
- I²C sensor: temperature, humidity, pressure
- PWM actuator: hobby servo
- PWM actuator: DC motor through a MOSFET
- Monitoring a supply rail with the ADC
- Settings that survive a reset (NVS)
- Watchdog timer
- Light sensor (LDR divider)
- Arduino Uno: upload your first sketch
- Reading a button: floating inputs and INPUT_PULLUP
- analogRead and PWM: a pot dims an LED
- Powering an Arduino: USB, VIN and the regulator
- Arduino Nano on a breadboard: a servo sweep
- Strapping pins: when the board will not boot
Module 10: Capstone — Connected Tracker
Extra practice:
- Charging a phone from 12 V with an HW-688
- Phone charging: volts, amps and watts
- USB-C charging: the power path
- USB cable voltage drop
- USB-C attach detection (CC, Rp and Rd)
- USB Power Delivery: asking for 20 V
- Detecting USB plug-in with an ESP32
- Heat inside a sealed box