Collin: Thanks for sharing. You and others like you have helped me pass my truck coach exams. You have helped me provide a better life for my family and for that I thank you. Keep up the good work.

Hi Collin! I've just started learning electronics, and thanks to you, it's becoming a lot less intimidating. Thank you for all that you do. Your videos are excellent. Cheers!

This helps A LOT to those of us who wish we could do half of what people like Collin can do, but have no idea where to start! It has always been something that scared me, but him simplifying and explaining each of these things makes them seem kinda easy.

Fantastic explanation, I like how you focus on just a few core elements and give the audience time to absorb the lessons.

I love how you simplify everything. Your tutorials make my brain swell like a balloon.

Gosh that man must be one of the most rated teacher of all times ! God knows how well he explains things !

I look forward to your every video, Collin. You certainly have a gift for teaching. If I had a teacher like you back in college, I might have not gone into Accounting.

Watched in slow motion to take notes, I LOVE YOU MAN

I realize this video is 11 years old, but I still wanted to say thank you. Thank you for not assuming too much, for explaining it simply and clearly. And for anyone reading this who is trying to teach themselves electronics but is feeling intimidated, keep at it. You CAN get it. Don't be afraid to make a mistake, you will burn up some components and release the magic smoke, but before you know it, things will start to click and it will start making sense.

I'm just getting started in Electronics as a hobby. I am really enjoying your videos, thank you for making them.

I'm loving these. Stumbled upon them from the electronics intro Maker vids - but this guy is a legend. Lovin' it.

I love this Channel a lot. Its very informative and Collins make sure the viewer understands the subject discussed in the video. Keep it up ☝. Thumbs up. Love watching every videos you make.

A true testament to Collin's great teaching and videography skills: Every Collin's Lab video has at least (if not two) one top comments that call for the return of Collin. p.s. Collin come back. we all miss you.

It may have been helpful to note that an IC has a dot in the "top-left", or where you would start counting pins on the physical piece.

I work in electronics everyday and I still learned things. Great vid.

Thanks Collin your video gave a detailed explanation for electronic schematics. Awesome job!

Collin should have his own channel for his lab videos, he is the reason I've watched half the Make videos.

I miss projects from collin. these are great

I think I just found my inner nerd... Throughout the whole video, I felt so excited to learn about all of these. Thanks for this.

Thank you so much for this! Finally someone to explain things without his audience falling asleep.

really smooth and nice editing! really great job!

I just started reading Make: magazine and saw some schematics. Even though I didn’t plan on building the project I still wanted to know how to read it. So thankful for this video!

I love your video and your pace/cadence of communication. I was hoping to see the inductor symbol explained before or after the capacitor.

You're awesome, love your simplistic method of explaining complex ideas; if only more lecturers had your flair!

It would have been nice having something like this when I was a kid. I had to come up with my own allegories. Good job! I like this video.

wow this is the clearest explanation of schematics i have ever heard!

Loved it! How about a nice follow up video with more detail. May I suggest the bandpass filter schematic used for the background. Possible tips in follow up: Explain how the virtual ground connects, How & where to save ground connections on a breadboard, how the schematic directly compares to breadboard and PCB. I think many like my teenage son would gain a better understanding of this information with your methods of teaching and demonstrating. I will keep watching for more tips and ideas!

This was incredibly helpful. Thank you.

Collin creeps me the fuck out but gives me so much knowledge at the same time.

Collin's Lab was the only reason, why I subscribed.

Excellent video. I like the no bs approach.

Cheers Colin! Your a legend! please dont stop making these vids!

Object lesson in the idea of not knowing how much one does not know. I didn't think I was going to learn anything from this vid. I did. I suspect now that if I were to re-check a 3-watt amp I made, which ended up distorting badly, I will find that they are all backwards. I very much appreciate your comparing the look of schematic symbols to their real-world components. I've always thought that was the best way to learn them. Well done.

I really liked this video it's quite good. A lot of the stuff would only make sense if you took physics but it's still a great video (IE capacitor parallel plates). The only downside is that actually analyzing circuits gets waaaaaay more complicated, especially when you start getting into non-steady state stuff and using the calculus. I'd love to see a video about the different methods of determining voltage drops, amps, power, etc etc. Like using KVL, KCL mMethod, mesh node.

Thank you so much. You make me to understand very well. I have job interview. You r very helping

Thank you. That was every so helpful.

haha dude you are strange and very different but thats why you make learning extremely fun and easy. Just want to say thank you, keep up the good work, and most importantly dont change because if i had teachers like you in school i would actuallly have learned stuff while enjoying it.

Awesome vid! I finally understand how to actually read schematics now.

I do think, when talking about electronic circuits and schematics, people should get comfortable with the conventional current. Even though it is a scientifically incorrect way in looking at the electron flow, most of the, if not all, schematics are drawn having conventional current in mind. I remember first learning about this in school. Pissed the hell out of me. When you're dealing with + and - in the circuit, it really is not a big deal, but once common grounds and power supplies come into play, I just found conventional current to be more useful when reading schematics.

Very informative. This video is quite helpful.

i love this guy collin you are the man,wish you can teach me how understand circuit board,and how they work.and understand more.if you could

thnx Mr.Collin you deserve every like and subscribe

good job Mr. collins. appreciable for learners. love you hehe.

Thank you for explanation.. very easy to understand

Nice set of videos! One thing that makes diodes and transistors easier to understand is to think of positive current. Have you done a video about that?

Another thing to note when reading schematics, is generally signal traces run left to right, and power traces run top to bottom.

@rydude998 If you are talking about two-color diodes, these are actually two diodes wired internally in parallel. So, no matter which way you try to pass current, one or the other of the diodes will conduct, getting, say, red light in one direction and green light in the other. (By quickly switching directions, your eye sees two colors at once, giving, in this case, yellow.)

Another great video. Simple, informative, inspiring, and effective!

@3Deity I am not so sure you were wrong. Collin's explanation is describing electron flow, conventional current would flow in the direction the arrow points.

Learned more in 5 min than I did in high school about diagrams. Maybe because I was interested today :)

Awesome video for beginners! How much time you spent planning and making this video?

Great video as always Colin. The only thing which could have been improved is the diode section, which very quickly brushed over the fact electrons flow from negative to positive and not from positive to negative as was presumed. You weren't wrong in what you said, just that it could be a point for confusion :)

Very nice! I will be placing a reference to this video in a video series I am creating.

Thank you, great show!!!

thank you for this useful video,,, hope to see a video of how to determine if the shematic is working,,

Once again thank you Mr. Cunningham

@rekinu5 That's Ground (GND). It's connected to Earth ground, digital ground, or the negative side of your supply.

La verdad es muy educativo el señor collins,saludos chicos

@number0IX Yup, right on. In fact, many LEDs have a relatively low peak reverse voltage specification. Most of the ones I use are rated around five volts, IIRC. If you push them too hard in reverse bias, they *will* fail. It's not an LED if it conducts in both 'directions'; that would be a light bulb, neon bulb, or other device where polarity doesn't matter.

@modgemtb One end (the end of maximumness) goes to the signal/voltage source. The other end (of minimumness) goes to ground or the return. The center (the wiper) is connected to the circuit that is being fed by the pot. When the shaft is turned to some point, the wiper is positioned at some voltage point between that of the source and zero. Pots have power ratings and the current drawn from them must not exceed them, which is not usually a problem for signals like audio or small DC controls.

THANKS MR. COLLINS, GOD BLESS YOU.

Great as usual. It would be more helpful, as if there were some links in the description for Fritzing and other free/open-source CAD applications.

Electron flow and hole flow exist in BOTH PNP AND NPN transistors and can be used to explain either. Pedants talking about electron flow and insisting it goes one way or another should remember that these are metaphors and cannot be considered "reality" since Quantum Mechanics rule here and the fundamentals of Quantum Physics say that an electron (or other fundamental particles) can exist everywhere at once i.e. they can (in theory) exist in two places at the same time.

Thank you. Very much you explain slowly and step by step and also the function😊🙂🙂 thank you...4x

Well done, thank you!

Collin vid showed in subscription notice. WOOT! Collin for president.

I now want the big schematic as my desktop!

Very well done...simple...thanks!

terrific... keep it up. Bob

can you please keep explaining more about schematics its really interesting

@Zadster Yep. Gotta make sure not to mix up electron flow and current flow.

Great video man, thanks

nice i am the one who chatted with you of facebook and this is great to help me out sometimes.

maybe I'm late but the music in the background was exactly what I needed this morning music page?

Awesome video. Thank you!

I MISS YOU COLLIN SWAAAAN

Great vid! 👍

@GegoXaren I live in Argentina and we also use the squiggly line, everybody does, in fact I don't think I've ever seen someone use the rectangles. For me the squiggly line is much more representative of what a resistor is, like most symbols, the rectangle lacks character, it doesn't imply anything.

great explanation

Thanks I now have interest. I will learn more about this .

@eried yup it should be in reverse!

Can you please make a video how to make a schematic for etching from only an electrical schematic? I'm having trouble with drawing one from it.

@xbatusai You are still correct. In the world of electronics, every single positive and negative sign is the exact opposite. So in a schematic the electrons flow from positive to negative (look at a battery), this is called conventional current. But realistically, the electrons are flowing from the negative terminal to the positive. This is NOT to say that the electrons flow the opposite way around your circuit, it's saying your positive and negative markers are wrong.

@leipare I know, but conventional flow is better at actually describing electric potential, which is the driving force behind electricity. That's why everybody uses it instead of electron flow.

Colin was talking about the orientation of the diode in the circuit schematic, not the direction of charge flow in the diode. Charge flow goes from the anode (negative end) to the cathode (positive end). That's another thing, Colin mistakenly called the negative end of the diode the cathode. That's the anode end. Any device that dissipates electrical energy has the cathode end being the positive end and the anode end being negative.

@Yvessam The flow of electrons is the opposite direction to the flow of current.

Collin needs his own channel!

@DavidRockin1 well... it's almost the same, plus and negative wire for baterry, mic and speakers, LEDs are in the video O.o ... and the motor... there are many types with their own connections, I thing is a good idea to request that to Collin ;D

Coolest dude...and good teacher!

You are such a legend

The test signal circuit only one hook or all of the negative output ?

This is great!

Grate video but are you agent Smith from the matrix?

Thanks a lot! Great channel :)

Ey, any simple program to draw schematics? Thanks.

@3Deity The same here! I always thought the diode functioned the other way round... I have to do some research now :)

@zluisz he is talking about electron movement not the current.

Well done!!

I got quite confused there, because electrons move in the opposite direction from current. Sooo... when he said that electrons move through LEDs the way he said that they do, I am not sure if he was actually talking about electrons or about the current(which I think he meant to say). Could someone please help?

@surferboy36O rectangles are used in Sweden for resistors.