I've been trying to get a grip on op amps and I can't find anything online that's very helpful. Can some one give me a good explanation, or point me to a website that has a good explanation(with examples). I don't really want to know the math right, know just what they are good for and how to use them.
Also to use an op amp do you have to have a negative power supply? Like just a standard wall wart won't work?
I've looked at that. While it's very in depth thats not really what I'm looking for. What I really want is a something simple for right away. With some real life examples that I can relate to.
Some opamp circuits use dual-polarity supply voltages so that the input is biased at half-way which is 0V then the output is also half-way at 0V and can swing the maximum positive or negative.
Any opamp can use a single supply voltage if its input is biased at half the supply voltage and its input, output and feedback 0V connection are capacitor-coupled.
Then its output is also at half the supply voltage and can swing the maximum amount in a positive or a negative direction.
An opamp does Amplifies a voltage signal.
We connect this to hear because A signal or voltage to the positive (Non-inverting Amp) or negative (Inverting Amp) input. The other input is connected to a reference or to a feedback element in the circuit..
If you do this then When the positve input is increased to a value larger than the negative input the output goes higher and vise versa.
The opamp is used in many configurations so a more in depth discussion would take a lot more. For simple experiments and testing a LM741 would be a good choice.