YouTube University. Seriously: watch 30, 50, or a 100 videos. You will develop an intuition for what is happening. THEN read books (some good ones already suggested in other comments) and you will learn the concrete theory.
I want to emphasize the importance of developing the intuition behind the theory. It's vital, and the lack of intuition is why so many people find a complex, theoretical topic difficult. If they had spent time developing their intuition, then they would not struggle so much to understand and remember the theory.
Last, you have to build stuff (this also helps with the intuition). Decide that you are going to spend $300, and start buying parts. Don't go to Radio Shack, because you will (in my experience) pay an order of magnitude more for the same part. Shop on Aliexpress (or sometimes Amazon or Ebay). Who cares if you have to wait 6 weeks for the part to come in... do it today and it will be here about the time that you are ready for it. Never buy just one of anything. You can usually buy 10 or 20 for the same price that you can buy 2 or 3.
Most importantly: DO SOMETHING! Anything. Watch videos. Buy parts. Put things together, and then try to figure out why it's not working! Whatever you do, just don't stop. You will learn if you keep at it. At this stage for you, though, the most important thing is that you actually start.
I essentially started electronics because of Big Clive. I found him entertaining, and his curiosity rubbed off. It's nice to have a simple, practical context for learning the basics, and his channel provides that in spades.
As for gearing up, I think $300 is way on the high end. A cheap $10 temp-controlled soldering iron, solder, flux, and flush-cut snips are most of what you need. I'd add in some assorted parts bags; you can get like 20 each of dozens of different resistors in a big sack for $15 on eBay. Do that for common stuff like LEDs, capacitors, transistors, and some arduinos and such, and you're good to go. Could be well under $100 for a good start.
His YouTube videos are incredibly accessible despite their technical depth. Once you get your feet wet with the basics, I highly recommend his videos. They are a treasure trove of information while simultaneously being easy to understand & follow. I wish my professors could teach like him.
This way of learning resonates a lot with how I learnt to properly cook. I could cook some simple enough dishes fine, but then I got really into watching a few cooking channels on YouTube and (with a bit of practice) noticeably improved.
It’s actually mad the amount of stuff you pick up through watching someone who’s good at what they do doing it and explaining it well, prodding at your understanding while they do it.
No, no and no. If I watch even 10 Youtube videos without building anything, I give up.
I'd love to learn electronics. You know what I need? ONE Youtube video, and a single kit I can buy on Amazon.com to build what's shown on the video. Then a second video, and an exercise (either with the same kit, or something else).
That's how I would stick to it.
Too often, people like you think that the issue of learning is about finding information. It's not! In the age of internet and being one or two click away from everything, the issue is simply to keep the motivation high.
Thank you for your comment on the "How to Self-Learn Electronics?" Hacker News thread.
"YouTube University. Seriously: watch 30, 50, or a 100 videos. You will develop an intuition for what is happening. THEN read books (some good ones already suggested in other comments) and you will learn the concrete theory."
I have been thinking a lot about it in the past few days, and it makes a lot of sense, and may be very helpful in helping me increase my learning speed. I am not referring to electronics just yet but learning in general. Whenever I want to learn how to make a new dish in the kitchen such as fried tofu, kettle corn, carmel corn, etc. I will simply watch 5-10 YouTube videos and just absorb what makes sense, and I think this may be called intuition and it is nice to realize what is happening.
In regards to learning software engineering though, I don't do that as often, although I did with HTTP/2 and it was fantastic. I do watch a lot of videos but I also slog through a lot of technical books at a slow-reading style pace. It is very helpful BUT I see that I will be limited in my learning throughout my life to just a few subjects at this rate.
I am going to now follow your advice and watch 5-10 hours of videos on new topics before doing the deep dives into the books and still deep dive, but now I will have that intuition.
Thanks for sharing that, it has had an effect on my future!
"Shop on Aliexpress (or sometimes Amazon or Ebay)."
Buying from potential(probability:good on listed sites) 2nd & rejected lots will torpedo any initial enthusiasm.
Go to mouser.com.
Not an advert, nor affiliated, just happy with their products & service.
I self-learned enough electronics a few years ago to get to 16.5K karma on the Electronics StackExchange.
I was motivated by doing some audio projects. Projects have real requirements, and so they force you to iterate on the design until you hit all your requirements: power supply logistics, signal purity, enclosure, ...
Get a good textbook like Horowitz The Art of Electronics.
Learn how to use a CAD-based circuit simulator program like LTSpice. Build the circuits you read about in the simulator, and run them: apply signals, and look at how the voltages behave at various nodes in the circuit, as a function of time.
Read schematics.
Read schematics for equipment that you know. If you're into vintage audio, that is not hard to come by.
Recently I was looking at the schematics for a "Furman PQ-3" parametric equalizer (Google for it). I blinked twice and did a "double take" and then immediately recognized that its filter bank consists of "state variable filters": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_variable_filter
Bam! Didn't even know what that was some four, five years ago.
Check out the power supply: the output of the transformer goes to a dual-voltage regulator. That feeds the chips. The unregulated voltage is also tapped and that is used for an emitter-follower output-stage on the upper left.
This is completely pointless. The op-amp IC's have such stages inside them too; why do they get regulated power and this one doesn't? On a dual supply, op-amp chips don't really need regulation.
If I built a clone of the device, I'd completely leave out this discrete component output stage; it is pointless. You're not going to drive speakers with this thing, but relatively high-impedance inputs (the next device in the chain, possibly a power amp).
So you can see what I'm doing here; critically looking at (the electronic aspect of) a complete product. Doing that requires some learning, but it also produces learning bit by bit.
You ask questions: why is that stage here? Why did they include this component? What is this transistor/resistor/diode doing here? Is there a pattern to this, and where have I seen it before? Is it really the same pattern and is it justified in this context? And so on.
I took a physics class using the Art of Electronics in my senior year of undergrad (my major was nuclear eng. and my lab partner was another nuclear eng. friend).
This class ranked right up there with my nuclear engineering labs in the following sense: 1) using an oscilloscope in a lab setting takes a lot of patience & hard work (similar to radiation detectors) 2) I wasn't prepared for how "fuzzy" (sorry, I know that is not the right word) electronic components behave when examined in a lab setting. I was used to resisters and capacitors, and in previous labs they behaved fairly well. This class showed me how complex it all is, and "Art" is not a bad word to describe it at all.
I learned a lot and strongly 2nd the Horowitz recommendation if you want to really get down into the nitty gritty. Maybe it isn't the first book you pick up depending on your background, I dont' know. AND, I hope oscilloscopes and their user manuals have gotten a lot more friendly in the intervening years since 1991 :-)
Back in '77, op-amps weren't as good as they are now in terms of PSRR and output power. That push-pull output stage is quaint but given that they wrapped it in the feedback loop of the last op-amp, it may have been a necessity at the time.
Every time i've tried to use some combination of a Spice program and something like EagleCad I get really lost quickly. It's clearly software written for people who already know what they are doing.
Do you have any good resources on learning such conceptually?
Some fun schematics to "read" are Fender's digital microcontroller adjustable tube amps; basically the modern incarnations of integration of tube technology with solid-state and modern microcontrollers. Last I knew (when I did web dev for them 5-6 years ago), you could download them from their site.
You can find similar circuits from the 1950s-60s Popular Science back-issues on Google Books; that's the time period when hobbyists were transitioning from tube-based stuff to more solid-state and transistor stuff (transistors came down in price enough, plus they were more reliable) - so occasionally, you can find an article on some project combining both technologies.
One reason it can be so frustrating (to me) to practice the “read a bunch of schematics” approach is that, unlike code that tends to be filled with inherent textual clues like filenames, function names, and variable names, electronic schematics tend to be very cryptic. Single letter names, only a subtle visual grouping of components to show functional units, no hint of the rationale behind component value choices. If this equalizer were digital, the filter would be a function called StateVariableFilter(), and you wouldn’t have had to intuit that from looking at it.
Basically, whenever I look at a schematic, I think “why do analog engineers like to work in the equivalent of assembly language?”
I do more digital than analog electronics, and based on Verilog and VHDL, those folks seem to be working with “stone knives and bear skins” too! At least they get to have real names for things.
Not being at all a professional electronic engineer, I’m sure this a misguided reaction, but I’m not sure exactly how.
Avoid first principles (to start with), instead focus on a domain you're interested in and buy a DIY kit from a vendor in that domain to solve a niche application. Repeat 3-10 times. Start dabbling in other domains. If you have a question, youtube it.
The way a lot of people get into electronics, as a hobby, is wanting a piece of hardware for a simple application, seeing existing solutions are very expensive, and discovering a community of people building their own solutions.
The way a lot of people get out of electronics, as a hobby, is loosing interest. Seeing something you built come to life is a great way to maintain interest, getting stuck in theory and first principals may delay that gratification long enough to loose interest. Later on it's fantastic for building something new from scratch that no one has seen before (even more gratifying.)
For every generation this is different so depending how old the person you're asking you'll likely get a different 'stock answer' about how they got into it.
In the 50's it was radio equipment. In the 60' was home built hi-fi. In the 70's it was kit computers. In the 80's it was a lot of radio controlled aircraft. In the 90's a lot of car tuning. In the 2000's it was modchips for video game consoles. In the 2010's a lot of stuff with Arduinos for smarthome, smart clothing, art projects. The details and exact time periods may vary a bit but the general idea is you get something tailored to your needs better and cheaper than buying off the shelf.
A good place to start is find a project someone else has done and written up, recreate it, modify it, then publish your twist on it. Repeat. For instance, here is a good starting point to add custom mood-lighting to your home: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide
Keep a journal of things you have open questions about as you're going through these projects on dropbox paper (for instance) and fill them in with knowledge by asking on forums, stack exchanges, youtube, here and elsewhere.
I really like the 3rd edition of The Art of Electronics. The text is a fun read, and the student manual is a great extension of the main text, with a bunch of practical insight and discussion that puts it beyond mere exercises.
Caveat: I'm a software guy. I burn myself when I solder. I make smoke come out of components. I might not be the right person to listen to :-)
With the exception of an oscilloscope, you can put together a simple bench for a few hundred dollars. I've had mixed luck stocking components (for instanced, either my circuits are clueless crap, or the 10Mhz crystals I bought off of eBay are just empty cans -- in any event, a circuit that should oscillate just sits there). I found a used Tektronix scope and couldn't be happier, it really makes a difference when you're debugging something.
I'm a ham and built all my radio gear, it's perfectly normal to burn yourself when you learn soldering. It's really all a part of the learning curve. Though I still prefer an iron with a gun you're less likely to burn yourself.
I was maybe fifteen and had my dad help me as a third hand and I burned him. My late dad had the patience of Job. He didn't get angry or raise his voice.
He just told me that he'd never let me forget doing it. Sure enough for the rest of his life he'd tease me about the 'scar' I gave him.
On the topic of cheap oscilloscopes, I was looking for a cheap logic analyzer when I found the Saleae Logic. Not an oscilloscope, but if you put an input into analog mode you can visualize the waveform nicely. They have a discount for non-commercial use and startups.
There are a few recommendations for The Art of Electronics. It's a great reference, but probably hard to approach as a beginner unless you're very motivated and comfortable being confused at points.
Electronics covers a huge field and many people specialize in just one area. Here are some of the main areas that are accessible to hobbyists (roughly in increasing order of difficulty):
- Digital electronics. Using microcontrollers to do things in the physical environment.
- Audio electronics. This is a fun area of electronics because the quality of what you build is directly reflected in how it sounds.
- Amateur radio electronics. Lets you talk to other people around the world. Harder than basic audio circuits because you need to know about antennas and radio operates at higher frequencies. Also requires passing an exam to get licensed, but studying for the exam helps with learning some of the theory.
- FPGAs. These are sexy, but not many applications that are that compelling for a hobbyist unless you have something very specific in mind. Plus you have to learn Verilog or another HDL and the way of thinking is very different than normal programming (since you're effectively describing the hardware you want rather than an algorithm).
My advice is to first figure out which field you're interested in, then find a project to work on related to that field. Having something practical to refer to makes understanding the theory (like what you'd learn in The Art of Electronics) easier.
These days it is a lot easier to get a good grounding in electronics. I would recommend you get a copy of The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill, and ideally the teacher's manual (which has answers for many of the exercises).
Then get a simple "combo" tool (oscilloscope, signal generator, power supply, digital multimeter) like the OpenScope MZ[1] or the Espotek Labrador[2]. Add a handful of components, a wireless breadboard and some jumpers and you've got enough to do most of the labwork that the first few years of an undergraduate EE program can do.
If you can find an old Maxitronic "n00 in 1 electronics projects" kit[3] they give you a pretty solid platform for building different circuits that you could analyze fairly completely with the USB attached lab instruments.
Depending on how it goes (if you're doing circuits from the all in one kit or building them out of the Art of Electronics book) you can look at how things interact and get a solid feel for things.
FWIW, this is like saying "how do I self-learn programming?" - in that there is some common underlying theory, and then specific branches you travel down. it helps to have a goal or project, so it anchors you down one of those roads.
I was schooled in electronics for 5 years - I have the fundamentals down enough that I can reason about things. I can draw the schematic for a power supply, but I couldn't tell you what sort of capacitive or inductive circuitry specifications would be needed.
On the other hand, i'm building a MTG card sorting machine; and while i've never controlled relays and stepper motors before with software, I know enough that I can fill-in-the-blanks and what sort of issues to be mindful of.
So projects helps a lot - always be tinkering with something or somethings. Watching youtube channels (like aVe) that are tinker-focused and do experiments and explore electronics theory and applications - that can help a lot too.
Also, checkout a hamfest if there's any near you coming up. You see all sorts of crazy stuff there that can inspire all sorts of projects. Just don't go with too much money or room in your car.
Build stuff. Modify things. Be stubborn when they don't work. Take things apart and figure out why they do work.
Here are some fun project ideas, drawn from stuff I actually did when I was growing up/learning electronics. For reference, I almost completely skipped college, and am a hardware engineer at a company you've heard of (I can't believe it either).
-Lego car with electric motor scavenged from a floppy drive + 9V battery (grade school first project)
-High voltage generator (10kV?) using CRT flyback transformer and 2n3055 transistor circuit.
-Pocket audio amplifier using an OPAMP circuit. (search: mint tin amplifier)
-Countdown timer that can set off fireworks (don't end up on a list please).
-Worm robot using ATMEGA328, hobby servos, cardboard and masking tape.
-Disassembled hard drives and built a laser-scanning XY galvo system from the parts, fed by an amplified audio stereo pair (easy, fun and psychedelic)
Speaking as someone who got a degree in CS / software and then taught myself electronics after I got out of school. I relied heavily on Sparkfun.com to get started. Adafruit.com is also a strong competitor these days. They each have a ton of really great tutorial material for beginners. There are a lot of links here that people are listing that are great content but not for beginners. Along the same lines I would explicitly avoid reading any books on the topic cover to cover. I bought the Art of Electronics because it is billed as a bible for the field. It is, but I never use it.
As for tools and supplies. I would avoid buying very many things upfront* instead buy them as you need them to complete a project. The only general tools I would buy are a multi-meter (Fluke 115), bread board, jumper wires, resistor kit [0], solder iron (Weller WE1010NA), and maybe oscilloscope / digital logic analyzer combo like the Saleae Logic 8. You can get all these things, name brand top quality tools, for about $800 total. I would stay away from super cheap import type stuff to start. Some of it is fine but it isn't worth the frustration for a beginner when it doesn't work. The more expensive stuff will also grow with you as you get more advanced where as you will quickly out grow the cheapo stuff.
As far as formal equations you need to know the only ones I ever really use are V=IR (Ohm's law) and P=IV. If you paid attention in high school physics you probably already know these.
*The problem with buying a lot of stuff up front is that you end up with a bunch of less expensive stuff that doesn't really grow with you or a pile of parts that are a pain to keep organized and are obsolete by time you get around to using them or that you can't find datasheets on.
Ditto. Also software wonk who landed in embedded. Followed a lot of the tutorials on Adafruit and Sparkfun. Bought a lot of equipment and parts from both. Have done a lot of fun little digital circuit problems. Halloween is definitely more fun these days.
It sort of depends on what you're interested in. Audio? Radio? Basic robotics? Cool digital sensors? Something that tweets every time you open your refrigerator door? Simplest answer buy an arduino intro kit with breadboard and some pre-made jumper wires.
There's lots of advice geeking out about special high-quality soldering gear, my advice is don't even worry about that yet. You're mostly going to be doing breadboarding at first anyway. And besides a cheap iron is fine. (Everyone, please stop glaring at me.)
Only other piece of equipment you might want is a cheap multimeter. You can get these off amazon for $9. Sure it's not going to be accurate in some edge case you can find but 97% of the time you only ever use the continuity tester and after that the voltage tester, which are pretty hard to get wrong. No, you will not need an oscilloscope or a logic analyzer or a special high quality multimeter or anything like that.
Save the big purchases for when you know you really care about it. Front-loading the cost of a bunch of special gear before you even know why you might need it and may never is a hobby anti-pattern. You can just buy cheap beginner kits.
Otherwise, and arguably sort of ruining the fun, are circuit simulators. A good one is falstad.com/circuit/ . It's much faster to draw up a simulation than to put together a breadboard circuit, you can add instrumentation and swap values ad nauseam, and you are less likely to make an inscrutable wiring mistake that contributes to small declines in your mental health than you are with a physical prototype. I use this for small analog circuits all the time to double check myself.
Going to throw another book in the ring. I generally recommend this book for people getting started, because it teaches them how to solve specific problems with real examples. The theoretical side of electronics can be quite daunting because of the sheer number of concepts and understanding of mathematics that are required.
Practical Electronics for Inventors covers a large number of important circuit/electronic concepts but grounds them in real world application. Perfect for getting your hands dirty while learning the most pragmatic aspects of electronic theory.
Seconded. While Art of Electronics is the classic text, this one is a bit more accessible. It has less depth but more breadth, and is less intimidating because of it.
I would agree, but with the caveat that the math sections of this book should only be skimmed (i.e. just plug numbers into the given formulas). The derivations & explanations are brief enough they will just be more confusing, but that is what art of electronics is better at. Although both books are excellent repositories of building block circuits, but I think for a hobbyist practical electronics for inventors is more approachable and easier to stick with.
Most importantly: Your first oscilloscope should be analog.
You don't need fancy test equipment with a zillion features, but it's especially important for a beginner to have well-made and properly-functioning test equipment. You need to be able to trust the readings even if you do something silly with it.
Buy a bunch of cheap battery operated toys (<$10, no remote control), the simpler the better. Take them apart. Try to put them back together, or put just parts of it back together. Start increasing the complexity of the toys you take apart.
People say basics are resistors, capacitors, inductors. Only for theory. If you want to build stuff, start with understanding power, switches, circuits -- not ICs, just making closed loops, series vs parallel, etc.
After your first few toy autopsies, get yourself a collection of LEDs, motors, copper wire, batteries, and perf-boards and paper clips. Make some switchy circuits doing various things. Make a car that can go straight. Make a car that will change directions when it hits a wall. Think about adding a microcontroller. Think about adding a USB interface, or a BT remote control. Add an LED display showing random numbers. If you spend the time on it and some loose change, you can learn a lot up to building real products from simple electronic toys. You'll learn about resistors and capacitors just from following the instructions of how to install these more advanced things into your existing circuits.
I've tried 3 times to teach myself electronics to the point where I can reliably make simple stuff work, and finally got it to start to click about 9 months ago. I'm still very much a newbie, but I am just slightly ahead of where it sounds like you are.
Not all of the videos are useful, but if you browse through the "Most popular", you might find some interesting stuff. I did. There's also a long tail of other channels that post the odd interesting beginner-electronics video. Type in search terms for things you're confused by, and you'll find tens of people trying their best to explain it to you in a way you can understand. Don't understand one? Try the next person.
I bought an "Arduino starter kit" off eBay for about £35. It came with an Arduino Uno, a breadboard, some bits of jumper wire, resistors, a few capacitors, a relay, a servo, some LEDs, an LCD display, etc. Just a basic bunch of stuff to start playing with. (I think I paid more than the constituent parts were actually worth, but if they weren't all bundled together for me I wouldn't have known what to get at all, so I got plenty of value from it anyway.)
Then just start playing with it. In the process of trying to make stuff work you'll accidentally learn about pull-up and pull-down resistors, switch debouncing, filtering capacitors, using transistors to switch larger loads, SPI, I2C, and it'll all start fitting together in your mind. Every time you learn a new thing it opens up a bunch more avenues of stuff to research.
The resources available on YouTube are so much better than they were even 3 years ago. I think that's what has helped me "succeed" this time.
The biggest issue I've found is finding projects to work on that are actually useful. Of course you have to start with the basics, but not many people have a use for a simple blinking LED in their life.
Finding projects that you can make that can actually do something that interests you makes a world of difference.
It's like learning programming/OOP through the typical animal examples versus making an app that is something you would actually use or fills a need that you have.
A while ago I would have recommended you get The Art of Electronics, and The Student Manual for this, and then some cheap tools and components, and then just work your way through the student manual doing all the experiments and then reading the main book to learn the theory.
That's still a good choice, but you'll notice it's getting a bit outdated.
And it's definitely worth just dipping in and out of -- and eventually reading all the way through -- "The Art of Electronics." It's a terrific book, and manages to be both readable and super in-depth about every topic you could possibly want to know about when you're trying to figure out what's what.
There are also a number of inspiring blogs by electrical engineers who are also great writers. Which ones to follow sort of depend on what specialties you are most interested in, but Bunnie Huang's is a great one to start with: https://www.bunniestudios.com/
I started with EEVBlog, especially "Fundamentals Friday" and the series where he designs things. Next, I turned to the textbook at AllAboutCircuits.
Next thing I did was design and build a DC lab. I bought my meters and scopes outright, but designed and built my own DC load and power supply. Since I'd already watched Dave's videos about them on EEVBlog, they were obviously influenced by his design, but I made a couple of non-trivial changes to the spec so that I'd have to make my own design decisions. I found this electronics stackexchange post very helpful for heat dissipation calculations [0]. Also, while it's very simple and not suitable for complex or precise work, Falstad's circuit simulator was very helpful for experimenting [1].
My next step was fixing things. This gave me an opportunity to do a bunch of things:
* Become familiar with ICs. At first I always had to look up the number on every IC I saw to figure out how it was supposed to behave before I could test if its actual behavior matched, but over time you'll start recognizing those numbers and understanding why it was chosen over another component that does the same job.
* Drawing schematics. Debugging is really hard without a schematic, so on anything remotely complex, my first step was often searching for a schematic. This search often came up empty, so my second step would be following all the traces and looking up all the chips so that I could draw a circuit diagram and figure out roughly what I should expect.
* Soldering. This should be fairly self-explanatory.
Frankly, I haven't gotten past here yet. I'm not terribly good with AC theory or RF stuff. I came to this thread looking for recommendations on that part, but I don't think there's any reason my methods so far wouldn't work; I just haven't had the time.
[+] [-] coreyp_1|8 years ago|reply
I want to emphasize the importance of developing the intuition behind the theory. It's vital, and the lack of intuition is why so many people find a complex, theoretical topic difficult. If they had spent time developing their intuition, then they would not struggle so much to understand and remember the theory.
Last, you have to build stuff (this also helps with the intuition). Decide that you are going to spend $300, and start buying parts. Don't go to Radio Shack, because you will (in my experience) pay an order of magnitude more for the same part. Shop on Aliexpress (or sometimes Amazon or Ebay). Who cares if you have to wait 6 weeks for the part to come in... do it today and it will be here about the time that you are ready for it. Never buy just one of anything. You can usually buy 10 or 20 for the same price that you can buy 2 or 3.
Most importantly: DO SOMETHING! Anything. Watch videos. Buy parts. Put things together, and then try to figure out why it's not working! Whatever you do, just don't stop. You will learn if you keep at it. At this stage for you, though, the most important thing is that you actually start.
[+] [-] coreyp_1|8 years ago|reply
Electricity videos. Audio can be annoying, but the visualizations (although corny at times) are outstanding for developing intuition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiHVe8U5PhU&list=PLkyBCj4JhH...
GreatScott! - building projects
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mIxFTvXkWQVEHPsEdflzQ
bigclivedotcom - does A LOT of teardowns, and you learn A LOT by seeing what designers have done wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtM5z2gkrGRuWd0JQMx76qA
EEVblog - Dave talks (sometimes a bit long-winded, but I like him anyway) about various electronics topics. His explanations are outstanding.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2DjFE7Xf11URZqWBigcVOQ
Afrotechmods - Both good for explanations as well as building stuff
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCosnWgi3eorc1klEQ8pIgJQ
[+] [-] fhood|8 years ago|reply
Crucial Items.
- A real soldering station.
- Solder
- ALL THE RESISTORS
- ALL THE WIRES (Solid core is really handy for mocking with breadboards
- A good multimeter
- A good power supply
- Breadboards
- Shrink tube
I think that covers the main things. Also nice to have are
- Heat gun
- fume hood (this is overkill for a hobbyist probably)
- Oscilloscope (I hear they are getting nearly affordable)
- Crimps (molex)
- A real crimping tool (Not pliers. One of the ratcheting ones.)
- All the other stuff I forgot about.
[+] [-] Obi_Juan_Kenobi|8 years ago|reply
As for gearing up, I think $300 is way on the high end. A cheap $10 temp-controlled soldering iron, solder, flux, and flush-cut snips are most of what you need. I'd add in some assorted parts bags; you can get like 20 each of dozens of different resistors in a big sack for $15 on eBay. Do that for common stuff like LEDs, capacitors, transistors, and some arduinos and such, and you're good to go. Could be well under $100 for a good start.
[+] [-] _xlr2|8 years ago|reply
His YouTube videos are incredibly accessible despite their technical depth. Once you get your feet wet with the basics, I highly recommend his videos. They are a treasure trove of information while simultaneously being easy to understand & follow. I wish my professors could teach like him.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/user/eaterbc
[+] [-] carelesswhisper|8 years ago|reply
It’s actually mad the amount of stuff you pick up through watching someone who’s good at what they do doing it and explaining it well, prodding at your understanding while they do it.
[+] [-] steamer25|8 years ago|reply
Circuit Jam helps a bit for practice: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.circuitjam
Also, stack exchange: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions?sort=votes
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|8 years ago|reply
I'd love to learn electronics. You know what I need? ONE Youtube video, and a single kit I can buy on Amazon.com to build what's shown on the video. Then a second video, and an exercise (either with the same kit, or something else).
That's how I would stick to it.
Too often, people like you think that the issue of learning is about finding information. It's not! In the age of internet and being one or two click away from everything, the issue is simply to keep the motivation high.
[+] [-] ElijahLynn|8 years ago|reply
"YouTube University. Seriously: watch 30, 50, or a 100 videos. You will develop an intuition for what is happening. THEN read books (some good ones already suggested in other comments) and you will learn the concrete theory."
I have been thinking a lot about it in the past few days, and it makes a lot of sense, and may be very helpful in helping me increase my learning speed. I am not referring to electronics just yet but learning in general. Whenever I want to learn how to make a new dish in the kitchen such as fried tofu, kettle corn, carmel corn, etc. I will simply watch 5-10 YouTube videos and just absorb what makes sense, and I think this may be called intuition and it is nice to realize what is happening.
In regards to learning software engineering though, I don't do that as often, although I did with HTTP/2 and it was fantastic. I do watch a lot of videos but I also slog through a lot of technical books at a slow-reading style pace. It is very helpful BUT I see that I will be limited in my learning throughout my life to just a few subjects at this rate.
I am going to now follow your advice and watch 5-10 hours of videos on new topics before doing the deep dives into the books and still deep dive, but now I will have that intuition.
Thanks for sharing that, it has had an effect on my future!
[+] [-] adamnemecek|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qume|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tunap|8 years ago|reply
Not an advert, nor affiliated, just happy with their products & service.
[+] [-] amenghra|8 years ago|reply
Eg ask component manufacturers to send you samples, recycle electronics from things you or others throw away, etc.
[+] [-] minhaz23|8 years ago|reply
What about home improvement/construction?
Thoughts/opinions anyone?
[+] [-] kazinator|8 years ago|reply
I was motivated by doing some audio projects. Projects have real requirements, and so they force you to iterate on the design until you hit all your requirements: power supply logistics, signal purity, enclosure, ...
Get a good textbook like Horowitz The Art of Electronics.
Learn how to use a CAD-based circuit simulator program like LTSpice. Build the circuits you read about in the simulator, and run them: apply signals, and look at how the voltages behave at various nodes in the circuit, as a function of time.
Read schematics.
Read schematics for equipment that you know. If you're into vintage audio, that is not hard to come by.
Recently I was looking at the schematics for a "Furman PQ-3" parametric equalizer (Google for it). I blinked twice and did a "double take" and then immediately recognized that its filter bank consists of "state variable filters": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_variable_filter
Bam! Didn't even know what that was some four, five years ago.
Here is one copy of the schem: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/attachments/so-much-gear-so-...
Check out the power supply: the output of the transformer goes to a dual-voltage regulator. That feeds the chips. The unregulated voltage is also tapped and that is used for an emitter-follower output-stage on the upper left.
This is completely pointless. The op-amp IC's have such stages inside them too; why do they get regulated power and this one doesn't? On a dual supply, op-amp chips don't really need regulation.
If I built a clone of the device, I'd completely leave out this discrete component output stage; it is pointless. You're not going to drive speakers with this thing, but relatively high-impedance inputs (the next device in the chain, possibly a power amp).
So you can see what I'm doing here; critically looking at (the electronic aspect of) a complete product. Doing that requires some learning, but it also produces learning bit by bit.
You ask questions: why is that stage here? Why did they include this component? What is this transistor/resistor/diode doing here? Is there a pattern to this, and where have I seen it before? Is it really the same pattern and is it justified in this context? And so on.
[+] [-] sgs1370|8 years ago|reply
This class ranked right up there with my nuclear engineering labs in the following sense: 1) using an oscilloscope in a lab setting takes a lot of patience & hard work (similar to radiation detectors) 2) I wasn't prepared for how "fuzzy" (sorry, I know that is not the right word) electronic components behave when examined in a lab setting. I was used to resisters and capacitors, and in previous labs they behaved fairly well. This class showed me how complex it all is, and "Art" is not a bad word to describe it at all.
I learned a lot and strongly 2nd the Horowitz recommendation if you want to really get down into the nitty gritty. Maybe it isn't the first book you pick up depending on your background, I dont' know. AND, I hope oscilloscopes and their user manuals have gotten a lot more friendly in the intervening years since 1991 :-)
[+] [-] mng2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tibbon|8 years ago|reply
Do you have any good resources on learning such conceptually?
[+] [-] cr0sh|8 years ago|reply
You can find similar circuits from the 1950s-60s Popular Science back-issues on Google Books; that's the time period when hobbyists were transitioning from tube-based stuff to more solid-state and transistor stuff (transistors came down in price enough, plus they were more reliable) - so occasionally, you can find an article on some project combining both technologies.
[+] [-] wrs|8 years ago|reply
Basically, whenever I look at a schematic, I think “why do analog engineers like to work in the equivalent of assembly language?”
I do more digital than analog electronics, and based on Verilog and VHDL, those folks seem to be working with “stone knives and bear skins” too! At least they get to have real names for things.
Not being at all a professional electronic engineer, I’m sure this a misguided reaction, but I’m not sure exactly how.
[+] [-] deelowe|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulgerhardt|8 years ago|reply
The way a lot of people get into electronics, as a hobby, is wanting a piece of hardware for a simple application, seeing existing solutions are very expensive, and discovering a community of people building their own solutions.
The way a lot of people get out of electronics, as a hobby, is loosing interest. Seeing something you built come to life is a great way to maintain interest, getting stuck in theory and first principals may delay that gratification long enough to loose interest. Later on it's fantastic for building something new from scratch that no one has seen before (even more gratifying.)
For every generation this is different so depending how old the person you're asking you'll likely get a different 'stock answer' about how they got into it.
In the 50's it was radio equipment. In the 60' was home built hi-fi. In the 70's it was kit computers. In the 80's it was a lot of radio controlled aircraft. In the 90's a lot of car tuning. In the 2000's it was modchips for video game consoles. In the 2010's a lot of stuff with Arduinos for smarthome, smart clothing, art projects. The details and exact time periods may vary a bit but the general idea is you get something tailored to your needs better and cheaper than buying off the shelf.
A good place to start is find a project someone else has done and written up, recreate it, modify it, then publish your twist on it. Repeat. For instance, here is a good starting point to add custom mood-lighting to your home: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide
Keep a journal of things you have open questions about as you're going through these projects on dropbox paper (for instance) and fill them in with knowledge by asking on forums, stack exchanges, youtube, here and elsewhere.
[+] [-] kabdib|8 years ago|reply
Caveat: I'm a software guy. I burn myself when I solder. I make smoke come out of components. I might not be the right person to listen to :-)
With the exception of an oscilloscope, you can put together a simple bench for a few hundred dollars. I've had mixed luck stocking components (for instanced, either my circuits are clueless crap, or the 10Mhz crystals I bought off of eBay are just empty cans -- in any event, a circuit that should oscillate just sits there). I found a used Tektronix scope and couldn't be happier, it really makes a difference when you're debugging something.
[+] [-] Humdeee|8 years ago|reply
There are excellent stock images out there to make your soldering experience even more memorable:
https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2016/03/stockphotowoman...
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/man-soldering-repairing-prin...
[+] [-] rmason|8 years ago|reply
I was maybe fifteen and had my dad help me as a third hand and I burned him. My late dad had the patience of Job. He didn't get angry or raise his voice.
He just told me that he'd never let me forget doing it. Sure enough for the rest of his life he'd tease me about the 'scar' I gave him.
[+] [-] LCoder|8 years ago|reply
https://www.saleae.com/
[+] [-] InitialLastName|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] setquk|8 years ago|reply
With respect to oscillators, the old saying of “amplifiers oscillate; oscillators don’t” comes to mind. Electronics is a cruel and unforgiving field.
Also burn myself and let the magic smoke out and I’m apparently qualified in this field. Go figure :)
A broken Tektronix scope will teach you more about electronics than a textbook too. I think I’ve had about 20 of the things over the years.
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffreyrogers|8 years ago|reply
Electronics covers a huge field and many people specialize in just one area. Here are some of the main areas that are accessible to hobbyists (roughly in increasing order of difficulty):
- Digital electronics. Using microcontrollers to do things in the physical environment.
- Audio electronics. This is a fun area of electronics because the quality of what you build is directly reflected in how it sounds.
- Amateur radio electronics. Lets you talk to other people around the world. Harder than basic audio circuits because you need to know about antennas and radio operates at higher frequencies. Also requires passing an exam to get licensed, but studying for the exam helps with learning some of the theory.
- FPGAs. These are sexy, but not many applications that are that compelling for a hobbyist unless you have something very specific in mind. Plus you have to learn Verilog or another HDL and the way of thinking is very different than normal programming (since you're effectively describing the hardware you want rather than an algorithm).
My advice is to first figure out which field you're interested in, then find a project to work on related to that field. Having something practical to refer to makes understanding the theory (like what you'd learn in The Art of Electronics) easier.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|8 years ago|reply
Then get a simple "combo" tool (oscilloscope, signal generator, power supply, digital multimeter) like the OpenScope MZ[1] or the Espotek Labrador[2]. Add a handful of components, a wireless breadboard and some jumpers and you've got enough to do most of the labwork that the first few years of an undergraduate EE program can do.
If you can find an old Maxitronic "n00 in 1 electronics projects" kit[3] they give you a pretty solid platform for building different circuits that you could analyze fairly completely with the USB attached lab instruments.
Depending on how it goes (if you're doing circuits from the all in one kit or building them out of the Art of Electronics book) you can look at how things interact and get a solid feel for things.
[1] https://store.digilentinc.com/openscope-mz-open-source-all-i...
[2] https://www.crowdsupply.com/espotek/labrador
[3] I picked up one of these when I was teaching electronics to kids (https://www.elenco.com/product/300-in-1-electronic-project-l...) and got one of the 500 in one versions at a garage sale.
[+] [-] meesterdude|8 years ago|reply
I was schooled in electronics for 5 years - I have the fundamentals down enough that I can reason about things. I can draw the schematic for a power supply, but I couldn't tell you what sort of capacitive or inductive circuitry specifications would be needed.
On the other hand, i'm building a MTG card sorting machine; and while i've never controlled relays and stepper motors before with software, I know enough that I can fill-in-the-blanks and what sort of issues to be mindful of.
So projects helps a lot - always be tinkering with something or somethings. Watching youtube channels (like aVe) that are tinker-focused and do experiments and explore electronics theory and applications - that can help a lot too.
Also, checkout a hamfest if there's any near you coming up. You see all sorts of crazy stuff there that can inspire all sorts of projects. Just don't go with too much money or room in your car.
[+] [-] asteli|8 years ago|reply
Here are some fun project ideas, drawn from stuff I actually did when I was growing up/learning electronics. For reference, I almost completely skipped college, and am a hardware engineer at a company you've heard of (I can't believe it either).
-Lego car with electric motor scavenged from a floppy drive + 9V battery (grade school first project)
-High voltage generator (10kV?) using CRT flyback transformer and 2n3055 transistor circuit.
-Pocket audio amplifier using an OPAMP circuit. (search: mint tin amplifier)
-Countdown timer that can set off fireworks (don't end up on a list please).
-Worm robot using ATMEGA328, hobby servos, cardboard and masking tape.
-Disassembled hard drives and built a laser-scanning XY galvo system from the parts, fed by an amplified audio stereo pair (easy, fun and psychedelic)
[+] [-] cmonfeat|8 years ago|reply
I would also add fix stuff to that list. You can learn a ton by fixing broken electronics (or trying to) as it forces you to learn how they work.
[+] [-] pmorici|8 years ago|reply
As for tools and supplies. I would avoid buying very many things upfront* instead buy them as you need them to complete a project. The only general tools I would buy are a multi-meter (Fluke 115), bread board, jumper wires, resistor kit [0], solder iron (Weller WE1010NA), and maybe oscilloscope / digital logic analyzer combo like the Saleae Logic 8. You can get all these things, name brand top quality tools, for about $800 total. I would stay away from super cheap import type stuff to start. Some of it is fine but it isn't worth the frustration for a beginner when it doesn't work. The more expensive stuff will also grow with you as you get more advanced where as you will quickly out grow the cheapo stuff.
As far as formal equations you need to know the only ones I ever really use are V=IR (Ohm's law) and P=IV. If you paid attention in high school physics you probably already know these.
*The problem with buying a lot of stuff up front is that you end up with a bunch of less expensive stuff that doesn't really grow with you or a pile of parts that are a pain to keep organized and are obsolete by time you get around to using them or that you can't find datasheets on.
[0] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10969
[+] [-] linuxlizard|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerfhammer|8 years ago|reply
There's lots of advice geeking out about special high-quality soldering gear, my advice is don't even worry about that yet. You're mostly going to be doing breadboarding at first anyway. And besides a cheap iron is fine. (Everyone, please stop glaring at me.)
Only other piece of equipment you might want is a cheap multimeter. You can get these off amazon for $9. Sure it's not going to be accurate in some edge case you can find but 97% of the time you only ever use the continuity tester and after that the voltage tester, which are pretty hard to get wrong. No, you will not need an oscilloscope or a logic analyzer or a special high quality multimeter or anything like that.
Save the big purchases for when you know you really care about it. Front-loading the cost of a bunch of special gear before you even know why you might need it and may never is a hobby anti-pattern. You can just buy cheap beginner kits.
There are some good youtube channel suggestions. One to add is Eugene K's visualizations of the physics of voltages and electronic components: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkyBCj4JhHt8DFH9QysGW...
Otherwise, and arguably sort of ruining the fun, are circuit simulators. A good one is falstad.com/circuit/ . It's much faster to draw up a simulation than to put together a breadboard circuit, you can add instrumentation and swap values ad nauseam, and you are less likely to make an inscrutable wiring mistake that contributes to small declines in your mental health than you are with a physical prototype. I use this for small analog circuits all the time to double check myself.
Have fun.
[+] [-] gamedna|8 years ago|reply
Going to throw another book in the ring. I generally recommend this book for people getting started, because it teaches them how to solve specific problems with real examples. The theoretical side of electronics can be quite daunting because of the sheer number of concepts and understanding of mathematics that are required.
Practical Electronics for Inventors covers a large number of important circuit/electronic concepts but grounds them in real world application. Perfect for getting your hands dirty while learning the most pragmatic aspects of electronic theory.
[+] [-] jcrabtr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zrobotics|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kartD|8 years ago|reply
And this https://www.digikey.com/en/resources/edu/harvard-lab-kit (BOM's with all the components needed by the book)
[+] [-] marshray|8 years ago|reply
Also, get a Soldapullt.
This is a plenty good enough multimeter: https://www.amazon.com/Fluke-101-Multimeter-Equipment-Indust...
Most importantly: Your first oscilloscope should be analog.
You don't need fancy test equipment with a zillion features, but it's especially important for a beginner to have well-made and properly-functioning test equipment. You need to be able to trust the readings even if you do something silly with it.
[+] [-] keerthiko|8 years ago|reply
People say basics are resistors, capacitors, inductors. Only for theory. If you want to build stuff, start with understanding power, switches, circuits -- not ICs, just making closed loops, series vs parallel, etc.
After your first few toy autopsies, get yourself a collection of LEDs, motors, copper wire, batteries, and perf-boards and paper clips. Make some switchy circuits doing various things. Make a car that can go straight. Make a car that will change directions when it hits a wall. Think about adding a microcontroller. Think about adding a USB interface, or a BT remote control. Add an LED display showing random numbers. If you spend the time on it and some loose change, you can learn a lot up to building real products from simple electronic toys. You'll learn about resistors and capacitors just from following the instructions of how to install these more advanced things into your existing circuits.
[+] [-] jstanley|8 years ago|reply
I recommend these YouTube channels:
https://www.youtube.com/user/greatscottlab
https://www.youtube.com/user/EEVblog
Not all of the videos are useful, but if you browse through the "Most popular", you might find some interesting stuff. I did. There's also a long tail of other channels that post the odd interesting beginner-electronics video. Type in search terms for things you're confused by, and you'll find tens of people trying their best to explain it to you in a way you can understand. Don't understand one? Try the next person.
I bought an "Arduino starter kit" off eBay for about £35. It came with an Arduino Uno, a breadboard, some bits of jumper wire, resistors, a few capacitors, a relay, a servo, some LEDs, an LCD display, etc. Just a basic bunch of stuff to start playing with. (I think I paid more than the constituent parts were actually worth, but if they weren't all bundled together for me I wouldn't have known what to get at all, so I got plenty of value from it anyway.)
Then just start playing with it. In the process of trying to make stuff work you'll accidentally learn about pull-up and pull-down resistors, switch debouncing, filtering capacitors, using transistors to switch larger loads, SPI, I2C, and it'll all start fitting together in your mind. Every time you learn a new thing it opens up a bunch more avenues of stuff to research.
The resources available on YouTube are so much better than they were even 3 years ago. I think that's what has helped me "succeed" this time.
Good luck!
[+] [-] programbreeding|8 years ago|reply
Finding projects that you can make that can actually do something that interests you makes a world of difference.
It's like learning programming/OOP through the typical animal examples versus making an app that is something you would actually use or fills a need that you have.
[+] [-] osoba|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|8 years ago|reply
That's still a good choice, but you'll notice it's getting a bit outdated.
For learning the hobbyist end and some skills and techniques I recommend this guy: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh8JiW2G9yR2v7TwUm04m_g
He has some tutorials for simple surface mount soldering, and some useful reviews of equipment. He uses mostly correct soldering techniques too.
[+] [-] kwindla|8 years ago|reply
Here's the "learn" page on the Adafruit web site: https://learn.adafruit.com/
And the Adafruit Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/adafruit
And it's definitely worth just dipping in and out of -- and eventually reading all the way through -- "The Art of Electronics." It's a terrific book, and manages to be both readable and super in-depth about every topic you could possibly want to know about when you're trying to figure out what's what.
There are also a number of inspiring blogs by electrical engineers who are also great writers. Which ones to follow sort of depend on what specialties you are most interested in, but Bunnie Huang's is a great one to start with: https://www.bunniestudios.com/
[+] [-] howard941|8 years ago|reply
http://www.arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio
https://www.qrz.com/i/ham-radio-howto.html
http://www.ncarc.net/?q=node/57
edit for form
[+] [-] hxtk|8 years ago|reply
Next thing I did was design and build a DC lab. I bought my meters and scopes outright, but designed and built my own DC load and power supply. Since I'd already watched Dave's videos about them on EEVBlog, they were obviously influenced by his design, but I made a couple of non-trivial changes to the spec so that I'd have to make my own design decisions. I found this electronics stackexchange post very helpful for heat dissipation calculations [0]. Also, while it's very simple and not suitable for complex or precise work, Falstad's circuit simulator was very helpful for experimenting [1].
My next step was fixing things. This gave me an opportunity to do a bunch of things:
* Become familiar with ICs. At first I always had to look up the number on every IC I saw to figure out how it was supposed to behave before I could test if its actual behavior matched, but over time you'll start recognizing those numbers and understanding why it was chosen over another component that does the same job.
* Drawing schematics. Debugging is really hard without a schematic, so on anything remotely complex, my first step was often searching for a schematic. This search often came up empty, so my second step would be following all the traces and looking up all the chips so that I could draw a circuit diagram and figure out roughly what I should expect.
* Soldering. This should be fairly self-explanatory.
Frankly, I haven't gotten past here yet. I'm not terribly good with AC theory or RF stuff. I came to this thread looking for recommendations on that part, but I don't think there's any reason my methods so far wouldn't work; I just haven't had the time.
[0]: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/55513/can-a-...
[1]: http://www.falstad.com/circuit/