I like the idea of an electronics kit with instructions.
But (and I'm sorry if this sounds negative but I'm just FED UP) I'm so SICK of freaking subscription services. Can't you guys just rely on interested customers coming back if they want to? The way I see it, there's absolutely no relation between the message you have on the site to teach people electronics and make a few bucks while you're at it, and the need for customers to have accounts, registration, subscription and all of that crap. Just let me buy the kit I'm interested in and be done with it! With so many subscription services around, I'm following a policy of immediately disregarding anything following the same model, specially if there's really no need for it. Make a one-time purchase option, with no registration or crappy spammy emails and I'd be interested (yes i know you won't share my details with 3rd party but you'll hammer me with emails on every freaking occasion I know.)
Agree. Also not wanting to pick on this particular project but:
I have burned myself - and seen others got burned - too many times on subscriptions.
Feature keys? Thumbs up. Commercial with 15 days trial? Fine. Pay for online storage? Only if you provide a better alternative than Dropbox, Google or AWS. Monthly payment for static apps? Bad. Creating an online experience (syncing in your proprietary "cloud") to justify monthly payments? Yuck.
I want my apps to work without constantly having to pay a protection fee to a vendor.
This of course goes against what every make-a-SAAS-tutorial will tell you but I am speaking here as a consumer :-]
I think the thing that bothers me more about the subscription plans right now is that I don't have an expectation of what I am going to get for the first few months. There is no schedule, no 'theme' or anything like that listed on the OP but I feel (recently) that every time I am presented with a new subscription service I have no idea what I am getting even the next month, which defeats the point.
Was thinking the same thing. Businesses are saying let's milk the elearning space with subscriptions. No visibility into the projects or anything. Tap on a subscription and you are immediately presented with a $100 add on for a soldering iron some clips, and $20 worth of goods.
Ability to buy multiple kits on demand = requirement for inventory = higher overhead = higher prices. Theoretically. You can tweak the inventory need but that still increases overhead (less) while simultaneously cutting into your margins.
Any time you see "$400 value for $10/mo!" it's marketing garbage, but you really can get for $20/mo what would probably cost you $25 or a little more if you bought it on-demand.
My issue with learning electronics is that there's a steep gap between "plug this into that" and "plug this into that because x". I want to learn how to reason about the latter. Most resources I've seen like this don't give you that, they just have a bunch of prefab projects and lead you through them with the former strategy. Fortunately I've been able to learn some of the latter on my own but it would be great to see a good resource for the former.
I know how to program. I don't want to program a microcontroller to do all of the work. I don't want to build a "WiFi robot", I want to build a simple circuit with a few LEDs and understand completely how it works and why it was designed that way. I want to know how to choose the right batteries and resistors, or what components I need for arbitrary projects.
I recommend The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill.
I'm an electrical engineer and in my experience most EE courses are very math heavy. This is because the theory behind electronics is very math heavy. Many people don't enjoy doing math problems in their spare time, though. The thing is that after you get past the theory and into the practice, the math mostly drops away as you learn abstractions and little tricks to aid in designing circuits. I like The Art of Electronics because it has the math there if you need it, but assumes you didn't get past Algebra. It mostly leads with the abstractions and little tricks that you would use to design circuits with a just a pen and paper.
Some people find it tedious, though. My advice is not to read it cover to cover. Read the parts that interest you and use the rest as a reference.
There may be better electronics books out there, but one that I've found very helpful is Electronic Components -- A complete Reference for Project Builders by Delton T. Horn (1992). It explains enough of the theory of how the various components work to get a reasonable intuition, but it also describes the various kinds of those components that are available and why one might be better than another for some particular application.
> I want to build a simple circuit with a few LEDs and understand completely how it works and why it was designed that way.
Once you get bored by "battery plus LED" circuits, I recommend Nibbler 4 bit CPU [1] and transistor clock [2]. They are sufficiently complex to be impressive and hone your EE skills, yet simple enough to still finish even if you're not really an EE. They also can be understood completely, there are no secrets and all design decisions are explained in the documentation.
I've been doing it as a VERY light hobby now for a few years (maybe building a little thing every few months or so, using an ESP8266 here and there). I still don't quite get where the hell they are getting the amount of resistance needed, or why this capacitor is needed here, etc...
I still haven't found any good resources that are between "plug x into y" and "read the whitepages for every component you will use and figure it out yourself". Most "advanced" tutorials/guides will just throw equations at you and say something like "you need to use this equation to figure out your resistance" but never why it's that equation, or why i should use that over the other one, or what situations that will apply to, or where they got the magic number they plugged into it.
I want to gain the "intuition" (probably not the right word) to know when I need to use this equation, where I'll need resistance at all, when it might be a good idea to have a capacitor. I know what each does on a basic level, i just need that next level of understanding.
He pointed out that the classes were usually theory heavy where you do piles of math without building anything. He said the kits normally had you plug stuff up without understanding what's going on. So, he tried to do a course that was incremental and build-oriented like kits but gave you understanding of theory/concepts a bit at a time. I haven't used the service but it was only one that claimed to do this.
There are a lot of good book suggestions but I'll toss out an alternative idea of buying "bad" kits. Kits that just take care of one task. Maybe its the RF guts of a 30M ham radio receiver that barely technically works. Now you get to spend engineering effort on the somewhat simpler tasks of making a decent source of regulated noise free power, and build a decent AF amp strong enough to turn the headphones level audio into something driving a speaker using a couple transistors (or maybe an IC). And the input filtering isn't very good so you get to design a nice 10Mhz or so bandpass filter wide enough to let most of the receiver bandwidth thru but block enough interference signals especially AM radio transmitters. And now input signal levels are going to be low enough that a dedicated class A RF amp on the input might be a good idea to boost signals. Next thing you know you're going to be unhappy with the frequency stability of the VFO, so you either rig one of dozens of DDS VFO kits in its place or stabilize the free running VFO in the kit.
Anyway the point is if you can regulate power and build amplifiers and filters but not quite up to the level of building a 30M radio receiver, then improving a bad kit would be a good plan.
Likewise if your "wifi robot" you don't want is close source silo 100% maxed out no expansion possible it is quite useless. But if its got an IO pin or two and you want to learn how to light LEDs using resistors and maybe a transistor or two, you can use the wifi robot to handle the whole "how to turn it on and off" part while you focus on the source vs sink current limits and the excitement of inverting transistor driver circuits and the virtues of putting the LED in the collector or emitter circuit (assuming bipolar transistor) or the joys of trying to bias different types of switching FET transistors, oh its all a barrel of fun but by leveraging the unwanted "wifi robot" you can avoid some hassle.
Also note that the "maker community" of java programmers learning to solder and the ham radio community of EEs learning to program java, never ever cross pollinate. However I live in both camps and the ham radio guys have decades of "learn you some electronics for greater good" general category of book. So if you're not having much luck with the maker style books there are literal decades of the ham radio branch "learn electronics" books. Check the ARRL to start.
Step 1: Buy Getting Started in Electronics by Forrest M. Mims, or any other book by him.
Step 2: Build all the projects in his books. You'll only need a proto board and a few other cheap components.
You'll build up an intuition in electronics by doing all these projects. If you want to throw a microcontroller in the mix, get the cheap TI MSP430 Launchpad- it's about $5, and you can use C or Arduino.
I have to agree...this is WAY overpriced. I could see spending $50-75 for the first kit maybe, which would include the more expensive parts that you'll be reusing later, then $20-25 a month after that, but $720 -$1080 for a year??? That's just insane. Any profit they're gaining from the high prices is costing them in lost volume.
> Step 1: Buy Getting Started in Electronics by Forrest M. Mims
This is the defacto book for beginners but I've never really been able to parse the format. I've gone through a lot of books and none seem to match the approach (gently, less formal) with some formatting that is easy to ingest.
I do love the Launchpads, and they were a ton of fun to use (the IDE is a beast, though). I'd say starting with Arduino or a Pi before a microcontroller is a natural step for beginners, though.
An esp8266 Arduino Uno form factor breakout is even cheaper ($3.6 shipped), and comes with wifi, and works with the extraordinarily simple Arduino IDE (and all of the related libraries, tutorials, etc)
An alternative which I subscribe to is Hackerboxes[0]. It's a bit cheaper at $44/month and each month's box comes with all of the required hardware. You can check out the instructions for past boxes here[1].
I've followed both thimble.io and Hackerboxes prior to launch and thimble.io definitely has more thorough instructions and a nice learning platform[2] which may be less intimidating for beginners.
I ended up going with Hackerboxes because the kits include all the parts, use of open source hardware, the lower price, and they've already shipped a year's worth of kits.
The Hackerboxes site's main picture is of some surface mount blank boards, and I thought "Those guys are hardcore - they expect you to solder surface mount." But no. None of their kits require SMT assembly. The pictures are just clip art.
Is there a subscription box that sends you just the parts for a project that uses an Arduino? Basically, I want to save cost by not having to get the (usually) most expensive part of the kit. I don't mind dismantling each month's project to reuse the core components.
The price is a bit steep. I could probably justify it if I saw more project examples with a parts list. I can get an arduino uno knockoff from Amazon for about $5, so I'd want to know what is included to justify the price. Of course a major part of the price is coming up with kit, sourcing all the parts, etc.
This is exactly what I need. I got an undergraduate education in CS and biochem, and now that I'm employed it felt impossible to devote time or energy to studying electronics. The subject is simply too deep. I was worried the only way I'd ever be able to learn would be to go back to university. This looks like a solution to my problem!
The only thing I worry about is a lack of mathematical rigor, but I suppose as long as I can get hands on experience that amounts to much more than I'd accomplish on my own.
In any event, this is beyond awesome and I'm subscribing as soon as I get home.
All I have is a breadboard, some wire, a variety of passive components and ICs from HK ($20 total for tens of thousands of parts), a USB oscilloscope (eBay $60-$200), and maybe an AVR or STM32 development board. I'm overwhelmed by the number of analog and digital projects I can do, and I've been messing around with my kit for a couple years. I mostly do hobby filter design and audio synthesis.
I'm not at all technical by nature. I learned from the ARDX kit (but I still don't know much). It's what I recommend to other women. Work on it like a jigsaw puzzle in front of the TV at night for as many nights as it takes to finish.
One project per kit is a problem because you can't just move on to the next project. You get stuck and frustrated. I find dealing with that frustration is a big part of technical learning for beginners that lack confidence. with a kit that gives you a lot of projects you don't go to bed feeling dumb like you can't do this. This matters. At least to me.
50 bucks is pretty steep for a student like me. If something in the $20 range (that included no arduinos, just really shitty and cheap stuff off the "Shenzhen market" as Dave would say). No brand name stuff and I'd be fine with crappier instructions.
The cutoff for college student involvement is pretty much $20 and that's where the bread and butter market for something like this is. EE/CE/CS student's who want to be able to "do" electronics. Intersplice it will lesses on simple formulas we need in class and you've got a winner, you could even recylce kits every semester.
That's so retro. Take a look at the ads in this 1957 issue of Popular Electronics.[1] "You can train at home for good pay jobs Radio-Television - Get Practical Experience with Kits N.R.I. sends." (p.99) "You build AC-DC Superhet Receiver". "You build Vacuum Tube Voltmeter". A competing school offers a course that gets all the way up to building a TV kit. (p.7) And there's the DeVry Technical Institute, trying to sign up veterans back then and still at it today.
I wanted to find at least one photo of the kit. The video is similar, but I prefer at least 2 or 3 photos.
About the video: (I didn't watch it f100%) Do all projects require soldering? Can I filter for non soldering projects? (Actually, I can solder but not extremely good. I even tried a few home made projects with my daughter so she can learn to solder, but she has already done many non soldering projects.)
I remember changing the channel on a color HeathKit TV at my grandparents by shaking house keys because the ultrasonic remote sensor circuit interpreted it as channel down. (It had a diagnostic and circuit diagram on a fold-down panel IIRC.)
Also my father and grandfather both made multiple technology generations of oscilloscopes from kits. And, my father opened an electrical automotive shop in Santa Clara, thanks in part to learning from HeathKit and other study-at-home electronics courses.
I did this in the 1960s with American Basic Science Club. The projects were incremental- the amplifier tube one month became the core of the radio receiver next month and hamradio telegraph another month. I got almost everything to work. It was five dollars a month then, maybe 75 dollar in current money.
http://www.quickreference.info/small-business-stories/americ...
I see similar kits are making a comeback.
Nice looking site and packaging. I am teaching myself analog electronics design, and something to help me achieve that objective quicker would be nice. I am doing it as a hobby and don't want to spend a lot either!
I think the price of $50 or $60 for a random kit is a too expensive[1]. A better model for the product, in my opinion is a magazine + bag of parts and materials $20-$30 monthly or bi-monthly seems fair. The parts and materials could be used to build circuits and conduct experiments that help you better understand the theory.
[1]As a reference point, for probably $20, you could get yourself a TI launchpad (or similar) and a bunch of parts that would allow you to build a TON of fun and interesting circuits.
This kind of thread is exactly the reason I read HN every day. You folks all rock. You just cost me a lot of money, but it's for all kind of fun stuff I can probably use at work as an entertainment electrician.
Thanks for the Hacker Box rec too, just subscribed. My crew at work is already excited.
[+] [-] beshrkayali|9 years ago|reply
But (and I'm sorry if this sounds negative but I'm just FED UP) I'm so SICK of freaking subscription services. Can't you guys just rely on interested customers coming back if they want to? The way I see it, there's absolutely no relation between the message you have on the site to teach people electronics and make a few bucks while you're at it, and the need for customers to have accounts, registration, subscription and all of that crap. Just let me buy the kit I'm interested in and be done with it! With so many subscription services around, I'm following a policy of immediately disregarding anything following the same model, specially if there's really no need for it. Make a one-time purchase option, with no registration or crappy spammy emails and I'd be interested (yes i know you won't share my details with 3rd party but you'll hammer me with emails on every freaking occasion I know.)
[+] [-] reitanqild|9 years ago|reply
I have burned myself - and seen others got burned - too many times on subscriptions.
Feature keys? Thumbs up. Commercial with 15 days trial? Fine. Pay for online storage? Only if you provide a better alternative than Dropbox, Google or AWS. Monthly payment for static apps? Bad. Creating an online experience (syncing in your proprietary "cloud") to justify monthly payments? Yuck.
I want my apps to work without constantly having to pay a protection fee to a vendor.
This of course goes against what every make-a-SAAS-tutorial will tell you but I am speaking here as a consumer :-]
[+] [-] xemdetia|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brentis|9 years ago|reply
Nope.
[+] [-] pc86|9 years ago|reply
Any time you see "$400 value for $10/mo!" it's marketing garbage, but you really can get for $20/mo what would probably cost you $25 or a little more if you bought it on-demand.
[+] [-] ProZsolt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sir_Cmpwn|9 years ago|reply
I know how to program. I don't want to program a microcontroller to do all of the work. I don't want to build a "WiFi robot", I want to build a simple circuit with a few LEDs and understand completely how it works and why it was designed that way. I want to know how to choose the right batteries and resistors, or what components I need for arbitrary projects.
[+] [-] blackguardx|9 years ago|reply
I'm an electrical engineer and in my experience most EE courses are very math heavy. This is because the theory behind electronics is very math heavy. Many people don't enjoy doing math problems in their spare time, though. The thing is that after you get past the theory and into the practice, the math mostly drops away as you learn abstractions and little tricks to aid in designing circuits. I like The Art of Electronics because it has the math there if you need it, but assumes you didn't get past Algebra. It mostly leads with the abstractions and little tricks that you would use to design circuits with a just a pen and paper.
Some people find it tedious, though. My advice is not to read it cover to cover. Read the parts that interest you and use the rest as a reference.
[+] [-] tzs|9 years ago|reply
https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-1-basic-circ...
https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-2-amplificat...
https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-3-applicatio...
[+] [-] elihu|9 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Components-Complete-Refere...
[+] [-] pps43|9 years ago|reply
Once you get bored by "battery plus LED" circuits, I recommend Nibbler 4 bit CPU [1] and transistor clock [2]. They are sufficiently complex to be impressive and hone your EE skills, yet simple enough to still finish even if you're not really an EE. They also can be understood completely, there are no secrets and all design decisions are explained in the documentation.
[1] http://bigmessowires.com/nibbler [2] http://transistorclock.com
[+] [-] Klathmon|9 years ago|reply
I've been doing it as a VERY light hobby now for a few years (maybe building a little thing every few months or so, using an ESP8266 here and there). I still don't quite get where the hell they are getting the amount of resistance needed, or why this capacitor is needed here, etc...
I still haven't found any good resources that are between "plug x into y" and "read the whitepages for every component you will use and figure it out yourself". Most "advanced" tutorials/guides will just throw equations at you and say something like "you need to use this equation to figure out your resistance" but never why it's that equation, or why i should use that over the other one, or what situations that will apply to, or where they got the magic number they plugged into it.
I want to gain the "intuition" (probably not the right word) to know when I need to use this equation, where I'll need resistance at all, when it might be a good idea to have a capacitor. I know what each does on a basic level, i just need that next level of understanding.
[+] [-] nickpsecurity|9 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13260343
He pointed out that the classes were usually theory heavy where you do piles of math without building anything. He said the kits normally had you plug stuff up without understanding what's going on. So, he tried to do a course that was incremental and build-oriented like kits but gave you understanding of theory/concepts a bit at a time. I haven't used the service but it was only one that claimed to do this.
[+] [-] adammunich|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vordoo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AtheistOfFail|9 years ago|reply
Then look up each component and look at videos relating to them (most of them will include the technicals)
These kits are more for children in the software/hardware space.
[+] [-] VLM|9 years ago|reply
Anyway the point is if you can regulate power and build amplifiers and filters but not quite up to the level of building a 30M radio receiver, then improving a bad kit would be a good plan.
Likewise if your "wifi robot" you don't want is close source silo 100% maxed out no expansion possible it is quite useless. But if its got an IO pin or two and you want to learn how to light LEDs using resistors and maybe a transistor or two, you can use the wifi robot to handle the whole "how to turn it on and off" part while you focus on the source vs sink current limits and the excitement of inverting transistor driver circuits and the virtues of putting the LED in the collector or emitter circuit (assuming bipolar transistor) or the joys of trying to bias different types of switching FET transistors, oh its all a barrel of fun but by leveraging the unwanted "wifi robot" you can avoid some hassle.
Also note that the "maker community" of java programmers learning to solder and the ham radio community of EEs learning to program java, never ever cross pollinate. However I live in both camps and the ham radio guys have decades of "learn you some electronics for greater good" general category of book. So if you're not having much luck with the maker style books there are literal decades of the ham radio branch "learn electronics" books. Check the ARRL to start.
[+] [-] velodrome|9 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third...
[+] [-] coupdejarnac|9 years ago|reply
You'll build up an intuition in electronics by doing all these projects. If you want to throw a microcontroller in the mix, get the cheap TI MSP430 Launchpad- it's about $5, and you can use C or Arduino.
[+] [-] ChristianGeek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nkozyra|9 years ago|reply
This is the defacto book for beginners but I've never really been able to parse the format. I've gone through a lot of books and none seem to match the approach (gently, less formal) with some formatting that is easy to ingest.
I do love the Launchpads, and they were a ton of fun to use (the IDE is a beast, though). I'd say starting with Arduino or a Pi before a microcontroller is a natural step for beginners, though.
[+] [-] blhack|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] htoooh|9 years ago|reply
I've followed both thimble.io and Hackerboxes prior to launch and thimble.io definitely has more thorough instructions and a nice learning platform[2] which may be less intimidating for beginners.
I ended up going with Hackerboxes because the kits include all the parts, use of open source hardware, the lower price, and they've already shipped a year's worth of kits.
[0] http://www.hackerboxes.com/
[1] http://www.instructables.com/member/HackerBoxes/instructable...
[2] https://learning.thimble.io/
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antjanus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] impostervt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] echelon|9 years ago|reply
The only thing I worry about is a lack of mathematical rigor, but I suppose as long as I can get hands on experience that amounts to much more than I'd accomplish on my own.
In any event, this is beyond awesome and I'm subscribing as soon as I get home.
[+] [-] vortico|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quineoa|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ageofwant|9 years ago|reply
Example: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/0603-SMD-SMT-Chip-Capacitor-Assor...
[+] [-] pokemongoaway|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SexyCyborg|9 years ago|reply
I'm not at all technical by nature. I learned from the ARDX kit (but I still don't know much). It's what I recommend to other women. Work on it like a jigsaw puzzle in front of the TV at night for as many nights as it takes to finish.
One project per kit is a problem because you can't just move on to the next project. You get stuck and frustrated. I find dealing with that frustration is a big part of technical learning for beginners that lack confidence. with a kit that gives you a lot of projects you don't go to bed feeling dumb like you can't do this. This matters. At least to me.
[+] [-] gravypod|9 years ago|reply
The cutoff for college student involvement is pretty much $20 and that's where the bread and butter market for something like this is. EE/CE/CS student's who want to be able to "do" electronics. Intersplice it will lesses on simple formulas we need in class and you've got a winner, you could even recylce kits every semester.
[+] [-] Animats|9 years ago|reply
Distance learning goes back a long way.
[1] http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Poptronics/50s/5...
[+] [-] gus_massa|9 years ago|reply
About the video: (I didn't watch it f100%) Do all projects require soldering? Can I filter for non soldering projects? (Actually, I can solder but not extremely good. I even tried a few home made projects with my daughter so she can learn to solder, but she has already done many non soldering projects.)
[+] [-] throwaway4891a|9 years ago|reply
I remember changing the channel on a color HeathKit TV at my grandparents by shaking house keys because the ultrasonic remote sensor circuit interpreted it as channel down. (It had a diagnostic and circuit diagram on a fold-down panel IIRC.)
Also my father and grandfather both made multiple technology generations of oscilloscopes from kits. And, my father opened an electrical automotive shop in Santa Clara, thanks in part to learning from HeathKit and other study-at-home electronics courses.
[+] [-] peter303|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acupofnope|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hahamrfunnyguy|9 years ago|reply
I think the price of $50 or $60 for a random kit is a too expensive[1]. A better model for the product, in my opinion is a magazine + bag of parts and materials $20-$30 monthly or bi-monthly seems fair. The parts and materials could be used to build circuits and conduct experiments that help you better understand the theory.
[1]As a reference point, for probably $20, you could get yourself a TI launchpad (or similar) and a bunch of parts that would allow you to build a TON of fun and interesting circuits.
[+] [-] Elizzy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pokeymc|9 years ago|reply
edit: Just to be clear, the next kit does ship in January 2017.
[+] [-] xeromal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] borski|9 years ago|reply
http://www.nerdkits.com
[+] [-] larrykubin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curiousmonkey90|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ruminasean|9 years ago|reply
Thanks for the Hacker Box rec too, just subscribed. My crew at work is already excited.