ET122 - Logical Troubleshooting

Spring 2007



Section 5178

Instructor Harold Hallikainen

Tuesdays 7:00pm – 10:00pm

email harold@hallikainen.com

Room 4401

web www.hallikainen.org/cuesta

Office Hours: 6pm to 7pm Tuesdays, room 4401

phone 805 441 2246



NOTE

Interested in a study group?
Send me an email with your email or phone number and I'll pass it on to other students who are interested. Each of you can bring an area of expertise to the group.

Harold
harold@hallikainen.com



Class Description
We will discuss various troubleshooting environments (engineering prototype, production test, factory repair, field repair, etc.) and the approaches required in each. A variety of people involved in electronic troubleshooting for their jobs will be brought in to add to the discussion. In our discussion, we'll look at the failure modes for various components and how those failures affect various circuits. Students will be presented with schematics of various circuits along with voltages and waveforms at various points in the circuit. The student is to suggest possible failed components in the circuit. In the lab, students will be given various good and failed circuits to analyze. Through analysis of the good circuits, students gain an understanding of how the circuit was supposed to work in the first place. Troubleshooting broken circuits gives students practice at troubleshooting.

Class Schedule
The class meets Tuesdays 7:00pm to 10:00pm. One week will be devoted to class discussion with the next devoted to lab. The schedule will be adjusted as required.


Date

Planned Material

January 23

Philosophy of Troubleshooting, Choosing Equipment, Understand System. Pease-25, Agans-24

January 30

Lab:

February 6

Resistor, Capacitor, and Inductor Problems. Make it fail! Pease-49, Agans-66 (Last day to add 2/3/07)

February 13

Lab:

February 20

Diode and Transistor Problems. Change one thing at a time! Pease-88, Agans-96

February 27

Lab: (Last day to drop without W 2/20)

March 6

Operational Amplifiers. Take notes, ask for help. Pease-119, Agans-124

March 13

Lab:

March 20

Quiz1 (questions and solutions here), ADC, DAC, References, Regulators. Did you fix it? Pease-142, Agans-132

March 27

Lab:

April 3

Real problems and Floobydust. Troubleshooting from the help desk. Pease-186, Agans-175

April 10

Spring Break

April 17

To Be Determined (Last day to drop with W 4/14)

April 24

Digital Circuits

May 1

Quiz 2. Sample questions here.

May 8

Communications Circuits

May 15

Review for final exam. Sample Final Exam Questions.

May 22

Final Exam 7pm-9pm


Texts

Troubleshooting Analog Circuits, Robert A Pease, ISBN 0-7506-9499-8

Debugging, David J. Agans, ISBN 0-8144-7168-4


Grades

The final grade will be based on the final exam (50%) and the average of the monthly quizzes (50%). Quizzes and the exam will test your understanding of material in the texts, class discussion, and lab experience. You will be asked to provide a PIN during the second class session. You can use your name and this PIN to see your grades through the semester on the website listed above.