Live Online - Basic Electrical Troubleshooting Course

Course Overview (In Person)

Length: 20 hours live instruction

Demonstrations: ~75%

Hands-On: Optional equipment rental

Prerequisites: None! – Come as you are! This course is designed to accommodate beginners and starts at the basics to ensure a solid foundation.

Summary Description: This live online course develops and solidifies the student's understanding of electrical concepts through high-definition demonstrations on our proprietary white-bench setup. Students watch real circuits being constructed, tested, and troubleshot in real-time while the instructor poses questions and challenges before demonstrating outcomes. Interactive Q&A throughout each session ensures concepts are clear, while optional equipment rental enables hands-on practice at the student's location.

Detailed Description

Through high-definition cameras on our demonstration bench, students will observe circuits being constructed, tested, and troubleshot in real-time. This is NOT the typical "death by PowerPoint" online training – this is real, truly engaging instruction where you'll watch actual equipment being tested, configured, and troubleshot live.

The course starts at the basics to help students make sense of basic electricity and electrical concepts, including typical electrical circuits, schematics, prints, and diagrams. Students will then proceed into electrical troubleshooting to improve logic, efficiency, and effectiveness of troubleshooting efforts in the field.

The instructor will pose questions and challenges before demonstrating outcomes, helping students develop intuitive understanding of electrical behavior. This strategic, practical observation-based teaching style aligns very well with how most technical people learn and does a fantastic job of associating the concepts learned to real-world applications.

Rather than simply focusing on whether the students 'find the fault or not', this course emphasizes the process and the logic used to find the fault. This course strives to 'unteach' the practices of 'easter-egging' or 'guessing' (i.e. poking around with fingers crossed).

Hands-On Equipment Rental

For students who want the full hands-on experience, we offer professional training equipment rental that ships directly to your location. This includes the same components used in our demonstrations.

• Build the same labs from class at your own pace
• Access additional exercises that go beyond what is covered in the course
• Equipment can be shared among team members to reduce costs
• Various rental terms and options available

Click here for more information and guidance on hands-on options to maximize the value of the training.

Learning Portal Access

All students gain access to our comprehensive online learning portal (30-day access included with registration). In the portal you will find:

• Course session recordings for review
• Supplemental video demonstrations of key concepts
• Step-by-step tutorials
• Interactive troubleshooting simulations with built-in mentoring and guidance
• Practice questions & answers
• Tips & tricks articles
• Troubleshooting aids, forms, and checklists

Our innovative electrical troubleshooting simulator allows students to practice realistic troubleshooting scenarios with immediate feedback on their methodology and decision-making. Learning portal subscriptions are renewable for a small fee if desired.

Course Outcomes:

• Be able to relate physical circuits to wiring diagrams and electrical schematics.
• Intuitively visualize the relationships of current, voltage, and resistance in a circuit via demonstrations and optional hands-on exercises.
• Understand the relationships of power, energy, and wattage in practical ways.
• Be able to utilize the concepts associated with Ohm's Law to solve typical problems in electrical circuits.
• Understand how current and voltages behave in series, parallel, and combination series + parallel circuits.
• Be able to utilize a digital multimeter to properly measure voltage, current, and resistance.
• Be aware of tips and tricks, and common mistakes when using digital multimeters in electrical troubleshooting and maintenance.
• Understand and be able to read and interpret basic electrical schematics, one-line diagrams, and wiring diagrams.
• Gain familiarity with common electrical components.
• Learn to test and analyze the operation of key electrical components such as switches, indicators, solenoids, relays, motors, capacitors, inductors & inductive loads, etc.
• Understand the basics of electrical safety.
• Understand and be able to read and interpret electrical 'ladder' diagrams including wire numbers, terminal numbers, component tags, etc.
• Learn to troubleshoot typical electrical faults using a logical, methodical approach.
• Learn how and why to find the root cause of failure for all equipment failures.
• Learn to determine necessary retest requirements for various equipment, systems, and components.

Key Demonstrations Include:

• Basic circuit concepts (lamps, batteries, switches)
• Series and parallel circuits
• Practical Ohm's Law visualizations
• Visualizing electrical resistance (several demonstrations)
• Basic circuits and common components
• Reading schematics
• Shorts and open circuits
• DMM usage, tips, tricks, and common mistakes
• Conductivity of water (impacts on electrical safety and troubleshooting)
• Understanding electrical shock
• Electrical power and heat
• Causes of failures (inductive kick, power supply problems, etc.)
• Motor concepts and motor starters
• Electrical relays
• AC vs DC power
• AC transformers and motors
• VFDs, Soft-Starters, PWM, and other power control devices
• Troubleshooting practice (numerous levels from zero to hero)

Course Agenda:

• Introduction to Electricity and Ohm’s Law
• Conceptualizing Current flow (the key to visualizing and understanding electrical circuits)
• Relationship between Voltage, Current, Resistance, and Power (Ohm’s Law)
• Behavior of voltage drops and current flows in simple circuits
• Resistance Concepts
• Basic Electrical components
• Basics of metric prefixes as used in electrical field
• Introduction to common electrical faults and basic analysis impact of faults on simple circuits (open circuits, short circuits, etc.)
• Typical electrical control circuits
• Introduction to LOGICAL troubleshooting
• The logical approach and analysis
• The 7-step troubleshooting method
• Inclusion of Root Cause Analysis and proper retests
• Understanding electrical prints, wiring diagrams, and ladder diagrams
• Basic electrical troubleshooting scenarios and demonstrations
• Short circuits (including tips and tricks)
• Intermittent faults (including tips & tricks)
• Analysis of common electrical control circuits

Each student attending will receive a certificate of completion upon finishing the course.

If you have any questions or would like information on training multiple personnel in the same organization or team, please email [email protected] or text/call Mike at (208) 715-1590.