JA505

AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS
CHAPTER 1
ELECTRONICS PRINCIPLES

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Basic Electronics Principle

ATOMIC STRUCTURE

We define matter as anything that takes up space and,

when subjected to gravity, has weight.
There are many different kinds of matter.
copper, iron, gold, and silver.
Other elements have been produced only in the laboratory.

Every material we know is made up of one or more

elements. Lets say we take a chunk of materiala rock
Some of our pieces would have the characteristics of
copper, for example.
Others would show themselves to be carbon, yet others
would be iron.

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 Atoms
If you could keep dividing the material indefinitely, you would
eventually get a piece that only had the characteristics of a single
element.
At that point, you would have an atom, which is the smallest particle
into which an element can be divided and still have all the
characteristics of that element.
An atom is the smallest particle that has the characteristic of the
element. An atom is so small that it cannot be seen with a
conventional microscope, even a very powerful one.
An atom is itself made up of smaller particles.
electrons, protons, and neutrons.

All the atoms of any particular element look essentially the same, but
the atoms of each element are different from those of another
element. All atoms share the same basic structure. At the center of
the atom is the nucleus, containing protons and neutrons, as shown in
Figure 2-1.
Orbiting around the nucleus, in constant motion, are the electrons.
The exact number of each of an atoms particlesprotons, neutrons,
and electrons depends on which element the atom is from.
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The simplest atom is that of the element

hydrogen. A hydrogen atom (Figure 2-1)
contains one proton, one neutron, and one
electron.
Aluminum, by comparison, has 13 protons,
14 neutrons, and 13 electrons.
These particlesprotons, neutrons, and
electronsare important to us Because
they are used to explain electrical charges,
voltage, and current.
Electrons orbit the nucleus of an atom in a
concentric ring known as a shell.
The nucleus contains the proton and the
neutron, which contains almost all of the
mass of the entire atom.
There are two types of force at work in
every atom.
Normally, these two forces are in balance.
One force comes from electrical charges
and the other force, centrifugal force, is
generated when an object moves in a
circular path.

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Electrical Charges

Neutrons have no charge, but electrons have a negative

electrical charge. Protons carry a positive electrical charge
(Figure 2-2).
Opposite electrical charges always attract one another; so
particles or objects with opposite charges tend to move
toward each other unless something opposes the attraction.
Like electrical charges always repel; particles and objects
with like charges tend to move away from each other unless
the repelling force is opposed.
In its normal state, an atom has the same number of
electrons as it does protons. This means the atom is
electrically neutral or balanced because there are exactly as
many negative charges as there are positive charges. Inside
each atom, negatively charged electrons are attracted to
positively charged protons, just like the north and south
poles of a magnet, as shown in Figure 2-3.
Ordinarily, electrons remain in orbit because the centrifugal
force exactly opposes the electrical charge attraction. It is
possible for an atom to lose or gain electrons.
If an atom loses one electron, the total number of protons
would be one greater than the total number of electrons. As
a result, the atom would have more positive than negative
charges. Instead of being electrically neutral, the atom itself
would become positively charged.
The electrons are in different shells or distances from the
nucleus. The greater the speed, the higher the energy of the
electrons, the further away from the nucleus the electron
orbit. All elements are composed of atoms and each
element has its own characteristic number of protons with a
corresponding equal number of electrons. The term
electricity is used to describe the behavior of these electrons
in the outer orbits of the atoms.

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Electric PotentialVoltage
We noted that a balance (Figure 2-4) between
centrifugal force and the attraction of opposing charges
keeps electrons in their orbits.
If anything upsets that balance, one or more electrons
may leave orbit to become free electrons. When a
number of free electrons gather in one location, a
charge of electricity builds up.
This charge may also be called a difference in electric
potential.
This difference in electric potential is more commonly
known as voltage.
When this potential causes a number of electrons to
move in a single direction, the effect is current flow. So
the definition of current is the flow of electrons.
Any atom may possess more or fewer electrons than
protons. Such an unbalanced atom would be described
as negatively (an excess of electrons) or positively (a net
deficit of electrons) charged and known as an ion
(Figure 2-5).
An ion is an atom that has gained or lost an electron.
Ions try to regain their balance of equal protons and
electrons by exchanging electrons with nearby atoms.
This is known as the flow of electric current or
electricity.

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Valence
The concentric orbital paths, or shells, of an atom proceed
outward from the nucleus. The electrons in the shells
closest to the nucleus of the atom are held most tightly
while those in the outermost shell are held more loosely.
The simplest element, hydrogen, has a single shell
containing one electron. The most complex atoms may have
seven shells.
The maximum number of electrons that can occupy shells
one through seven are, in sequence: 2, 8, 18, 32, 50, 72, 98.
The heaviest elements in their normal states have only the
first four shells fully occupied with electrons; the outer
three shells are only partially occupied. The outermost shell
in any atom is known as its valence ring.
An atom of the element neon with an atomic number of 10
has both a full first and second shell (2 and 8): its second
shell is its valence ring (Figure 2-6).
Other more complex atoms that have eight electrons in
their outermost shell, even though this shell might not be
full, will resemble neon in terms of their chemical
inertness.
Valence represents the ability to combine. Remember that
an ion is any atom with either a surplus or deficit of
electrons.
Free electrons can rest on a surface or travel through
matter (or a vacuum) at close to the speed of light.
Electrons resting on a surface will cause it to be negatively
charged.
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 Faradays Law.
Any change in the magnetic environment of a coil
of wire will cause a voltage (emf) to be "induced"
in the coil.
No matter how the change is produced, the
voltage will be generated.
The change could be produced by changing the
magnetic field strength, moving a magnet toward
or away from the coil, moving the coil into or out
of the magnetic field, rotating the coil relative to
the magnet, etc
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 Faraday's law is a fundamental relationship which

comes from Maxwell's equations. It serves as a
succinct summary of the ways a voltage (or emf)
may be generated by a changing magnetic
environment.
The induced emf in a coil is equal to the negative
of the rate of change of magnetic flux times the
number of turns in the coil. It involves the
interaction of charge with magnetic field.

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 Electric Current
Electric current is the rate of charge flow past a given point in an
electric circuit, measured in Coulombs/second which is named
Amperes.
In most DC electric circuits, it can be assumed that the resistance to
current flow is a constant so that the current in the circuit is related
to voltage and resistance by Ohm's law.
The standard abbreviations for the units are 1 A = 1C/s.

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Electric Charge
The unit of electric charge is the Coulomb (abbreviated C). Ordinary matter is made up of
atoms which have positively charged nuclei and negatively charged electrons surrounding
them.
The influence of charges is characterized in terms of the forces between them (Coulomb's law)
and the electric field and voltage produced by them.
One Coulomb of charge is the charge which would flow through a 120 watt light bulb (120
volts AC) in one second. Two charges of one Coulomb each separated by a meter would repel
each other with a force of about a million tons!
The rate of flow of electric charge is called electric current and is measured in Amperes.
In introducing one of the fundamental properties of matter, it is perhaps appropriate to point
out that we use simplified sketches and constructs to introduce concepts, and there is
inevitably much more to the story.
No significance should be attached to the circles representing the proton and electron, in the
sense of implying a relative size, or even that they are hard sphere objects, although that's a
useful first construct.
The most important opening idea, electrically, is that they have a property called "charge"
which is the same size, but opposite in polarity for the proton and electron. The proton has
1836 times the mass of the electron, but exactly the same size charge, only positive rather
than negative. Even the terms "positive" and "negative" are arbitrary, but well-entrenched
historical labels.
The essential implication of that is that the proton and electron will strongly attract each
other, the historical archtype of the cliche "opposites attract". Two protons or two electrons
would strongly repel each other. Once you have established those basic ideas about electricity,
"like charges repel and unlike charges attract", then you have the foundation for electricity
and can build from there.

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 From the precise electrical neutrality of bulk matter as well as from

detailed microscopic experiments, we know that the proton and
electron have the same magnitude of charge. All charges observed in
nature are multiples of these fundamental charges.
Although the standard model of the proton depicts it as being made
up of fractionally charged particles called quarks, those fractional
charges are not observed in isolation -- always in combinations which
produce +/- the electron charge.
An isolated single charge can be called an "electric monopole". Equal
positive and negative charges placed close to each other constitute an
electric dipole.
Two oppositely directed dipoles close to each other are called
an electric quadrupole. You can continue this process to any number
of poles, but dipoles and quadrupoles are mentioned here because
they find significant application in physical phenomena.
One of the fundamental symmetries of nature is the conservation of
electric charge. No known physical process produces a net change in
electric charge.

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 Conventional Electric Current

Although it is electrons which are the mobile charge
carriers which are responsible for electric
current in conductors such as wires, it has long been the
convention to take the direction of electric current as if it were
the positive charges which are moving.
Some texts reverse this convention and take electric current
direction as the direction the electrons move, an obviously
more physically realistic direction, but the vast majority of
references use the conventional current direction and that
convention will be followed in most of this material.
In common applications such as determining the direction
of force on a current carrying wire, treating current as positive
charge motion or negative charge motion gives identical results.
Besides the advantage of agreeing in direction with most texts,
the conventional current direction is the direction from high
voltage to low voltage, high energy to low energy, and thus has
some appeal in its parallel to the flow of water from high
pressure to low (water analogy).
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DC Circuit Water Analogy

- In a direct current (DC) electrical circuit, the voltage (V in volts) is an
expression of the available energy per unit charge which drives the electric
current (I in amperes) around a closed circuit.
- Increasing the resistance (R in ohms) will proportionately decrease the
current which may be driven through the circuit by the voltage.
- Each quantity and each operational relationship in a battery-operated DC
circuit has a direct analog in the water circuit. The nature of the analogies
can help develop an understanding of the quantities in basic electric ciruits.
- In the water circuit, the pressure P drives the water around the closed loop
of pipe at a certain volume flow rate F. If the resistance to flow R is
increased, then the volume flow rate decreases proportionately. You may
click any component or any relationship to explore the details of the analogy
with a DC electric circuit.

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 Voltage-Pressure Analogy
A battery is analogous to a pump in a water circuit. A pump
takes in water at low pressure and does work on it,
ejecting it at high pressure. A battery takes in charge at
low voltage, does work on it and ejects it at high voltage.

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Electronics Components
Resistor.
The electrical resistance of a circuit component or device is defined as
the ratio of the voltage applied to the electric current which flows
through it:

R= V/ I
If the resistance is constant over a considerable range of voltage,
then Ohm's law, I = V/R, can be used to predict the behavior of the
material. Although the definition above involves DC current and
voltage, the same definition holds for the AC application of resistors.
Whether or not a material obeys Ohm's law, its resistance can be
described in terms of its bulk resistivity. The resistivity, and thus the
resistance, is temperature dependent. Over sizable ranges of
temperature, this temperature dependence can be predicted from
a temperature coefficient of resistance.

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 Resistivity and Conductivity

The electrical resistance of a wire would be expected
to be greater for a longer wire, less for a wire of larger
cross sectional area, and would be expected to
depend upon the material out of which the wire is
made.
Experimentally, the dependence upon these
properties is a straightforward one for a wide range of
conditions, and the resistance of a wire can be
expressed as

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 The factor in the resistance which takes into

account the nature of the material is the
resistivity.
Although it is temperature dependent, it can be
used at a given temperature to calculate the
resistance of a wire of given geometry.
The inverse of resistivity is called conductivity.
There are contexts where the use of conductivity
is more convenient.
Electrical conductivity = = 1/

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 Resistivity Calculation
The electrical resistance of a wire would be expected to be
greater for a longer wire, less for a wire of larger cross
sectional area, and would be expected to depend upon the
material out of which the wire is made (resistivity).
Experimentally, the dependence upon these properties is a
straightforward one for a wide range of conditions, and the
resistance of a wire can be expressed as

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 Variable resistor basics

The variable resistor comprises a fixed resistive
element along which a slider passes. The variable
or adjust able resistor forms a potential divider in
which the overall resistance between the two end
points remains the same, but the ratio of the two
resistors in the legs changes.
In view of the fact that the variable resistor is
effectively a potential divider, it is called a
potentiometer.

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- Variable resistor symbol The variable

resistor symbol used in circuit diagrams
indicates its construction.
- Effectively it is a fixed resistor with a slider
that can move along the length of the
resistive element. In this way it forms a
potentiometer as described before.
- The variable resistor symbols depict the current version use din circuit
diagrams today and the traditional format that may be seen on older circuit
diagrams.
- When a true variable resistor with only two connections is needed, it is
common practice to connect the slider to the remote end of the variable
resistor as shown below.

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 Thermistors
Introduction
A thermistor is a specialized resistor, intentionally designed to be thermally sensitive and
its primary characteristic is its ability to alter its electrical resistance in response to
changes in case temperature.
It can be used to measure temperature, or to sense temperature changes and
compensate for the temperature changes.
Thermistor resistance is a function of its absolute temperature. Normally available with
accuracy up to 1oC, however, higher accuracy devices are available, but are substantially
more expensive.
A time constant characteristic is also specified to signify the response rate to a
temperature change (i.e., speed of the thermistor) and is usually expressed in seconds,
defined as the time required to change 63.2% of the total difference between initial and
final body temperature, when subjected to a step function change in temperature, under
zero-power conditions.
The generic relationship between thermistor resistance and temperature is expressed in
the equation*:

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- The nature of the p-n junction is that it will

conduct current in the forward direction
but not in the reverse direction.
- It is therefore a basic tool for rectification in
the building of DC power supplies.

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- A bipolar junction transistor consists of three regions of doped semiconductors.

- A small current in the center or base region can be used to control a larger
current flowing between the end regions (emitter and collector). The device can
be characterized as a current amplifier, having many applications for
amplification and switching.

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Transistor Structure

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Constraints on Transistor Operation

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Transformer
- A transformer makes use of Faraday's law and the ferromagnetic properties of an
iron core to efficiently raise or lower AC voltages.
- It of course cannot increase power so that if the voltage is raised, the current is
proportionally lowered and vice versa.

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Transformer and Faraday's Law

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STEPPER MOTORS
- Stepper motors are electromagnetic incremental devices that convert electric pulses
to shaft motion (rotation). These motors rotate a specific number of degrees as a
respond to each input electric pulse.
- Typical types of stepper motors can rotate 2, 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 15 per input
electrical pulse. Rotor position sensors or sensor less feedback based techniques can
be used to regulate the output response according to the input reference command.
Stepper motors offers many attractive features such as:

Available resolutions ranging from several steps up to 400 steps (or

higher) per revolution.
Several horsepower ratings.
Ability to track signals as fast as 1200 pulses per second.

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- Stepper motors, on the other hand, effectively have multiple "toothed"

electromagnets arranged around a central gear-shaped piece of iron.
- The electromagnets are energized by an external control circuit, such as
a microcontroller To make the motor shaft turn, first, one electromagnet is given
power, which makes the gear's teeth magnetically attracted to the
electromagnet's teeth. When the gear's teeth are aligned to the first
electromagnet, it slightly offset from the next electromagnet.
- The next electromagnet is turned on and the first is turned off, the gear rotates
slightly to align with the next one, and from there the process is repeated. Each
of those slight rotations is called a "step", with an integer number of steps
making a full rotation. In that way, the motor can be turned by a precise angle

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