Ideas for a Basic RLC Related Class Project

[mushiman]

I've been a lurker for a longtime (and recently made an account).

That aside, I've just started my sophomore level classes in electrical engineering this year (in college obviously), and my instructor has asked us at the last minute to make a simple project involving an RLC network (so basically, anything incorporating a capacitor and inductor). I've been digging through these forums and have done some Googling for an idea for a project, but I haven't found anything that could work for my situation.

We were literally told to just pickup a kit from RadioShack or something of that nature, build it, and explain exactly what the circuit is doing and why it's doing it [in class]. Unfortunately, stores such as RadioShack have the components for the task, but not the full kits with ready-made diagrams.

Does anyone have any links to websites that have these types of projects available? A diagram with the needed components labeled/listed is enough -- I haven't had much success locating one. This should not be a large project; simply large enough to consume a few hours of my time and fit on one breadboard.

I'm not really particular on the what the circuit should do, so if anyone has any ideas, I'd be happy to hear them. Thanks.

 

[Corneo]

How about building a simple band pass or band reject filter? Those are pretty basic and you can find loads of information on line for it.

 

[berkeman]

Here's a good kits website:

http://www.rainbowkits.com/kits/kits1.html

Or you can google electronics kits to get lots of other hits. I'd recommend getting an AM radio kit, and explaining why there are adjustable inductors and caps in the input circuit. That's really at the core of what RLC circuits are used for.

Quiz questions -- what is the input impedance of a parallel RLC circuit versus frequency? What is the input impedance of a series RLC circuit versus frequency?

An alternative would be to look at the equivalent RLC circuit of a crystal, and explain how that works in a crystal oscillator circuit. But that's a lot more advanced, and maybe best left for next year...

 

[mushiman]

Thanks for the replies.

I did some searching for both of your project ideas and there appears to be plenty of information on the two. I'll try rainbowkits.com again later, as they seem to be down at the moment.

I also stumbled upon Jameco again (forgot about them), and they seem to have numerous kits, so I think I'll have plenty of ideas to run with now.

Thanks again for the ideas, I'll post back with more questions if need be.

 

[berkeman]

Sounds like you're on top of it mushiman. But what about the quiz questions?