This is called the gain of the transistor.įor a general-purpose transistor, such as the BC547 or 2N3904, this could be around 100. There is a connection between the sizes of the two currents. When a current flows from the base to the emitter, the transistor turns on so that a larger current can flow from the collector to the emitter. To choose the component values, there’s one more thing you need to know about how transistors work: If you also add a pushbutton, you can control the transistor, and thereby the LED, ON and OFF with a button: Choosing Component Values This is the same principle you use to limit the current through an LED to make sure it doesn’t blow up.

So you’ll automatically get around 0.7V by adding a resistor. If you add a resistor in series, the rest of the voltage drops across the resistor. A diode has a forward voltage that it “grabs” from the available voltage. Since most of us don’t have a 0.7V battery, how do we turn on the transistor?Įasy! The base-to-emitter part of a transistor works like a diode. If you had a 0.7V battery, you could have connected it between the base and emitter, and the transistor would have turned ON.

To turn the transistor ON, you need a voltage of about 0.7V between the base and the emitter.

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