Ask HN: How do I get into electronics from scratch? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do I get into electronics from scratch?

39 pointsosrec17 comments

I'm a very enthusiastic hacker, and have built software for ages. It gives me immense enjoyment to the point my day job feels like a relaxing hobby.

For a while I've wanted to get into electronics. I've used a PIC programmer in the past, and have hacked around with a few electronics kits here and there (built a radio, some Christmas tree lights etc). I've got a good grasp of the mathematics involved too (probably a bit rusty currently, though)

I want to improve my ability to make custom electronic gadgets. Happy to start with something simple to build my understanding, and I'm prepared to put in the work. If feasible, I want to eventually become as comfortable with electronics as I am with software. I'm just not sure what's the best way to go about it.

So HN, how do you suggest I proceed? Which tools/books/info really helped you become more confident when working with electronics?

Thank you very much in advance :)

Read The Art of Electronics by Horowitz

I concur. This is one of the top answers every time this question is raised.

One thing I’d like to point out is the book looks old. By software hacking standards it would be obsolete due to its age. However, in electronics, there really is no fashion du jour for the fundamentals. Don’t disregard it just because it doesn’t look current. It is.

And technically is by Horowitz and Hill

I have used parts of that book at university, and have a reasonable grasp on parts of it. I assume it serves more as a reference, as you carry out more practical exercises?

Building circuits is a very different thing than designing them.

You can always start with digital too. It's easier to grasp if you're already a software engineer.

Analog circuits will put new wrinkles in your brain though.

I started out with a 300 in 1 electronics learning kit from RadioShack which had a breadboard and lots of projects you could assemble to learn all the basics, from resistors to diodes and transistors - and make fun projects like door alarms and synthesizers.

RadioShack obviously does not make them any more but the good news is that there are lots of other electronics kits out there now! Learning digital design with an Arduino is great but it is also important to learn the analog side of electronics too.

Having some idea of the context of the field wouldn't be a horrible place to start. Just like say, software or structures, electronics covers a multitude quite different things which like the others, start simple and get exponentially more difficult to execute as complexity rises.

An example of a hard electronics thing would be the 5G radio for cell phones. Intel spent millions (at least) trying to do this and failed. So don't start with this as a project.

I recommend to start simple and pay attention to the "how to reason" about the various things you encounter.

So a useful and simple way to start is with networks of resistors attached to a 5 volt supply. If you're only interested in digital electronics start with chips that implement nand nor type logic. In either case, do yourself a favour and get a good wire wrap tool and sockets. It will take a few hours to use these properly but will save you hours of heartache as you're learning. (because breadboards cam have flakey connections that can take forever to track down)

Digital is much like low level software so there's not much more you need to learn to do this stuff in it's simple, and low frequency, implementations.

On the analogue side starting with resistor networks may sound simple but it really is the basis of much of the reasoning needed to understand active components as well.

Resistor networks can usefully be thought of as water flowing through a network of pipes of different diameters. Design a few networks, calculate voltages at various nodes and confirm with your circuit that you're understanding is correct.

After resistors and in capacitors and inductors. Capacitors and inductors can be thought of as resistors whose resistance various with the frequency of current going through them. Mathematically they are the inverses of each other.

The next level is to start with diodes, FET transistors and opamps.

Once you feel you have a handle on the physics of these and their mathematics you would have a decent foundation for doing some real stuff.

I'd highly recommend you checkout https://techexplorations.com/ . They (Peter Dalmaris[1]) has by far the best content for starting from scratch. He also runs a bootcamp if you really need a helping hand.

Chris Gammell from Contextual Electronics and "The Amp Hour" podcast also has good content https://contextualelectronics.com/ .

[1]Disclosure: I often co-host an unrelated STEM podcast w/ Peter, so I'm little biased.

Thank you - I will check it out!

Building a cheap 3d printer kit and improving it is a good project with achievable goals. it might be lower level than you want to begin with. It need not be more difficult than plugging boards together and routing wires but its a good reason to learn about why those components need to be beefed up etc.

This sounds fun. I never realized this was a possibility. Can you recommend one?

I bought in October of last year, the market has had at least one generation since then. so i might be dated telling you I got the "RepRapGuru" kits off amazon returns and found them fun to put together.

- As recommended by another post, The Art of Electronics is great

- Make stuff! Adafruit has some great kits and project instructions. Find something that looks interesting and make it.

I would recommend grabbing a Raspberry Pi and start tinkering with it. If you want to learn about low level electronics, start by learning PCB design and design your own custom board.

Start with a simple Aruino board from Adafruit. Tons of documentation and kits, and an endless array of sample projects to get you started in every direction.

I started with an Arduino myself. It is a simple and accessible piece of electronics (basically just a microcontroller and a power supply) so it is simple to understand.

This is for digital design at least, there is a lot more to electronics!

You can visit these excellent forums:

- https://www.electro-tech-online.com/

- https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

- https://www.edaboard.com/

The forums are extremely useful because you can submit your work for feedback and they'd point out things you didn't even knew were a thing. For example, suppose you're designing a PCB for your project. You can design your PCB, submit it and ask for feedback. You'll then have a list of things that are wrong in your board. Rinse, repeat. On something like the third board iteration or fourth, you would have a board that is pretty darn good for a beginner because it went under the eyes of really good people. You wouldn't get there on your own on the third iteration and your board would still suck. Your skills will take off pretty fast.

Forums are also good because you can see what people you interact with on a regular basis are working on, their projects as they're building them, etc.

Analog:

There was a good site that had a recommendation for learning analog electronics. It has changed but here's a link to a previous version:

- https://web.archive.org/web/20170521151227/http://wisewartho...

- https://web.archive.org/web/20160225152142/http://www.wisewa...

The site offers recommendation and a "track" as a function of your experience and what you want to do. It also offered review of the materials recommended (application notes, books, etc).

On PCB design:

PCB Design Tutorial, Dave Jones (eevblog): 25 pages of excellent actionable information to make your boards professional looking (routing, tracks, pads, etc.):

- https://alternatezone.com/electronics/files/PCBDesignTutoria...

Also from Dave Jones, check out his soldering tutorial if you want to solder:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Sb21qbpEQ

On entertaining and informative content:

Dave Jones channel in general is good to acquire culture. He also has in mind that you might not be wanting to spend thousands of dollars and gives you good quality/price ratio tools.

Ben Krasnow's "Applied Science" channel. This one is amazing. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCivA7_KLKWo43tFcCkFvydw. Ben is concise and I like that a lot. He does not ramble. Technical talking.

Books:

For books, there's a big book by Tony Kuphaldt titled "Lessons in Electric Circuits", available on his website (https://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/) but also on the AllAboutCircuits forums.

Tony Kuphaldt is prolific and has another (3000+ page) book titled "Lessons in Industrial Instrumentation", if you are interested in control and instrumentation, feedback systems, etc:

- https://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/socratic/sinst/book/liii.pd...

There's also "The Art of Electronics" to learn stuff every time you pick it up.

there are some arm devkit too

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