I Really Want to Become an Expert in Electronics, But I Don't Know How.

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Want to learn electronics but don't know where to start | All ...

Free Electronics Tutorials, from an Electronics Engineer

Sorry for the late reply, you can learn electronics at home by watching the videos on YT. Also, implementing those things practically.

Thanks for the advice, thank you. . By the way, I will check that last thing you said for sure, thanks.

Build small simple projects and understand how they work.

You can do an lot with a 9v battery a few resistors capacitors a relay and a motor.

E.G build a little vehicle that trundles along and reverses and turns for a few seconds when it bumps into something.

Then build a simple adjustable series regulated power supply from discrete components.

The key is to understand what you do... rather than to build stuff that works but you don't know why.

Even the humble battery can teach you a lot.

How many volts do you get from a 9v PP3 Battery assuming you want to get reasonable life from it?

I've met consultants who didn't know the answer.

Del

I give up. What is the answer? Higher Voltage? Like 10.5V or so?

Inside the battery are 6 small 1.5v cells which is 9v when it's brand new, but if you want decent life you need to run 'em down to 1volt per cell or even lower if you are really pushing it... say 0.8 v !

So the answer is .... 6V or thereabouts.

So when our "consultant" was trying to run a 7805 voltage regulator from a PP3 he was wasting power when the battery was fresh and it was dropping out when the battery was half used. I told him this one morning.... In the afternoon he came up to me and told me what I'd just told him in the morning... well that's consultants for you.

In the finished design we used 2 C cells and a little Maxim step up regulator chip.

The moral of the story is... When dealing with batteries... ANY batteries... look at the manufacturers website

Del

Joule Thieves are magic!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule_thief

And, when dealing with consultants, never be surprised at the vast quantity of things they don't know, but should.

(I thought everybody had taken at least one 9V battery apart to see why it was square when all the other batteries were round)

well that's consultants for you

Did he charge you for your advice too?

Learn about what a transistor does. Learn about logic (AND, OR, NOR and so on). This gets you in robotics.

Buy on of those and a multimeter.

You are 18 years old. You should not have your father in mind when deciding your future and what you want and can do.

He will be there for you and it seems he wants to push you, maybe he tries to block you because one thing you need to do is jump over the block.

He might in fact tease you to see when you start flying by yourself. Do what you do and have fun. The more fun you have the less you have to think about what your father wants you to be. But we have to assume he wants you to be yourself - don't you think?

There is so many fields in electronics that you really need to explore what you like.

Just get started with the electronic kits and take it from there. Maybe design a electronic surveillance system to see what your father does when he just told you that you maybe better off becoming a chef . . . chuckling in the corner...

this is how I startedhttp://www.zeroidz.com/Digital_Electronics_Lab.html

WOW, that is Forest Mimms, i remember buying all of his books at Radio Shack. Great way to learn.

An alternative or better, an addition to the various learning kits mentioned is a circuit simulation program. One online program that I have seen is DoCircuits. This program allows you to construct circuits using a large set of standard components in a CAD like environment and to analyze the circuits with virtual test equipment. The basic limited version is free. More advanced versions have a small ($3 to $4 US / month) subscription fee.

I've used those as well but it's just not the same as sending to much current and smelling the smoke of a component frying. I think our friend could use both methods but hands on just seems to stick far better than on screen learning

Linear Tech http://www.linear.com/ has a SPICE simulator available for free that is very powerful. Their reason for giving it away is to allow engineers to become familiar with their switching regulators and other somewhat complex chips. But, it works very well for simple circuits such as a resistor and a battery or a battery, switch, resistor and capacitor. These very fundamental circuits are a good starting point.

The Linear Tech SPICE package includes schematic entry, AC analysis, DC analysis and graphical plotting of outputs. It is very powerful and as far as I know they don't even have any "pay extra" options. It is a powerful professional tool that a beginner can start with (for free, 100% legally free).

Good advise in other posting here.

Lots of good information through Google. You can pick most electrical terms, add "tutorial", "getting started", "DIY" or similar to the Google search and usually find a good starting point.

YouTube. There is a huge amount of information available on YouTube. Some of it is junk. Without too much effort you can find quite a few excellent videos on just about any subject. The universities in the country of India are very generous with posting the videos of full college courses. Many of them will quickly go beyond beginner level but they are a wonderful and valuable resource.

MATH. Everything in electronics obeys the laws of physics and math is the language that is spoken. Even RF obeys math but only people with white beards, long purple bathrobes, pointey hats with pok-a-dots and a wand (wizards) will understand it. Algebra and calculus should be your friends. If they are not then put a lot of work into building a friendship.

Marcus; look for books intended for electronic technicians. These will explain circuit operation from an intuitive standpoint. And start with Valves (Tubes), with basic analog audio amplifier operation. Their physics is explainable with simple concepts of electric field and how the grid controls the electron flow through the device.

Then you can move to FETs (field effect transistors), as these are similar in operation to tubes. They are both (valve/FET) known as transconductance amplifiers, where a voltage on the control input terminal (grid or gate) control the flow of current between the cathode and plate or source and drain.

Then you can move on to BJTs (bipolar junction transistors). These are current amplifiers, where you inject current into the base terminal, and this is amplified to a larger current flow between the collector and emitter. But once you understand how a valve amplifier works, changing the electron flow control device is a simple thing to understand.

Trying to learn electronics from what is taught in an electrical engineering course, will provide no understanding of how things work, just the ability to analyze (this was true where I went to school). I hated 2 port analysis in introductory electronics, and learned nothing on how real electronics work relative to controlling electron flow (same goes for the ebers-moll model). I ended up taking a break during my junior year, and attended 2 quarters of technician trade school. This gave me all the understanding to be able to read electronic schematics and SEE HOW the electrons move in a complex circuit.

I started engineering with making simple digital logic circuits based on 7400 logic family. It's easy to use integrated circuits, but understanding their internal operation was the next step. That was not the intent of EE course work.

Another answer, when you are trying to figure out something specific you could probably get it answered here. Getting started with Audrino is too broad to ask here. A forum for that exists and is the place to go. But, if you understand sample circuit #1 and are confused by the IC introduced in sample circuit #2 you could ask about it here. If you question shows that you have done your own work trying to figure it out you will normally get several helpful responses here.

If you build a reputation for working hard you might be surprised how helpful CR4 people can be.

This might help.

Welcome to the forum, BTW your English is superb.

Electronics is a big field, what do you want to do? Automotive, Radio, Computer, commercial, consumer, C.E.R.N. etc?

I'm not good at adding links, but look up a site called Electro-teconline.com then go to articles. Also try "All About Circuits", "Electronics Point", "Electronic Circuits" and Electronics Forums all have homework help areas. But the electro tech site actually has basic theory courses. . Kahn Academy also has some very advanced self learning segments.

It is an interesting field. I fell into it quite by accident (radio communications), like you I had an interest and took some basic courses in H.S. When I enlisted in the service, my ability to read schematics and knowing the resistor color code sealed my fate.

The start to learning anything in electrical and electronics is the same as in many other fields of engineering and science, "taking the first step". You need to start by getting the basics and learning the simpler things of electronics with a basic course(s). Some things may be repeats of what you already know but pay attention to them and the things you don't know. Who knows, something you think you know might be all wrong. It won't come easy or fast, you just have to stick with it. If you decide later that electronics isn't of your interest you haven't wasted your time. There are many accountant and others that know electronics from before they changed their majors. Just remember though, you have to start, "take the first step".

Your other problem with your dad expecting more from you than you think you can handle or know is one you need to have patience with him about. He has set his expectations for you higher for now than you really can do now. The best you can do right now is try to sit down with him and discuss this. If he gets mad or doesn't understand ask him why. When you ask someone for their opinion and don't argue about it you are showing respect for his intellect. Hopefully he will respect you, your skills and your knowledge more without pushing you in directions you don't wasn't to or are not ready for.

The father thing is a very common situation for many of us, myself included. Mine was a brilliant electrical engineer in his niche of avionics among other things. Graduated from the finest engineering school with honors and was very knowledgeable in other subjects. What happens when the kid starts to grow up? Mom and dad expect the child to be just like dad and have the same interests as dad. They express this by comparing you to dad and setting their goals for you to be a clone of him. When you are never able to meet their expectations of you as compared to dad, life with them and yourself gets harder. Many engineers in this situation become depressed or clinically depressed because they always fail to meet the goals mom and pop set for them. DO NOT LET THAT HAPPEN TO YOU! Get into the habit of being yourself and doing what you want to do. Dad isn't taking the same courses that you will and his involvement might hinder your learning. If things get bad, study more in the library, at school or any other place away from mom and dad. If it gets really bad get a part-time or full-time job and move out. This helps but has other conditions. WHAT EVER YOU, DO DON'T LET MOM AND DAD THINK YOU DON'T LOVE AND RESPECT THEM ANYMORE. KEEP UP THE COMMUNICATIONS!

Or else you can do something similar to what I did. I had several things that interested me so I changed from elct. eng. to another engineering field. I was happy about it and mom and dad were happy that I was successful in that field. Then electricity was part of my job and electronics was a smaller part. I dabble in them now that I am retired and enjoy them more than if I made a living off of them. I learned a lot about them from my father but wish I had learned more before he died. Not a day passes that I wish he was still here to give me the answers to my questions.

The extremely highly intelligence of his generation was not passed on to mine or my siblings. It skipped over us but we enjoy life more. Also the next generation is doing quite well

This is been very long and didn't give you the technical information you possibly wanted. It is one way for you to approach the "DAD" part of your problems. Hope this helps you find the career that you want to do and will enjoy. Remember, life is not all electronics, enjoy life while you still have it to enjoy.

Good Luck, Old Salt

First off, welcome to cr4 marco314,

The professor I had for calculus, told me something that does hold true. If you want to be an expert at anything, just put an extra 2 hours a day, every day, above and beyond your own work, 'like in your case college studies (time to enroll)', and with those 2 hours, you study that one interest. In your case 'electronics', on top of your college studies, it's best you have a foundation of education, so wait until you get your degree so you're more efficient.

And after those 2 years of extra study, he'd guarantee that you'd be an expert in that area.

And I like to add, "Remember one thing, you can not take the elevator to the top of your field, you HAVE to take the stairs". In other words, expertise is earned.

To be honest, the two things college taught me, that I felt was very important. Organize structure and Investigation, now even though I did a lot of reading and practical experience before I decided to go to college (started at 25 years of age).

This type of structure gave me a great deal of efficiency.

all good advice doesn't need to be the same.

Points well taken. I started out by doing, but when I ran into places where I knew I would not "get it" by self-study, and where college level courses were available that had what I needed, I jumped at the chance to take the courses.

My only point of contention was that waiting till you have a solid background in the theory is just waiting. It works far better for some of us to jump in, look back at what didn't work, learn more, do it again.

I work on the principle that I DO have time to do it over, and V2.0 is always better than V1.0, but if I wait to learn the rudiments before I build V1.0, I may never won't get around to doing any part of it, ever.

I took Calculus at a local college only after realizing that all the math I knew could not do that kind of things I most wanted to do. I took a Post-Grad course in the US Government's ACAT-1A acquisition system because my boss wanted me to. But I learned enough about lightning control engineering to become the de-facto expert on the subject for a 5,000 employee engineering company, and to successfully design and implement a system for lightning control to protect a 3.75 MW outdoor PA system, as well as a 20 node ground radio system, with two repeater towers. 30 years later the systems are all still working, despite the area having, according to NOAA, the second-highest annual count of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes in all of the USA.

My point is that some things, and there is no telling in advance which things, be better learned from school, but most of us should be able to accomplish a lot even before we take all of the affiliated courses.

I hear you, it took some time for me to realize, self-taught wasn't quite doing it for me either, it was grinding on me, and I began thinking, 'I should have'.... THAT is the worst, so I started college late at 26 years old. I was weak in some areas, strong in others. Where I was weak, it was in math, only because, it was so long out of High School I was not thinking. After the first semester, that clicked.

Going to college, I made my mind up, I was never going to say 'should of, would of' again.

But, what happened was, I exchange 'should of, would of' with 'should'nt of, wouldn't of'.

With an example of: "I wouldn't do that again". And I feel a whole lot comfortable with that.

;-)

If you want to learn swimming, better get yourself into the water.

Gajanan Phadte

Go to the library and check out some books.

Marcus - Your are young so time is on your side, so be patient! To succeed, what you probably misses and lack is the understanding of whatever things you learned! To be complete in your studies, it is imperative to join together the understanding portion with the learning a very important aspects of knowledge gained!..

In my productive working years Ive met, hired, worked with engineers of varied level of academic achievements. Most of them although graduates of prestigious schools, I found to be or were deficient, weak in the application sides of things.. They can talk all day but have difficulty in applying the basics!

You maybe looking for a quick fix in your learning for the chosen trade, a "bag of tricks" as normally called in the industry..... If that's the case you're for a Surprise since it will fail you like some of my former engineers!

I suggest for you just to concentrate learning all the basic fundamentals, stay and try to have a thorough understanding of each of them...especially with Math and Physics, there is a lot of them as you progressed! Just learning and understanding well these fundamentals will take you far and successful in your endeavors! Use you dads pushing as an incentive to experiment, physically applying all the basic theories learnt, observe and verify the results and use those to supplement your studies! Good luck!

It would help if you could decide on what you want to do with all the knowledge you hope to gain.

Coupled to this is how are you going to live whilst you gain this knowledge - will your dad house you, feed you, clothe you and pay all your college fees - books - equipment - and for years ...... meanwhile you learn enough to fix his fan - for which you don't need to know anything about amps, volts, ohms, watts, electrons etc, - just how circuits function - and how to recognise various components used to make a fan - or perhaps how to recognise broken components....and how they come apart - and go back together - and where to get the spare parts (if they are available).

This is where theory kicks in - you will be able to select and assemble alternative components to make the fan work.

You dad will be proud of you..

Hi there,

My name is Frank, maybe I can help you. I used to teach electronics but I retired. I still have several book sets of the electronics course that I wrote some years ago. It is a basic course and does not cover robotics and the like but does cover all basic circuits and radio and TV theory and operation. Motors, speakers, networks, transistors, tubes, AM radio, FM radio, TV, video, audio amps and so on. Wiring in the house is not electronics, it is electricity which is different, but you can learn that too. If you want a set of books, they are FREE, just pay postage, around $10.

A good way to learn electronics inexpensively, is to join the Navy and get into one of the Technical Fields. Electronics Technician, Radioman Technician, Cryptology Technician, Ocean System Technician, Torpedoman Technician, Sonar Technician. Any rate that has technician attached to it does electronic repairs. They will also work as operators. Electricians also deal a little in electronics, primarily with control panel programming. Even in the aviation fields is good. I recommend the Navy because they are more technical, than any other branch of service. There are a lot of technical fields in the Air Force as well. I know the Mexican Navy isn't as expansive as the US Navy but you still require all the fields to function effectively. US and Mexican Navies also do joint operations together and use the same tech manuals for joint operations.

Good advice.

"I know the Mexican Navy isn't as expansive as the US Navy but you still require all the fields to function effectively. US and Mexican Navies also do joint operations together and use the same tech manuals for joint operations."

I hadn't been aware of the "joint ops/same manuals" practice, but I got my early practical knowledge from being a US Navy Crypto Tech, Maintenance, and that provided enough experience to springboard into a 41 year career in Electronic Systems Engineering, and to allow me now to teach a night school class for Middle and Senior High students in robotic design and construction, as well as in general electronic theory. The robotics course is one I'm developing, but the electronic theory courses come from published sources (probably none as good as, certainly not better than, those linked here).

I thought early on of Naval Service and training as a source, and it certainly sounds like it would be a good path for the OP. I just clean forgot that Mexico has a Navy. Stupid me. Thanks for bringing that into the discussion.

I know that besides the fact that the Navy added immeasurably to my technical knowledge, they also taught me the patience to learn anything needed, provided me an environment in which I could mature (I was 18 years old when I enlisted, spent 9 years in, and ended my time as a 1st Class Petty Officer (CTM-1), and in the course of all of this, provided me a constant and predictable income, while paying me to do what I wanted most in life to do, anyway! You can't beat getting paid to have fun doing what you want to do, and learning skills that will stay with you, and sustain you and a family through life!

I did 11 years, was an OS1. I also had the collateral duty as a Naval Warfare Publications Custodian. We maintained pubs that were for our use only and had another set for NATO operations. When I was in, we did joint ops with Japan, South Korea, Canada, England, Australia and Saudi Arabia.

I was on the USS Long Beach (CGN-9) for about 2 and a half years, we had CT's on that, I always wanted to go down and see what the Spooks work center looked like but never did.

HMMMM. I don't know when you were in, but expect it was after 1982 (when I got out) because prior to 82 it was fairly difficult to get a shipboard billet for any CT. We got a few, but only on ships large enough to support our "Quick Van", which was a preconfigured and loaded operation and birthing center for the CTs. Other than that, it was sub duty. The reason we couldn't get much ship time was because most of us were tied to the Wollenweber array antenna and the systems it supported. And the Wooly-Weber (Or Elephant Cage, another name for it) was CDAA (Circularly Disposed Antenna Array) about 300 Yards in diameter, with a 5 story Ops building inside it. Hard to put that aboard a ship. They managed to shrink the whole thing down to fit on a Fast Frigate around 1982, and a whole lot of us got our walking papers then because it would be nearly impossible to integrate an E-6 with no shipboard experience into a small shipboard community where he had to have one of his E-1 shipmates lead him around the ship by hand till he got the hang of it.

So I was offered 5-7, two back-to-back OCONUS UNACCOMPANIED tours, or out. With 4 kids, and a wife to look after, and facing that, I took "out". I miss the Nav, but I don't regret looking out for my family. My wife and I just celebrated our 42 Anniversary, 7 weeks ago. We have 14 grandkids, from 4 married kids, and one more on the way, due in October. Can't beat the fun we have at reunions.

And I still play with, and teach, electronics, using the skills I learned primarily in the Navy.