Bjt circuit design

[Kipper4]

I've googled and not found anything that helps me much. it's either over my head or not enough info.
Basically are there any good articles / tutorials on how to design bjt type amps/ distortions.
I have no formal training and am only 4 months into building. I've come a long way but not so far.
Please help guide me
Thanks
Rich

[R.G.]

It's a long road.

It includes much more background info that you'll need than is apparent to you now. With several years of electronic tinkering and two years of undergraduate electronics, I took a course in designing transistor amplifiers in my sixth semester of EE.

Dig in, and get your mind around it being a long road. Don't get discouraged if you don't get to the end quickly. Take your time and enjoy the journey.

[Electron Tornado]

Search You Tube. There are tons of instructional videos on electronics. Grab a beverage of your choice, sit back, watch, and learn. There are a number of videos on transistor circuits and amplifier design. Watching several can help reinforce things, and you might learn a little something new in each one. 

[Kipper4]

Thanks guys
I am enjoying the journey. So far its been marvelous and encouraging.
I watched a few videos and i now know how to tell an common emitter  from a common collector.
I compared it with the circuits i had already built just to see too.
I'm a little wiser.

[Thecomedian]

It's a long road.

It includes much more background info that you'll need than is apparent to you now. With several years of electronic tinkering and two years of undergraduate electronics, I took a course in designing transistor amplifiers in my sixth semester of EE.

Dig in, and get your mind around it being a long road. Don't get discouraged if you don't get to the end quickly. Take your time and enjoy the journey.

This. I've been at it four months and I just now am getting the level of electrical understanding needed to figure out what to do to a circuit, how it works, etc.

Here's the things you really need to know all about:

DC decoupling (you can tone stack if you know where to put it and where not to: hint google "circuit black box" method)
Impedance.
resistance.
RC circuits.
LC/RL circuits.
Biasing BJT transistors.
Biasing FETS (this thing has had me going round for a few days recently until I finally figured out that the FET is completely ON unless you apply negative power, and then turns OFF after so much negative power, so it's "Q" point is basically between zero and the maximum negative voltage to achieve cutoff)


I recommend Steelwheelsdown on youtube,  browsing a bit of this book, http://www.barnesandnoble.com/sample/read/9780750650953, and realizing that all those formulas and calculations actually are pretty important to have on hand, if not memorized. Formulas are really less scary than they look. It's all just Multiply and divide, add and subtract. Just plug the right numbers in from the measurements.

[garcho]

.

[Kipper4]

thanks
That was a brief post Garcho lol

[Thecomedian]

I'll try to find the awesome teacher guy on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqs_ICMKfFU

bam. You'll figure out how to calculate circuits, and this is the step towards plugging in your own values and discovering what you need for building your own circuit.

[wilrecar77]

If you're more inclined to math like I am, this guy might be a better teacher for you. He basically reduces it all to simple algebra. I would recommend taking notes on the formulas and keeping it as a reference somewhere. Obviously there is much more to circuit design than this, but this particular series is what made the basic function of a transistor "click" in my head.

[garcho]

MIT has amazing 001, 002 level courses inline, with course materials available. Don't be scared, you don't have to be Tom Scholz to get something out of it.

[Kipper4]

I'll keep reading and watching videos as much as possible and learning.
i couldnt access the book in an earlier post sorry must be my crappy browser again.
and I guess i need to learn more of the math too.
Thanks for the tips guys.
What do they mean when they say Merlin Fets?