"Complete beginner" to electronics

[sci4me]

Hey guys. So, I have done a lot of playing around with kits and dev boards for micro's and similar, and have had lots of success for the simple things... digital things.. but I really don't know any of the theory. I can understand 1's and 0's extremely easily which is probably why I've done stuff with micro's... idk. But ..

Ok, forget my ranting, my question: I'm looking for a beginners guide to electronics. I suppose I should start from the beginning .. so I pick up any of the theory that I may have missed learning the very basics (lighting a led, 555 flasher, the stuff a kid would do).

Now, I know I need to learn analog stuff, but I only want to learn a bit more than the minimal amount as far as analog goes (unless I can get myself interested in it). My goal is to have enough knowledge to design an ARM dev board by myself. All of it's just for a fun hobby, and I think it would be really cool to have my own little ARM board. I REALLY like custom stuff, that's probably why. But hey, I have considered becomming an electronics engineer (i'm that young, but right now i'm planning to be a programmer.. anyway, getting off topic and ranting, sorry), so it would be great to learn it early.

Please forgive my ranting and getting off topic Cant help it. Thanks!

[makerimages]

ARM, for a beginner? Homemade? Sure you aren't mixing it up with AVR? Two completely different things. As far as beginner level things go, don't know anything about your location and what you might have available, but try your local library and see if you can grab a book introducing the basics of electronics (Like what are resistors, capacitors and so on used to). Dave's Electronics Tutorials playlist is good too https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3C5D963B695411B6 , tho a bit more advanced.

[fluxcapacitor]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/electronics-primers-course-material-and-books/

[katzohki]

Nothing wrong with wanting to specialize in digital design, but you should learn more than just more than the basics of analog design. At the very least you should get up to the point of having a solid grasp of operational amplifiers (in my opinion). The reason for this is because, even though we might have a digital specialist, we all need to understand the design and how the parts interact together. Look at the debounce issue for example, from a digital point of view a button is on or off, but that's not how it works in the real world. If you like programming, but also want to be involved in electronics maybe you should look at embedded design.

Have fun anyway! 

[Kappes Buur]

..... Ok, forget my ranting, my question: I'm looking for a beginners guide to electronics. .....

You can't go wrong with this guide: http://www.techideas.co.nz/
Download the textbook.

Then supplement it with reading up on specific subjects, eg:
http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/
http://www.learnabout-electronics.org/
http://electronicsclub.info/
http://www.555-timer-circuits.com/
etc.

The internet is your friend.

[sci4me]

Thank you all very much. To clarify, I am talking about ARM. I was saying that I want to learn enough to be able to design my own ARM board. FYI, I know SOME of the absolute basics (resistors limit current (not voltage if i remember correctly), capacitors store power, transistors are like a switch that can be controlled with a signal) etc. I have basic ideas of what they are, but need to learn more in detail. As far as learning more than the basics of analog, I though op amps were part of the basics but what do I know By the way, I have not used an AVR at all but I have played around with PIC a tiny bit. I of course prefer Arduino.

I will check out your links and see what I can do. Thanks again

[M0BSW]

Ok, forget my ranting, my question: I'm looking for a beginners guide to electronics. I suppose I should start from the beginning .. so I pick up any of the theory that I may have missed learning the very basics (lighting a led, 555 flasher, the stuff a kid would do).

Now, I know I need to learn analog stuff, but I only want to learn a bit more than the minimal amount as far as analog goes (unless I can get myself interested in it). My goal is to have enough knowledge to design an ARM dev board by myself. All of it's just for a fun hobby, and I think it would be really cool to have my own little ARM board. I REALLY like custom stuff, that's probably why. But hey, I have considered becomming an electronics engineer (i'm that young, but right now i'm planning to be a programmer.. anyway, getting off topic and ranting, sorry), so it would be great to learn it early.

Please forgive my ranting and getting off topic Cant help it. Thanks!

   You make it sound like it's a torture, "sorry just saying", I absolutely love it,and I have some perfectly good generators from the 555 chip, as I'm sure many others have on here, it's not a tedious hobby," oh I suppose I have to do this or that" It's a fantastic hobby, I love every bit of it, if circuits don't work straight off that's even better, because then you realise how to de-bug and make them work, it totally fascinates me, I'm sure you don't find it a torture i hope so anyway.
Also the 555 , you can do so many things with this chip the flasher circuit is really basic, my first 555 project was and still is very much used here , and it's a function generator.

[sci4me]

No, I enjoy it as well.. I wrote that when I was really tired, had been up all night, thats probably why it sounded that way.

[Stonent]

This is an excellent book by a very cool guy. In fact he has a property of LEDs named after him "The Mims Effect" which is where he proved that you can use an LED as a light detector as it produces a small amount of electricity when light that's in its wavelength range is shined on it.

http://www.forrestmims.com/



Everything is hand illustrated by him and in a very memorable format.




You might also want to watch some of Afrotechmod's and W2AEW's videos on youtube.
W2AEW's videos can get pretty advanced sometimes but there are a lot of good videos on the basics.
Afrotechmod's videos are also very good and go into a lot of how parts work.

[AG6QR]

Now, I know I need to learn analog stuff, but I only want to learn a bit more than the minimal amount as far as analog goes (unless I can get myself interested in it).

All digital signals are sent along analog wires, with their finite and nonzero resistance, capacitance, and inductance, and the associated propensity to radiate EM waves, as well as to capture EM radiation.  The lines are driven by analog circuits, with limited slew rates, limited output voltages and currents, etc.  If you can ignore the analog details and simply treat things as ones and zeros, you should heartily thank the designer(s) somewhere along the way who did a good job of handling those analog details for you. 

Many of the nasty problems you run into in a digital design are really analog problems.  Crosstalk, impedance mismatches, RFI susceptibility, etc. can make a digital device "flaky".  If you don't have the analog background, when your digital circuits start misbehaving, you won't have the necessary tools to diagnose and fix the problems.

Even if you're only designing boards for digital products, you've got to know enough about analog to keep yourself out of the danger zones.  It may help if you run everything really slowly, but that's not a good strategy for high performance.

A few rules of thumb may keep you mostly out of trouble if you're treading well worn ground making an ARM board that's similar to existing ARM boards.  But to do significant design, you should gain at least a reasonable familiarity with inductance, capacitance, transmission lines, simple analog filters, impedance, frequency response, etc.  That's especially true if you want that ARM board to interface with the analog world.

I've been out of the introductory literature too long to recommend a specific introductory book, though.  Perhaps "The Art of Electronics", by Horowitz and Hill, but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for.

[denelec]

This is an excellent book by a very cool guy.

This is the best book any beginner can get. 
When I bought it about 30 years ago, I couldn't believe how clearly it was written.
I'm glad it's still available.

[sci4me]

Now, I know I need to learn analog stuff, but I only want to learn a bit more than the minimal amount as far as analog goes (unless I can get myself interested in it).

All digital signals are sent along analog wires, with their finite and nonzero resistance, capacitance, and inductance, and the associated propensity to radiate EM waves, as well as to capture EM radiation.  The lines are driven by analog circuits, with limited slew rates, limited output voltages and currents, etc.  If you can ignore the analog details and simply treat things as ones and zeros, you should heartily thank the designer(s) somewhere along the way who did a good job of handling those analog details for you. 

Many of the nasty problems you run into in a digital design are really analog problems.  Crosstalk, impedance mismatches, RFI susceptibility, etc. can make a digital device "flaky".  If you don't have the analog background, when your digital circuits start misbehaving, you won't have the necessary tools to diagnose and fix the problems.

Even if you're only designing boards for digital products, you've got to know enough about analog to keep yourself out of the danger zones.  It may help if you run everything really slowly, but that's not a good strategy for high performance.

A few rules of thumb may keep you mostly out of trouble if you're treading well worn ground making an ARM board that's similar to existing ARM boards.  But to do significant design, you should gain at least a reasonable familiarity with inductance, capacitance, transmission lines, simple analog filters, impedance, frequency response, etc.  That's especially true if you want that ARM board to interface with the analog world.

I've been out of the introductory literature too long to recommend a specific introductory book, though.  Perhaps "The Art of Electronics", by Horowitz and Hill, but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for.

Good points indeed, are those things not .. basics? or, slightly more than basics i suppose? IDK. Either way, you're right I do need to learn them.

[mtdoc]

I found this book - Electrical Engineering 101- to be a very easy to digest introduction to theory.  I highly recommend it! 

[M0BSW]

No, I enjoy it as well.. I wrote that when I was really tired, had been up all night, thats probably why it sounded that way.

Good I'm pleased you enjoy Electronics, when I first started out I got this book it's old , but I think you can still get it , it's called "build your own test equipment by Homer.L.Davidson and a right to date book, called "homebrew cookbook" by Eamon Skelton  EI9GO, this one Eamon builds everything  modular, so you can take a  sections of previous projects and use them on others, he goes through making PCB,and etching, construction, to making  a programer , very enjoyable.
Paul