How do you learn electronics when you don’t have access to a lab?
I live in HK, where real estate is at a premium. I’m a family of 4 people, living in a 700 sq-ft home with no garage. (And I’m reckoned to be on the fortunate side of things.)
There is no way I can set up a home lab here.
I know there are circuit simulators, but simulators are not the real thing. I think that simulators (the free ones that I know of anyway) typically don’t simulate random defects and physical variances that you would have to debug and deal with on the real thing.
There are also tangential, and nonetheless practical things that you cannot learn from a simulator: e.g. how to arrange your lab so you can work efficiently and with as few accidents as possible; how to make a good solder.
Learning electronics does not have to take up much space. You can learn a fair amount with a home lab that fits into a desk drawer and you only need about a square meter of desk space while working.
Lots of people like setting up sprawling labs, but there are a few things to keep in mind:
Parts drawers are an incredibly inefficient way to store components. I picked up a few kits of basic components (resistors, capacitors, LEDs) that come in small compartmentalized containers, then stuck those containers and a few loose parts (breadboards, perfboards, small spools of wire) into a cookie tin.
You only need a small collection of hand tools like wire cutters, wire strippers, a soldering iron, and a multimeter. I even have a small digital oscilloscope/signal generator that hooks up to a computer and is about the size of a multimeter.
Modern microcontroller development boards are a huge space saver. They are compact, easy to repurpose for each project, and remove the need for other equipment in most cases (e.g. they provide rudimentary ADCs/DACs and can power for low power projects).
While there will be limits, the biggest hurdle will be self-restraint.
A hobbyist grade electronics lab doesn't need a lot of space and it's not super expensive either. You can get a lot of projects done with tools and components that fit in a shoe box.
Learning electronics is easier than ever before. You can buy smartphone-sized oscilloscopes for less than $200 or even use your smartphone or computer as an oscilloscope/signal generator if you work with audio frequencies. Or plug in a microcontroller board for a few bucks.
You can find textbooks (e.g. [0]) freely online which would've cost you a fortune back in the day (and still do if you want it on paper).
And finally... We still can buy through hole electronics components you can plug into a breadboard. They are obsolete for almost all industrial uses but still widely available. The supply is dwindling but most common components can still be bought.
I am a bit afraid of what will happen when we can no longer buy components in a large form factor that you can solder by hand or stick in a breadboard.
I would look for some local hackerspaces. They usually come with a space for electronics, and at least where I live (tho space is not so premium here), you get a key to access the space whenever, if you are a member.
Alternatively, you might have some luck contacting a local university, they might be open to let you use their lab (again, probably for a fee).
You don't need a lab: electronics components, breadboards, some arduinos, a multimeter and some small tools are enough to start and learn, but it's true that with 4 people in a 65 sq meter, even that may be too much... maybe you can find a fablab in you city ?
You need like one table somewhere you are able to protect from kids and one shelf in some cabinet. Or put the stuff under the bed. It does not take much space. The simplest is to buy cheap soldiering machine and some cheap soldier-it-yourself kits. Or simply, arduino kit. You will learn basics from that abd be able to move from there.
> how to arrange your lab so you can work efficiently and with as few accidents as possible; how to make a good solder.
There are many videos in youtube, it is genuinely easy. You don't need efficient place as a beginner, but if kids are small, you need to be able to defend table with hot iron so that they dont burn themselves accidentally.
Just across the water in Zhuhai here. Used to have some friends doing electronics in HK Island apartments. If you are ruthless about space you can fit a lot in to no space at all. Vertical helps. For an example just look at any phone repair stall. Buy them a beer and chat to them about it. The basics are an oscilloscope, multimeter and soldering iron; a good bench PSU helps. Avoid the yesteryear learning method of storing and manually mounting components, instead order circuit boards with SMT components: far more relevant today and far more efficient in space, time and money terms.
Learned electronics in university, but definitely was able to work on projects in a small apartment later on. Had a small box of electronics stuff that can get put away.
Arduino or various other microcontrollers, multimeter, breadboard, and a bunch of small parts (resistors, capacitors, ICs, LEDs, sensors, wires, etc). Having "lab" gear like an oscilloscope, signal generator is definitely nice but not needed to get started
I did a fair bit with a solderless breadboard when I was a teenager, components just push into the connectors on the board. Obviously this won't let you use surface mount components but you can get started. If I was that age now then an FPGA dev board would be good too.
Another comment suggested working at a hackerspace, you might need your own "toys" to take there.
An electronics labs needs very little space but I will say one huge thing that helps is a dedicated desk surface to allow you to "save your state". In my last apartment I found moving around tons of tiny components and half finished projects gets very frustrating and makes the hurdle to doing the hobby too high.
You can start with a breadboard, oscilloscope and a set of standard parts (LEDs, resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes). Combine this with a microcontroller you can flash via USB dongle or an RaspberryPi. Should all fit on a desk.
The lab is really only necessary for soldering and creating custom PCBs.
soldering iron, solder, and solder sucker don't take much space. But start with bread boards, and wire strippers/cutter and a multi meter, then add in a scope. You can do most everything in the same space a keyboard / mouse take up on a desk. Get creative with finding plastic containers to store parts, and then just put them all in a small suit case. If you get the electronics bug, you'll naturally work out how to grow your area. I mostly just stick with a small kit of stuff for random things using dev boards mostly. Once you get confident, you can get boards made for cheap, then solder it together yourself, but you can get a lot of it done for you, which you will want with surface mount components.
I guess start with breadboards? You can get them cheap at SSP WECL - my friend also living in HK made a DIY exhaust duct taped to his window in his room, to generate negative pressure for carrying away the fumes.
As for equipment you can get started with a multimeter.
While a lot of us learned from breadboards, you could go straight into surface mount these days, which takes up a lot less space. Can keep an entire catalogue of parts in the size of a large book.
I'm a software guy. But I had enough brushes with electronics as a child to use it for hobbies. My first broken device was a speak and spell. I connected wires to random spots to make it "talk funny". My parents first astonished that I was destroying my toys, realized this and pushed me to the electronics section of Radio Shack. Lots of projects starting with the 555 timer IC. I made radios and timers, and connected my computers to things that moved. This microcontroller revolution really has made me wish I had these things growing up.
One important thing though is I had a friend who was at a similar level as myself for grades 5-7. Though he was literally a ham in grade school. We both learned programming around the same time and the back and forth made it seem so much easier than it really was. And we were so much better at recognizing what was going to be useful, popular, powerful when we worked together as compared to working under instruction.
I lost him to a move. And I needed that so much in higher grades. One good industry-centered mentor would have given me so much. But I guess self-motivation is the skill that got me where I am; and I create incredible things on a daily basis. So there's that I guess.
Also quite a lot of fun is Electronoobs - not quite Ben Eater's rigorous approach or info density, but for sure a lot of enthusiastically shared "doing" and inspiration at the beginner level (and analog projects Ben Eater doesn't cover, as he tends to focus on digital logic and signal transmission topics).
I've been slowly teaching myself electronics for the last three years. Started by building electronics kits and gradually over time you start to see similarities between the circuits and questions arise..
Why are there small value capacitors near all the power inputs on the various chips? Why do many of the inputs and outputs have the similar value resistors right near them? What are these diodes doing, going from ground towards the power output?
Curiosity leads to understanding, leads to pattern recognition, leads to greater understanding, and so on.. Now I'm building my own circuits from scratch and routing custom boards in KiCad and it just seems like second nature almost. There are still SO many mysteries and so much more to learn, but once you begin to understand the basics that knowledge allows the next step and so on.. I think all you really need to get started is a soldering iron (get one with adjustable temperature, I love my Hakko but started with a cheaper one), decent multimeter (The UT61E is really great and cheap) and some leaded solder (just don't eat it).. There are cheap digital handh-held scopes these days too and you don't HAVE to have a scope right away.
Components are cheap (check tayda electronics) and it's endlessly fun, especially for those with a side gig working on the computer all the time. I find having something 'real' I can tinker with a great hobby and don't see myself ever stopping at this point.
I've got a dozen tronclub kits completely unopened.
A 200mhz osciloscope I've only used to test the onboard signal generator.
A decent electronic microscope.
Solder paste in my fridge, never opened.
A broken cheap chinese airgun that I was going to repair (I'm pretty sure it's just a capacitor blown out, but I couldn't find the correct value for it).
I'm the opposite of just "do", I research so much ahead of the "do" and the gap gets so big that it just feels incredibly hard to backtrack to where I last actually "did". It's like I eat dessert before the main course and just like my grandma said, I won't eat the main course because I ate the dessert.
I understood this to be a game dev procrastinating joke, you'll be waiting for the Godot engine to be mature forever, instead just start making the game.
It turns out that Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett in which two characters engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting the titular Godot, who never arrives..
Perfect timing. Thanks for posting this. I recently bought a Microbit V2 and Raspberry Pi Pico with a few sensors and a breadboard. Excited to play with these. Thanks to everyone who've suggested informative sources as well. Cheers.
If you're interested in starting electronics, I recommend getting one of the elegoo ardiuno kits off of amazon. They're a surprisingly good hands on way to learn a bunch of basic theory and how to use common parts and sensors.
[+] [-] k_sze|3 years ago|reply
I live in HK, where real estate is at a premium. I’m a family of 4 people, living in a 700 sq-ft home with no garage. (And I’m reckoned to be on the fortunate side of things.)
There is no way I can set up a home lab here.
I know there are circuit simulators, but simulators are not the real thing. I think that simulators (the free ones that I know of anyway) typically don’t simulate random defects and physical variances that you would have to debug and deal with on the real thing.
There are also tangential, and nonetheless practical things that you cannot learn from a simulator: e.g. how to arrange your lab so you can work efficiently and with as few accidents as possible; how to make a good solder.
[+] [-] II2II|3 years ago|reply
Lots of people like setting up sprawling labs, but there are a few things to keep in mind:
Parts drawers are an incredibly inefficient way to store components. I picked up a few kits of basic components (resistors, capacitors, LEDs) that come in small compartmentalized containers, then stuck those containers and a few loose parts (breadboards, perfboards, small spools of wire) into a cookie tin.
You only need a small collection of hand tools like wire cutters, wire strippers, a soldering iron, and a multimeter. I even have a small digital oscilloscope/signal generator that hooks up to a computer and is about the size of a multimeter.
Modern microcontroller development boards are a huge space saver. They are compact, easy to repurpose for each project, and remove the need for other equipment in most cases (e.g. they provide rudimentary ADCs/DACs and can power for low power projects).
While there will be limits, the biggest hurdle will be self-restraint.
[+] [-] exDM69|3 years ago|reply
Learning electronics is easier than ever before. You can buy smartphone-sized oscilloscopes for less than $200 or even use your smartphone or computer as an oscilloscope/signal generator if you work with audio frequencies. Or plug in a microcontroller board for a few bucks.
You can find textbooks (e.g. [0]) freely online which would've cost you a fortune back in the day (and still do if you want it on paper).
And finally... We still can buy through hole electronics components you can plug into a breadboard. They are obsolete for almost all industrial uses but still widely available. The supply is dwindling but most common components can still be bought.
I am a bit afraid of what will happen when we can no longer buy components in a large form factor that you can solder by hand or stick in a breadboard.
[0] https://archive.org/details/art-of-electronics-3e
[+] [-] EEBio|3 years ago|reply
Alternatively, you might have some luck contacting a local university, they might be open to let you use their lab (again, probably for a fee).
[+] [-] poulpy123|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watwut|3 years ago|reply
> how to arrange your lab so you can work efficiently and with as few accidents as possible; how to make a good solder.
There are many videos in youtube, it is genuinely easy. You don't need efficient place as a beginner, but if kids are small, you need to be able to defend table with hot iron so that they dont burn themselves accidentally.
[+] [-] contingencies|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zild3d|3 years ago|reply
Arduino or various other microcontrollers, multimeter, breadboard, and a bunch of small parts (resistors, capacitors, ICs, LEDs, sensors, wires, etc). Having "lab" gear like an oscilloscope, signal generator is definitely nice but not needed to get started
[+] [-] rjsw|3 years ago|reply
Another comment suggested working at a hackerspace, you might need your own "toys" to take there.
[+] [-] porknubbins|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clktmr|3 years ago|reply
The lab is really only necessary for soldering and creating custom PCBs.
[+] [-] keithnz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leohonexus|3 years ago|reply
As for equipment you can get started with a multimeter.
[+] [-] HPsquared|3 years ago|reply
Also, simply browsing through parts catalogues and looking at datasheets can be a great learning experience.
[+] [-] q3k|3 years ago|reply
But as others said, many of us have learned electronics at home in even smaller apartments. You really don't need much to get started.
[+] [-] pjc50|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hemreldop|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sixothree|3 years ago|reply
I'm a software guy. But I had enough brushes with electronics as a child to use it for hobbies. My first broken device was a speak and spell. I connected wires to random spots to make it "talk funny". My parents first astonished that I was destroying my toys, realized this and pushed me to the electronics section of Radio Shack. Lots of projects starting with the 555 timer IC. I made radios and timers, and connected my computers to things that moved. This microcontroller revolution really has made me wish I had these things growing up.
One important thing though is I had a friend who was at a similar level as myself for grades 5-7. Though he was literally a ham in grade school. We both learned programming around the same time and the back and forth made it seem so much easier than it really was. And we were so much better at recognizing what was going to be useful, popular, powerful when we worked together as compared to working under instruction.
I lost him to a move. And I needed that so much in higher grades. One good industry-centered mentor would have given me so much. But I guess self-motivation is the skill that got me where I am; and I create incredible things on a daily basis. So there's that I guess.
[+] [-] int3rlop3r|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sho_hn|3 years ago|reply
Also quite a lot of fun is Electronoobs - not quite Ben Eater's rigorous approach or info density, but for sure a lot of enthusiastically shared "doing" and inspiration at the beginner level (and analog projects Ben Eater doesn't cover, as he tends to focus on digital logic and signal transmission topics).
[+] [-] asar|3 years ago|reply
He has a very interesting series of videos on repairing a wide variety of things he buys from scrapyards in Germany.
[+] [-] alksdeef|3 years ago|reply
Why are there small value capacitors near all the power inputs on the various chips? Why do many of the inputs and outputs have the similar value resistors right near them? What are these diodes doing, going from ground towards the power output?
Curiosity leads to understanding, leads to pattern recognition, leads to greater understanding, and so on.. Now I'm building my own circuits from scratch and routing custom boards in KiCad and it just seems like second nature almost. There are still SO many mysteries and so much more to learn, but once you begin to understand the basics that knowledge allows the next step and so on.. I think all you really need to get started is a soldering iron (get one with adjustable temperature, I love my Hakko but started with a cheaper one), decent multimeter (The UT61E is really great and cheap) and some leaded solder (just don't eat it).. There are cheap digital handh-held scopes these days too and you don't HAVE to have a scope right away.
Components are cheap (check tayda electronics) and it's endlessly fun, especially for those with a side gig working on the computer all the time. I find having something 'real' I can tinker with a great hobby and don't see myself ever stopping at this point.
[+] [-] tyingq|3 years ago|reply
http://www.compatt.com/Tutorials/NEETS/NEETS.html
[+] [-] c16|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ulamia|3 years ago|reply
I like the ‘do’ advice.
> If I had one word of wisdom on learning it’s ‘do’. Don’t wait, ok? You’ll be waiting on Godot.
[+] [-] raducu|3 years ago|reply
I'm the opposite of just "do", I research so much ahead of the "do" and the gap gets so big that it just feels incredibly hard to backtrack to where I last actually "did". It's like I eat dessert before the main course and just like my grandma said, I won't eat the main course because I ate the dessert.
[+] [-] Pilottwave|3 years ago|reply
It turns out that Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett in which two characters engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting the titular Godot, who never arrives..
[+] [-] agumonkey|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jp0d|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] everyone|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] showerst|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] englebert|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stormdennis|3 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaXt2quMCoA
[+] [-] gswdh|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]