Basic Electronics

Credit: 0.50
Course Preface
Core Code: 40-09-00-00-040
Printable Version: Basic Electronics (pdf)

Course Description
A course that prepares individuals to apply technical knowledge and skills to assemble, install, operate, maintain, and repair electrical/electronic equipment used in business, industry, and manufacturing. Includes instruction in installing, maintaining, and testing various types of electronic equipment. These courses are based on the state electronics task list.

* SkillsUSA PDP requirements ‐ recommended.

Core Standards of the Course

Standard 01
Students will be able to understand and demonstrate safe practices.

• Describe the purposes of legislation concerning safety in the workplace.
• Describe safety precautions and procedures pertaining to and working with electricity.
• Describe correct safety procedures for hand and power tools.
• Locate and describe shop safety equipment.
• Use safe work practices.

Standard 02
Students will be able to understand and demonstrate the use of shop tools, materials, and techniques.

• Identify hand tools used by electronics technicians.
• Describe the procedures to be used to care for hand tools.
• Identify the proper use and care of power tools and their accessories
• Select and use hand tools.
• Select and use common power tools and their accessories.

• Identify nuts, bolts, screws, and washers.
• Identify cable and wire support hardware.
• Select and use hardware used by electronics technician.

• Explain the principles of soldering and desoldering.
• Describe appropriate soldering techniques such as tinning, physical connections, temperature selection, and cleaning.
• Describe the precautions to prevent electrostatic discharge (ESD) during soldering.
• On a P.C. board solder and desolder ICs, wire and discrete components.
• Show appropriate use of heat sinks on solid state components.

Standard 03
Students will be able to understand and demonstrate the use of test equipment.

• Describe the proper handling, storage and use of digital meters.
• Describe the proper handling, storage and use of analog meters.
• Use multimeters.

• Describe the operation of a bench power supply and its controls.
• Use power supplies.

Standard 04
Students will be able to understand and demonstrate how to test and select passive electronics components.

• Identify electronic passive components i.e. resistors, capacitors, and inductors.
• Using standard electronic multiplication prefixes, determine the values for electronic components from their markings and physical characteristics.
• Identify electronic components.

• Describe the construction, operation, testing and maintenance of batteries.
• Use, test, and select batteries.

• Describe the principles of resistance.
• Identify resistive devices and draw their schematic symbols.
• Describe the function of resistive devices.
• Describe the procedures for testing resistive devices.
• Use, test and select resistive devices.

• Describe switch types, schematic symbols and operation.
• Describe relay types, their major parts, schematic symbols and operation.
• Describe procedures for selecting, connecting and testing switches and relays.
• Connect, test and select switches.
• Test, select and connect relays.

Standard 05
Students will be able to understand and demonstrate induction.

• Explain the principles of magnetic fields.
• Explain the principles of electromagnetic fields.
• Describe the operation and application of magnetic devices.
• Describe the principles of electromagnetic induction.

Standard 06
Students will be able to understand and demonstrate capacitors & their application.

• Describe the principles of operation of capacitors.
• Describe the common types of capacitors, their schematic symbols, major parts and uses.
• Describe the operation of capacitors in DC and AC circuits.
• Describe the procedures for selecting, testing and connecting capacitors in series and parallel circuits.
• Use, test, and select capacitors.

Standard 07
Students will be able to understand and demonstrate how use transformers.

• Describe the procedure for constructing, testing and troubleshooting transformer circuits.

Standard 08
Students will be able to understand and deomstrate basic electronic theory.

• Describe the atomic structure of matter.
• Describe the units of electrical charge, voltage and current.
• Describe the factors that affect the movement of electrical charges.

• State Ohms Law and graph the relationships between voltage, current and resistance in circuits.
• Use formulas and basic mathematics to solve Ohms Law problems.
• Use formulas to calculate electric power requirements.
• Describe the effect on power requirements of changing voltage, current or resistance on power.
• Describe power dissipation in resistive devices.
• From schematic diagrams, predict the voltage, current, and resistance in all parts of a circuit.
• Determine proper power ratings for resistors.

• Describe the principles of series circuits.
• Calculate the voltage across, current through, equivalent resistance of and power dissipation for any component or group of components in a series resistive circuit.
• State and use Kirchoff's voltage law and the voltage divider formula.

• Describe parallel circuit principles.
• Calculate the theoretical values of voltage, current, resistance and power in all parts of the circuit.
• State and use Kirchoff's current law and the current divider formula to solve parallel circuit problems.

Standard 14
The student will understand the need for professional development.

• State the SkillsUSA motto.
• State the SkillsUSA creed.
• Learn the SkillsUSA colors.
• Describe the official SkillsUSA dress.
• Describe the procedure for becoming a SkillsUSA officer.

Standard 15
Students will understand the need for leadership skills.

• Make a main motion.

• Describe the meaning of the SkillsUSA emblem.
• State the SkillsUSA pledge.
• Describe the duties of a SkillsUSA officer.

Standard 16
Students will understand the need for career planning.

Standard 17
Students will understand the importance of employability and work habits.

• Evaluate your personal ethics against acceptable workplace ethics.