Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

The laboratory portion of this course provides students with the opportunity to develop skills in the operation of electronics test instruments (signal generators, digital multimeters and oscilloscopes). Students will work in teams of two or more to perform and complete laboratory exercises. Through  the hands-on practice, they will learn how to apply  general troubleshooting strategies to narrow the scope of a problem’s location and further isolate it, and apply those skills to complex circuits that represent combinations of both analog and digital devices. Students must be able to communicate,  in oral and written form.

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

• Construct, analyze, diagnose and troubleshoot complex circuits which represent application of operational amplifiers, transistors and logic devices.
• Use electronic test equipment such as logic probe, multimeter and oscilloscope.
• Locate and interpret technical documentation e.g. schematic diagrams and device data sheets.
• Communicate technical information in written and oral form.
• Practice safe electronics testing procedures.

Through the lab experiments and the hands-on practice, the students will learn how to apply general troubleshooting strategies to narrow the scope of a problem’s location, and to further isolate it.

One hour of lecture followed by two hours of hands-on activities combined with lecture will be scheduled every week. Demonstrations and explanations will be provided by the instructor during the lecture lab hours. The emphasis of all the course activities will be on troubleshooting circuits made with advanced semiconductor components. Lab activities may include: limited design, mathematical analysis and building circuits on the breadboard or on a printed circuit board.

Homework in the form of weekly quizzes, one final exam on paper and one final practical exam should be expected. 
The emphasis of each of these examinations is on electronic test equipment 
proper use and on mastering the circuit troubleshooting techniques. 

1. Working with a combination of analog and digital devices in one circuit.
2. General characteristics of an amplifier: gain, input impedance, output impedance.
3. Build and test one stage transistor based amplifiers,class A and class B.
4. Build and test the most common configurations of operational amplifier circuits, such as inverting, noninverting, comparator, unity gain amplifier.
5. Diagnosing malfunctioning electronic circuits consisting in a combination of advanced integrated devices, using a systematic, step by step approach.
   1. Understand the system.
   2. Understand the problem and history.
   3. Eliminate the obvious.
   4. Develop possible causes and theories.
   5. Eliminate causes, start with what is easy, or likely.
   6. Validate and document the solution.
6. Learning how to practice the most common troubleshooting techniques used in the case of circuits based on operational amplifiers, various types of transistors and IC logic devices.
   1. divide system into sections and test each individual section
   2. remove parallel components
   3. swap identical components