Hydraulic Schematics 101

Name: Hydraulic Schematics 101
Rating: 4.9 (16 reviews)

Hydraulic Schematics for Beginners: Learn to Read and Analyze Circuits Fast

Created byEngineering Pod

Last updated 2/2026

English

What you'll learn

Read hydraulic schematics
Analyze hydraulic schematics
Analyze and understand hydraulic circuits through hydraulic schematics
Reading and recognizing hydraulic schematic symbols

Course content

2 sections • 17 lectures • 1h 40m total length

What are schematics and why do we use them?4:41
Introduction lesson in which we will discuss why do we even use these so called schematics. In this lesson you will learn the basics of diagrams. In the resource part of the lesson you can download a complimentary PDF in which you have more information on hydraulic systems.
Quick overview of a hydraulic system6:38
A quick lesson designed to give you basing understanding about the component sections of a hydraulic system. We also take a look at a simple hydraulic system, analyze it and talk about how to start reading a hydraulic circuit diagram.
Introduction quiz
Types of lines7:06
Generally in hydraulic schematics lines represent connections between components in the hydraulic system, however as we learn in this lecture, there are various lines and some of them don't represent connections.
Types of symbols5:54
In this lesson we will go over the basic shapes that group different components. Circle, square, rhombus (diamond shape). Every group of components has its familiar shape as you will learn through this video.
Lines and symbols
Pumps and motors5:24
In this lesson we go through symbols that represent hydraulic pumps and motors. This is a quick lesson to teach you all of the different schematic symbols you could find that represent these two components.
Hydraulic cylinder symbols4:38
Following in the path that we took in the previous lesson - in this one we discover various different symbols that are used to represent different types of hydraulic cylinders.
Valve symbols8:53
Knowing the components that control the system opens up the possibility of understanding the system. In this lesson we go over types of valve symbols that are used in hydraulic schematics.
Pumps, motors and valves
DCV valves and their notation8:16
Directional control valves are one of the most important components in hydraulic systems. In this lesson we go over how they work and how they are numbered.
Activation symbols8:24
Valves (and sometimes other components) can be actuated in a number of ways. For these number of ways there is a number of symbols. In this lesson we demystify the symbols behind the actuation methods for hydraulic components.
Circuit component symbols7:04
Quick lesson in which we will cover the remaining symbols and components that you could encounter when reading and interpreting hydraulic circuit diagrams.
Final test

Introduction3:41
Quick introduction lesson for the section in which we will look at example circuits, analyzing them and talking about how the fluid acts. Through this section you will get a general understanding when looking at hydraulic schematics.
Simple hand pump circuit3:04
In this quick lesson we analyze a simple hand pump circuit
Simple plunger cylinder circuits5:30
In this quick lesson we analyze simple circuits which incorporate plunger cylinders.
Simple differential cylinder circuit7:33
In this quick lesson we will go over a system that is designed to run a differential hydraulic cylinder with two directional action.
Hydraulic circuit with speed regulation3:20
A quick overview of a circuit that uses flow regulation valves for output speed control. This lecture is meant to give you an idea on how you can implement various solutions for speed regulation.
Hydraulic circuit with pressure regulation6:26
An overview of pressure regulation in hydraulic systems. As we said, flow is what governs speed, in this case pressure governs the output force (or torque).
Hydraulic circuit with energy accumulation4:25
In this quick lesson we go through a circuit that uses hydraulic accumulators. This is the last lesson in the course (for now).

Requirements

Hydraulics 101 would be preferable but not necessary
Medium knowledge of English would be preferable

Description

After seeing that there are a lot of people who bought our course Hydraulic Schematics and Calculation Exercises and didn't like the math aspect of the hydraulic calculation exercises we decided to make a course that will be based solely on hydraulic schematics. This is a quick and easy way to master hydraulic circuit diagrams and to learn how to analyze circuits. The course is divided into two sections:

Schematics
In which you will learn how to recognize all of the symbols on a hydraulic schematic diagram and we will superficially go through what each of these components do.
Hydraulic circuit examples
When reading a sentence it is not enough to only know to spot words but to make sense out of a sentence. Similarly, in the first section we learn about symbols and in this one we incorporate what we learned into reading and analyzing basic hydraulic circuits.

This is our fourth course on hydraulics which is made for everyone, however if you want to learn more, there is Hydraulics 102 - Hydraulic components in depth, in which you can learn all about the components we covered here superficially. This course is made so anyone can start learning but I do advise future students to have a little bit of foreknowledge before diving into this subject just because hydraulics is a fascinating and extensive branch of mechanical engineering.

Who this course is for:

Hydraulic technicians
Mechanical engineers
Engineers
Technicians

Hydraulic Schematics 101

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Schematics10 lectures • 1hr 7min

Hydraulic circuit examples7 lectures • 34min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: