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Johngineer. The purpose of this post is to lay out some of the stuff I wish someone had explained to me when I was first learning about electronics. This is a pretty entry-level introduction, intended by me to ‘fill in the gaps’ with regard to basic operating principles. Opamps are not all that complicated, but for many people they appear as a black box. With so many schematics available online, it can be very tempting to simply ‘cut-and-paste’ subcircuits into your own designs without understanding them. This is okay to a point, and useful for learning, but it may come back to bite you later if your design doesn’t work the way you expect it to. First, let’s look at the schematic symbol for an op-amp and identify the pins and their functions.
V+ is the positive supply and V- is the negative supply. Vin+ is the non-inverting input. Vin- is the inverting input. Vout is the voltage output. There are two concepts which are typically used to describe how opamps function. –thus– –or– which becomes: Oh snap! Hack a Day.