Electronics Tips and Tricks
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Zener diodes are specially designed diodes (heavily doped) that have low reverse voltage breakdown.
Due to this characteristic zener diodes are connected backwards to normal operation. If zener is forward biased it acts as regular diode with forward voltage drop at 0.6V. Zener diod backward voltage breakdowns may range from 2.4V up to 100V. Truly speaking if you need like 1.2V then probably you need to connect two forward biased diodes in series for 0.6V+0.6V = 1.2V drop. |
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Diodes are semiconductor devices commonly used for many purposes. In generally you can imagine diode to be a valve that passes current to one direction and stops it to flow back. First thing that comes in mind – this might be a good choice for reverse voltage protection. In fact they are. But...
In reality things are a bit different. First of all diodes aren't perfect devices. They have so called forward voltage drop which is about 0.7V for standard diodes. So if insert diode in to power supply, say 5V the after protection you will get 4.3V where part of voltage is lost in diode. If you wanna go this way – better choose Schottky diode instead which has a smaller forward voltage drop. Forward voltage drop occurs when diode is forward biased what means current flow from anode to cathode. |
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Light Emitting Diodes more frequently known as LEDs are semiconductor devices that converts electricity in to light. It hard to fond a gadget or other device that doesn't use LED diodes. They are cheap they are simple to use and they are small. LEDs can emit different light colour depending on different chemical compound material in a semiconductor. |
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