About Active and Passive Components and Portable Hard Drive

Online electronic stores like Conrad are a treasure trove of electronic components and products catering to your home, office, gardening and hobby needs by selling everything from a simple electromagnet and electronic toys to computer accessories and home tools. Among these there are certain electronic components which come of use at home as well as in your professional life. Let us discuss in brief three of such components, namely, Passive and Active components and Portable External Hard Drive.

Active and Passive Components: Active components are electronic components which need some source of power to function. Some common examples of active components are transistors, bipolar and field effect ones and integrated circuits. These active components are used to augment signal power whereby the signal is sent through one end of the device and the amplified version sourced from another connection. A DC Voltage from a battery constitutes the power source in general. Components which do not need any power or energy source to operate in a field of application are Passive ones. Here, the energy is preserved in the form of voltage or current. Capacitors, resistors, diodes and inductors are some examples in this case.

Portable External Hard Drive: Portable external hard drives or simply portable hard drives are one of the most coveted computing accessories these days because of the additional storage capacity it proffers you with. They act as great back-up devices for your computer while being light in weight and convenient enough to carry everywhere you go. They can be connected to a number of PCs to meet your purpose of sharing files, while its data archiving capability is quick and convenient.

For all your electronic needs, Conrad is a one-stop online shop dealing with top brands. So browse through the wide array of electronic and computing products at http://www.conrad-uk.com/

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How to Use Oscilloscopes and Multimeters

As a professional dealing with electricity issues, two handy tools to help you wade through your job smoothly are an oscilloscope and multimeter. While a multimeter can solve a variety of your problems by its versatile nature making it capable of measuring currents, voltages, resistances and checking into the functioning of transistors and diodes, the former only measures voltage. However, oscilloscopes look into their area of task much more meticulously as they look into the changes of voltages with time. Such tools can be best bought from online stores like Conrad which have a large display of them and deal with top notch brands such as VOLTKRAFT, Fluke, Proxxon, Tektronix and the likes. Here is a quick guide on how to use each of these tools.

Using Oscilloscopes

In order to measure electronic waves or circuit with the help of oscilloscopes you require linking the ground connector of the test lead of the tool to one of the ground points of the circuit to be measured. The probe’s tip then needs to be touched upon the point in the circuit which you wish to test. For a Cathode Ray Oscilloscope you can use the scope for measuring the waveforms when the amplitude control and the timebase control are modified to obtain the square wave. For safety reasons it is advised not to make a direct connection between the electrical outlet and the probe.

Using Multimeters

For using a multimeter you first need to be familiar with the various parts that it possesses. This includes the dial, the pointer, arc shaped lines depicting the various ranges of maginitude, a knob, jacks or inserting test leads, fuse and battery compartments, test leads and a knob called Zero Adjustment. Since the multimeter can be used for measuring a number of things separate functions go for them. For instance, the Volt function is to be used for measuring voltage, the OHM function for resistance, the Amps function for measuring Amperes and so on.

For all your electronic needs, Conrad is a one-stop online shop dealing with top brands. So browse through the wide array of electronic and computing products at http://www.conrad-uk.com/ce/

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Hygrometer, Wireless and Digital Weather Stations- Different Types of Weather Stations

Although it might sound weird but having a wireless or digital weather station at home does come of help more often than you might imagine. You might have just planned a picnic on a bright sunny day depending on the weather forecasts given on the radio only to be disappointed with torrents of rain spoiling all the fun. Possessing a weather station gives you benefits of not only making your outing plans accordingly but also to take safety measures from before. The added advantage comes along with the fact that unlike general weather forecasts these weather stations for personal use gives you exact weather reports for your area. Here are some common types of weather stations available at electronic stores like Conrad.

 

Wireless Weather Stations: These are a handy lot of weather stations with no cumbersome wires to form connections around your residence. They comprise sensors which are capable of sensing the weather outside and transmitting the report to the storage place and the display and are operated by batteries.

Digital Weather Stations: If you want your weather station to do a job at par with a professional, invest a greater amount to get a digital one. It gives you a more meticulous update along with added features such as notifying you through alarms about upcoming storms or cyclones for greater safety.

Home and Professional Stations: A Home Station is used in homes as well as small offices and is capable of measuring a number of things such as wind, solar radiation, rain and the likes. It has barometer, rain gauge, anemometer, hygrometer all rolled into one. Professional weather stations have some additional capabilities in the form of measuring temperature of water and soil, soil moisture, ultraviolet and others. Both Home and Professional weather stations than their wireless counterparts.

Conrad has a number of weather station exhibits at its online store. To browse through our collection, visit us at http://www.conrad-uk.com/

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