transistor

I'm building a fire-fighting robot for a science expo and everything is fine so far (at least the electronic part is!) but I`m stuck with the fan motor. I`ve already fried a N3906 (don`t know what I expected).

I am trying to figure out how transistors work and have seen the three terminals on a bipolar transistor labelled base, collector, and emitter.

I am having a hard time understanding the purpose of the three, and would like it if someone could explain why they are named this way. I.e. what is basey about the base and what is the collector collecting?

At the moment they just look like three randomly chosen words.

Thanks

I am currently designing some very budget friendly Motor drivers, and to test the design out, I am giving away 10 free drivers! Each driver is a single or possibly dual (5 single and 5 dual) transistor based design, and cost per board is very, very low. If you would like one of these free driver boards, please post in the forum below. No restrictions! Each board ships with a application note so you know how to use it.

A few specs:

Max Voltage: 30V

Max Amperage: 0.6A

ok this is a circuit i have come up with to try and not use a motor driver for my picaxe,

i will have the base transistors connected to pins of a picaxe 

i will appreciate your input 

Let's say I have a motor control circuit that's too small. It could be the motor output of a Picaxe, the adafruit motorshield for arduino or a the innards of an old RC toy. The main thing is that it has two output wires, both capable of delivering positive and negative to make a motor turn both ways.

What if you want to use a bigger motor that needs more power? Below are three circuit diagrams

For now it's theory, it's for a future evolution of a future project (yeah i know that's two "future")
Ok actually i'll need 3 analogue inputs (one SRF05 ultrasonic rangefinder and one 2-axis accelerometer), but the 18x picaxe chip has only two. So basically, i need to find a way to share one of the inputs. As i won't need to read the all inputs at the same time, maybe it's doable.

So two ideas came to my mind, each one with its pros and cons.

First idea : a SPDT relay.

With that, two solutions :

Greetings fellow meatbags.

Calculon is trying to hook up a pimpin motor to his Mr Basic, and has come across something very confusing with his transistor.

Here's what he's trying to do with a nte123 pulling a seperate power supply to a motor made for 3v:

He also tried it with a 2n3904. It didna work for either. According to his understanding of NPN transistors, the output from the picaxe should switch on the tran, and pull the 3v through the motor. No?

Hey All,

Let me present my next round of noob question to keep you all on your toes....

I'm trying to add AmandaLDR to my next project. Two eyes in front, two on the bottom for edge detection. The problem is that digital outs and space for wires are limited, so I was hoping to combine my SuperBright LEDs into a single output if at all possible.

When I connected the anode of one LED to the cathode of the next LED, only the second LED would work. Ditto for the third of 3, etc.

1. Is that because of the forward voltage of the LEDs?

Like many here, I were in need of a bit of amplification of a weak signal. This signal had "low impedance", I suppose. The supplied circuit diagram shows two different ways of meeting my need.

The left circuit uses a NPN transistor. The right hand circuit uses a PNP transistor. I chose the one with PNP. Quite "arbitrarily". The BP103B is also known as FA300.