Electrical Engineering
These tutorials help form some of the fundamentals you would learn in an Electrical Engineering course of study.
Capacitors
June 19, 2013
Learn about all things capacitors. How they're made. How they work. How they look. Types of capacitors. Series/parallel capacitors. Capacitor applications.
Polarity
June 14, 2013
An introduction to polarity in electronic components. Discover what polarity is, which parts have it, and how to identify it.
What is Electricity?
June 13, 2013
We can see electricity in action on our computers, lighting our houses, as lightning strikes in thunderstorms, but what is it? This is not an easy question, but this tutorial will shed some light on it!
How to Use a Breadboard
May 14, 2013
Welcome to the wonderful world of breadboards. Here we will learn what a breadboard is and how to use one to build your very first circuit.
Button and Switch Basics
May 7, 2013
A tutorial on electronics' most overlooked and underappreciated component: the switch! Here we explain the difference between momentary and maintained switches and what all those acronyms (NO, NC, SPDT, SPST, ...) stand for.
Resistors
April 1, 2013
A tutorial on all things resistors. What is a resistor, how do they behave in parallel/series, decoding the resistor color codes, and resistor applications.
Voltage Dividers
February 8, 2013
Turn a large voltage into a smaller one with voltage dividers. This tutorial covers: what a voltage divider circuit looks like and how it is used in the real world.
Analog to Digital Conversion
February 7, 2013
The world is analog. Use analog to digital conversion to help digital devices interpret the world.
How to Power a Project
February 7, 2013
A tutorial to help figure out the power requirements of your project.
Voltage, Current, Resistance, and Ohm's Law
February 6, 2013
Learn about Ohm's Law, one of the most fundamental equations in all electrical engineering.
Battery Technologies
February 6, 2013
The basics behind the batteries used in portable electronic devices: LiPo, NiMH, coin cells, and alkaline.
What is a Circuit?
February 6, 2013
Every electrical project starts with a circuit. Don't know what a circuit is? We're here to help.
Pull-up Resistors
February 1, 2013
A quick introduction to pull-up resistors - whey they're important, and how/when to use them.
PCB Basics
December 14, 2012
What exactly IS a PCB? This tutorial will breakdown what makes up a PCB and some of the common terms used in the PCB world.
Old Tutorials
Looking for the old, archived tutorials? Head on over to the
archived tutorials on the main
SparkFun site.
Please be aware that the tutorials you find there are no longer
actively maintained.