How does one "learn electronics"?

[zednam]

Sorry in advance if anything is wrong about this post, i'm not an avid forum user.

So, to keep things short and sweet, i like electronics, it's what im planning on studying after school, but i want to start learning myself.

 I understand the very basics, not much past ohms law. I can solder at a very amateur level with a cheapo hot stick. I have a decent understanding of mathematics and phisics,dont know calculus but im willing to learn.

To make things a bit less all-encompassing, i recently had an idea for an all pcb variable sided electronic dice. of course, with my limited knowledge i have no idea how id go past the idea phase into prototyping or designing the circuit/pcb.

So basically, i want to learn enough to design and make my own circuits (things like the project i described above, other "mitxela" type projects, cc led drivers, etc.), understand how the things im using work, and to lay a solid framework before i study at uni.

I don't know what to even start with, are there any resources you guys could suggest? All i want is a general guideline on what to learn in what order and i can likely find the rest myself. I'm not expecting to know all of electronics by next week but it'd be ideal if i could (if possible) know enough to prototype the project described in a few months / by the end of the year.

Also i'd love a good resource for learning soldering, i can blame it on cheap hardware all i want but nothings going to improve if i don't improve myself.

[Andy Chee]

I started with building kits from electronics magazines. Magazines are good because they (usually) have a detailed description of how the design works.

[zilp]

The question is: Do you want to learn more on the electronics/electrical engineering side or more on the software side?

I guess most people would implement your project idea of a variable-sided "die" with software nowadays, be it just on a PC or smartphone, or using a microcontroller. But there isn't much electronics in there, other than hooking up some LEDs and buttons to the microcontroller.

It's a problem that can reasonably be solved with discrete electronics, too, though. I guess the traditional approach would be a VCO (something like CD4046) controlled by an RC circuit driving a counter (like CD4017, or possibly some binary/BCD counter plus BCD-to-7 segment converter, depending on the output format you want). You probably can find schematics for that on the web, or you could try figuring it out yourself.

There is a lot you can learn in either direction, but the approaches are very different.

Of course, you can also buy textbooks and stuff (or read online introductory texts), but learning by just building projects and figuring stuff out along the way certainly is a fine way to learn things, too. You just have to be careful to not fall into the trap of using ready-made modules for everything if you want to learn how stuff works. Buying a bunch of modules and writing some arduino project from github into an MCU generally won't teach you much.

[Picuino]

You can also try to simulate the circuits you are interested in. If any have been simulated and work correctly, you can then try to assemble them on a breadboard or on a PCB.

https://www.falstad.com/circuit/circuitjs.html

https://wokwi.com/arduino

[SteveThackery]

@zednam: I subscribe to two electronics magazines - Elektor (Dutch, the English language edition) and Practical Electronics (British).  I've learned a tremendous amount from those two - especially Practical Electronics. It has always had excellent articles explaining electronics theory in a very accessible way, as well as loads of projects for you to get into.  The projects always explain in detail how the design works, plus you'll get plenty of practice building things if you have a go at some of them.

Regarding designing and building your own circuits, don't underestimate the enormous amount there is to learn. Electronics is a big and complex subject, especially if you want to get into analogue electronics in a big way as well as digital.  You said that your main aim just now is to build a solid foundation before going to college, which is an admirable approach. One way, which I cannot recommend highly enough, is to start with a magazine project but modify it in some way. Modifying an existing design is a good way of taking your first few steps on the learning curve.  It requires you to understand the circuit somewhat, without necessarily being able to design it from scratch.

About circuit boards... your early projects should probably be on stripboard (prototyped on "breadboard", perhaps) because there is a cost involved in PCB manufacture. You could mess about etching your own boards, but it's a bit of a faff to be honest and they'll be nothing like professionally made boards. The obvious product to use would be KiCAD, it being the best of the free PCB design programs.

Realistically you'll probably want to learn to program microcontrollers. An excellent jumping off point is Arduino, which is a great ecosystem which makes things very easy for beginners. Eventually you will probably want to get closer "to the metal", and that might well take you towards the Microchip devices and development tools.

Another big area is digital signal processing (DSP).  The concepts and mathematics are not easy, so you might want to leave this until college.  It is possible, but difficult, to teach yourself DSP.

About the mathematics... get yourself up to speed on complex number theory if you can. It is very relevant to analogue filter design. Also, practice your algebra, which is important in general electronics design.

In terms of hardware, you'll need a soldering iron, a multimeter and a bench PSU. None of these need to be expensive. In my opinion the next tool to buy would be an oscilloscope. There is nothing like an oscilloscope for revealing what is going on in a circuit - it is unparalleled.

I could go on for ages, but that is probably enough for now.  This will be an interesting thread as people proffer their own advice.  As for now, get yourself a subscription to Practical Electronics plus a handful of back issues. 

[NE666]

To add to, rather than contradict, the good suggestions already made;

Get yourself a copy of Horowitz and Hill "The Art of Electronics" and find at least a couple of hours each week to work through it. It becomes quite mathematically involved quickly in places but feel free to skip ahead and skim through the more practical/applied aspects on a first pass through the book, and come back for the fine detail on subsequent readings.

If you're serious about developing the level of theoretical understanding that will be necessary to support a solid practical ability to design, build, test and troubleshoot even simple systems, you won't ever be wasting your time or money by doing so.

[djsb]

You have made a good first step asking on this forum. Lots to be learnt from the people on here.

[BarrowBoy]

Hey Newbie,
                  Well done in finding this forum. If Electronics is a passion, and you have already worked that out, many options lay before you. You will learn more once you leave school, and personally, I'd try and jump straight into the industry. If you know Ohms law, and resistor colours now...you will be good to go. Welcome, hopefully, your post count will increase as will your knowledge

[rstofer]

I continue to recommend 'starter kits' like this one for the Arduino

https://www.amazon.com/ELEGOO-Project-Tutorial-Controller-Projects/dp/B01D8KOZF4

Do ALL of the experiments and understand what parts (component values) are being used and why.

You will learn a blend of software and hardware.  Code is provided for the experiments.  You will wind up with a set of modules you can use later on.

Study math in school, you will need a ton of it if you decide to pursue electronics in college.

There are similar starter kits for the Raspberry Pi and they are well worth the price, time and effort.

[schmitt trigger]

Building kits is an excellent learning method.
Both for polishing your soldering skills and learning a little electronics theory.

[zednam]

First of all, thank you all so, so much, I  couldn't have expected a warmer welcome.

I'll 100% be looking into magazines/textbooks. Thanks for the specific recomendations.

I've been studying math at above my grade
level already and ill keep at it.

I already have an iron, multimeter and a buck boost on the way to add onto my repurpoised atx, i've looked at oscilloscopes a tad bit, I don't need one atm but it looks extremely usefull for troubleshooting and understanding circuits. In the long run, what would be the first piece(s) to upgrade/add?

Also, not to be a broken record but, any textbook / resource for soldering? I know the best best way to get better is practice, but i still cant figure out if im doing things wrong or its just due to crappy cables/tools, i often struggle with getting solder to stick or tin cables even after using lots of flux.

Thanks again for all the advice. I tried to keep the reply short but i've read and considered every reply.

[BrokenYugo]

Good flux and the biggest bluntest tip you can get away with is the secret to easy soldering. Should be a fast thing taking a few seconds at most. The basic 30w stick with a thin conical tip is only so good, most temp controlled soldering stations will be better.

[fourfathom]

I agree that an oscilloscope is a valuable "next tool" to have.  You might consider the inexpensive "FNIRSI 1013D" as a starter-scope (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHHYMVKV).  There has been a lot of discussion about this scope here on eevblog forum.  In short, it isn't great, it doesn't really meet specs, but it is very useful, and it's relatively inexpensive.  I have other expensive high-quality scopes, but my little 1013D scope has a place on my desk and I use it often.

There may be newer / better / cheaper scopes, so some searching here on the forum would be a good idea.

[tggzzz]

Also, not to be a broken record but, any textbook / resource for soldering? I know the best best way to get better is practice, but i still cant figure out if im doing things wrong or its just due to crappy cables/tools, i often struggle with getting solder to stick or tin cables even after using lots of flux.

Start with https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837 the PACE soldering tutorial. They show you want to do, what is looks like when you are doing it correctly, and what is looks when you are doing something wrong.

They are old, but that is a virtue... They were made when it was difficult and expensive to make videos, so they planned everything before starting. That makes them terse and valuable in the way almost all recent yoootoob videos aren't.

[MrAl]

Sorry in advance if anything is wrong about this post, i'm not an avid forum user.

So, to keep things short and sweet, i like electronics, it's what im planning on studying after school, but i want to start learning myself.

 I understand the very basics, not much past ohms law. I can solder at a very amateur level with a cheapo hot stick. I have a decent understanding of mathematics and phisics,dont know calculus but im willing to learn.

To make things a bit less all-encompassing, i recently had an idea for an all pcb variable sided electronic dice. of course, with my limited knowledge i have no idea how id go past the idea phase into prototyping or designing the circuit/pcb.

So basically, i want to learn enough to design and make my own circuits (things like the project i described above, other "mitxela" type projects, cc led drivers, etc.), understand how the things im using work, and to lay a solid framework before i study at uni.

I don't know what to even start with, are there any resources you guys could suggest? All i want is a general guideline on what to learn in what order and i can likely find the rest myself. I'm not expecting to know all of electronics by next week but it'd be ideal if i could (if possible) know enough to prototype the project described in a few months / by the end of the year.

Also i'd love a good resource for learning soldering, i can blame it on cheap hardware all i want but nothings going to improve if i don't improve myself.

Hello there,

For that project most people would start with a microcontroller.  The Arduino is the fastest way to get there.  The Uno or Nano to start with.

As for math, Algebra will get you pretty far.  In particular, simultaneous equations.
To go much farther you'll have to learn Calculus, but as I said, you can get pretty far with just Algebra.
If you intend to analyze AC circuits, you'll want to understand complex numbers.
Analyze as many circuits as you can to get good at circuit analysis.
If you really want to get good at this, look for books like "Engineering Circuit Analysis".
Download a simulator like the LT Spice simulator.  It's free and you can share files on the web in forums like this one.  Do not let the simulator take over your entire circuit analysis technique however, circuit simulators cannot tell you everything and math leads you to better theory.  There are some things you can never determine with a simulator or would be very hard to do with one.  You can however check your math results using a simulator.

For soldering, probably the best way these days is to look for videos that show details.
The solder itself is also important.  Probably start with leaded solder not unleaded solder, 63/37 with center rosin core lux.  Unleaded solder is usually harder to work with.  Make sure all the metal to be soldered is clean and shiny.  First tin the tip of the iron, then apply heat to the thing to be soldered, then apply the solder.  The temperature cannot be too high but also not too low.

[SteveThackery]

Talking of soldering, I don't know if this is controversial, but I strongly recommend using leaded solder (if you can still buy it - here in Europe several suppliers won't supply it unless you have a trade account). Ebay sellers still sell it, but you want good quality, branded solder. Some unbranded solder has a rubbish flux load - not enough, and inconsistent in its distribution through the length of the solder wire.

You can solder with lead-free solder, but it's much more difficult, requiring higher temperatures, and it generally just doesn't seem to work that well when using a soldering iron. Solder paste and wave soldering - as used in manufacturing - seem fine with lead-free. With a soldering iron it's more difficult.

[rstofer]

Soldering tutorials are all over the Internet, Google for them.
 
Pay attention to drag soldering tutorials like: 

[armandine2]

...googling kits lead to:

https://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/outreach/kits/physics-music-mixer-kit

amongst other things - worth exploring, perhaps

[pdenisowski]

Start with https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837 the PACE soldering tutorial. They show you want to do, what is looks like when you are doing it correctly, and what is looks when you are doing something wrong.

They are old, but that is a virtue... They were made when it was difficult and expensive to make videos, so they planned everything before starting. That makes them terse and valuable in the way almost all recent yoootoob videos aren't.

I was going to recommend the same video, but you beat me to it   And there are also many other good videos out there on soldering.

The last time I taught someone how to solder, this is the kit they started with:

https://www.amazon.com/Elenco-SP3B-Practical-Soldering-Project/dp/B0002LUALG

A lot of practice at varying levels of difficulty, and you make something that actually does something

[tggzzz]

Start with https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837 the PACE soldering tutorial. They show you want to do, what is looks like when you are doing it correctly, and what is looks when you are doing something wrong.

They are old, but that is a virtue... They were made when it was difficult and expensive to make videos, so they planned everything before starting. That makes them terse and valuable in the way almost all recent yoootoob videos aren't.

I was going to recommend the same video, but you beat me to it   And there are also many other good videos out there on soldering.

And, as with all subjects on yoootoob, too many that are wastes of time Too many talking heads, ums and ahs, and material that doesn't need moving pictures. What is worse is that you often can't determine that until after spending some of your remaining life watching such drivel.

I've come to deeply resent mere egoboos.

The last time I taught someone how to solder, this is the kit they started with:

https://www.amazon.com/Elenco-SP3B-Practical-Soldering-Project/dp/B0002LUALG

A lot of practice at varying levels of difficulty, and you make something that actually does something

It is easy to teach a complete beginner sufficient how to solder sufficiently well for prototypes with through-hole components, either on a PCB or another prototype. Beginners get a lot of satisfaction, a sense of achievement, and the beginnings of a skill that will last a lifetime.

It always amazes and dismays me that when people claim that soldering is "so difficult" that it is better for a beginner to use solderless breadboards.

[Infraviolet]

"But there isn't much electronics in there, other than hooking up some LEDs and buttons to the microcontroller."
While that might be true of a typical "arduino electronic dice" project, I would still say an arduino is well worth getting. Having a microcontroller you can program, which you can then interface to other digital and analogue components and have it respond in realtime to signals is very useful. I'd very strongly say though, you want an Arduino (the Uno R3 or another atmega328p based one is a good choice) NOT a Raspberry Pi. A Pi is a full on computer, it runs an operating system, t has folder structures, can run a GUI... Its a good tool for high level control of a robot or something, but it can't do really fast realtime interactions with circuits and doesn't have any built-in way to read analogue levels (digital inputs only).

Using an arduino compatible microcontroller, you might look at building some sensor circuits from scratch, using basic components. Like an IR reflection proximity sensor, this would give you a chance to learn about op-amps, very useful in analogue projects, or build one of the simpler types of inductance measuring meter (gets you thinking about signal processing and timing).

[rstofer]

I'd very strongly say though, you want an Arduino (the Uno R3 or another atmega328p based one is a good choice) NOT a Raspberry Pi. A Pi is a full on computer, it runs an operating system, t has folder structures, can run a GUI... Its a good tool for high level control of a robot or something, but it can't do really fast realtime interactions with circuits and doesn't have any built-in way to read analogue levels (digital inputs only).

And the Pi has a full blown network stack with a Berkeley Sockets interface which is easy to use to create either servers or clients.  It can handle multiple sockets as you would expect from a server.  Many lesser uCs also support networking and there are also external chipsets that work with the Arduino but they may not be as robust as a Pi implementation.

There's a Python library that makes GPIO programming on the Pi quite simple.  Again, one of the starter kits helps climb the learning curve.

[shabaz]

The last time I taught someone how to solder, this is the kit they started with:

https://www.amazon.com/Elenco-SP3B-Practical-Soldering-Project/dp/B0002LUALG

A lot of practice at varying levels of difficulty, and you make something that actually does something

That looks like a very nice kit. And great to see how the parts are well organized on the cardboard.

I tried an AliExpress radio project with a couple of young kids. It worked well, but needs to be supervised more of course. It was quite rewarding for all, seeing how surprised they were when it functioned and they heard voices : )

[fourfathom]

You can do a lot with Arduino-type controllers and pre-built modules, but that's not exactly "learning electronics".  If you want to learn programming, networking, and interfacing then these are a great way to start, but I would suggest starting with simple analog circuits: resistors, capacitors, transistors, op-amps, etc.  The Arduinos and Pi's come later.

[themadhippy]

For that project most people would start with a microcontroller.

i wouldn't, i'd start by looking  for circuit diagrams of any existing solutions that i can steal borrow ideas from,magazines are a good source as they often describe how the circuit  works. One example of a dice circuit https://www.worldradiohistory.com/UK/Hobby-Electronics/Hobby-Electronics-1982-03-S-OCR.pdf