Electronics > Beginners
Many errors on DRC check for Schematic KiCad
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redgear:

--- Quote from: jhpadjustable on November 29, 2019, 09:03:49 am ---Don't sweat it.

Anyway, for consistency, since you're using ERC, may as well add the power flag to that net near the bottom of R1. Speaking of consistency, I see that you're using a GND sheet label instead of a ground power symbol to connect pins A/B-1/12 of J3. ERC might not appreciate that, especially without any PWR_FLAG drivers on the GND net (that I can see).

Other than that, looks good. Ship it! :)

--- End quote ---

Thank you. I have made the changes.  :-+
redgear:

--- Quote from: jhpadjustable on November 28, 2019, 11:15:27 am ---The datasheet design should work as published.

--- End quote ---

All I could do now is just recreate the reference designs on datasheets. How are you able to tell functions of the components just by looking at the datasheet? How do I learn to understand the functions of the components(caps, resistors,etc), sizing them and start designing my own circuit?

Thanks
jhpadjustable:

--- Quote from: redgear on November 29, 2019, 10:19:33 am ---All I could do now is just recreate the reference designs on datasheets. How are you able to tell functions of the components just by looking at the datasheet? How do I learn to understand the functions of the components(caps, resistors,etc), sizing them and start designing my own circuit?

--- End quote ---
I'm not exactly a power/analog whiz kid, certainly not compared to some of the great minds here. It just happens that I've been working on some dc-dc converter and LED driver circuits lately, and reading dozens of datasheets and several app notes as part of that, so the tropes of that genre (so to speak) are fairly fresh in my mind.

I did read a lot on and around the subject starting in elementary school, where I got familiar with the symbol language even if I didn't quite fully comprehend half of it, and in high school I knew a crazy guy down the block who mentored me for a few years, taught me quite a bit about the fundamentals of the art and science of electronics, walked me through a few designs and repairs, and set me up with my first decent soldering iron and a stock of useful components.

The Art of Electronics is a well-renowned intro book, with a new edition reportedly coming out sometime next year. I've followed a few Kickstarter and pre-Kickstarter blogs dealing with the trials and tribulations of developing an electronic product to be offered for sale, and from them gained some awareness and understanding of some of the concerns involved in bringing a product to market, and about the economics of manufacturing in small scale. Needless to say, I've also been watching Dave's videos and reading any topic on this forum where something half interesting comes up. Amazing teacher that he is, he always leaves me at least one thing to scream at him through the screen about. ;) Wikipedia is not the worst possible reference for getting the gist of some sort of circuit or component unfamiliar to you, say, a buck dc-dc converter, or a broad comparison of different kinds of capacitors. These days, a lot of electronics is knowing about the blocks in common use and considering how they fit together. Indeed, only knowing how to combine a bunch of reference designs onto a single board and validate the result, you can get somewhere. It may not get you hired but you can make some things.

In other words, it's something you develop with time and experience and lots of reading (and brick imprints on your forehead |O ). Set yourself up with some decent tools. Learn about the building blocks that are out there, whether those are single transistors to SDRAMs, op-amps to optical data transceivers, and learn about their performance and their critical requirements. Read datasheets. Self-assign some projects that use those blocks. Make the project happen or figure out why you can't. Repeat until you stop breathing. :)
redgear:

--- Quote from: jhpadjustable on November 29, 2019, 12:58:07 pm ---I've followed a few Kickstarter and pre-Kickstarter blogs dealing with the trials and tribulations of developing an electronic product to be offered for sale, and from them gained some awareness and understanding of some of the concerns involved in bringing a product to market, and about the economics of manufacturing in small scale.

--- End quote ---
Can you recommend me some blogs?


--- Quote ---These days, a lot of electronics is knowing about the blocks in common use and considering how they fit together. Indeed, only knowing how to combine a bunch of reference designs onto a single board and validate the result, you can get somewhere. It may not get you hired but you can make some things.

In other words, it's something you develop with time and experience and lots of reading (and brick imprints on your forehead |O ). Set yourself up with some decent tools. Learn about the building blocks that are out there, whether those are single transistors to SDRAMs, op-amps to optical data transceivers, and learn about their performance and their critical requirements. Read datasheets. Self-assign some projects that use those blocks. Make the project happen or figure out why you can't. Repeat until you stop breathing. :)

--- End quote ---
Where can I find a list of such important building blocks to learn?

Thanks
jhpadjustable:
Lost to the sands of time, unfortunately. The first such blog that started me on the mode of research was for a fancy RF photo-flash trigger by the name of Radiopopper. I don't believe that blog is still up with its original content, but you might be able to find it in the Wayback Machine by way of the Strobist photography blog. It didn't differ too much from the updates that you would see today on any given electronics-based project on Kickstarter or other crowdfunding platform. Dave's developed a few products and vblogged a bit about the process, most recently the µSupply, which should give you some idea of the concerns of a product designer.

The "blocks" I'm talking about are just a vague, non-enumerable abstraction covering many levels of structure, akin to sentence or phrase structures. Transistors are akin to "The dog barked", short and simple but with plenty of room for subtlety, and SDRAMs are akin to "A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal--Panama!", quite symmetrical yet twisted to get in and out of. There are no exhaustive lists, but you can occasionally find the odd category list on Wikipedia such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Single-stage_transistor_amplifiers with somewhat comparable variations on a theme.

In any case, you have to start with the rudiments. The maker movement and some of their leading distributors (Sparkfun, Adafruit) have come out with their own elementary electronics instruction resources and walk-throughs, sometimes centered around the Arduino physical computing platform. If that's not serious enough for you, Forrest M. Mims III has published a ton of renowned instructional texts and mini-notebooks, including Getting Started in Electronics. The Art of Electronics is more straightforward and might intimidate some beginners not accustomed to close reading, but I don't think you'll be too intimidated by it, especially when you can use the web as an auxiliary resource. If radio interests you, the ARRL's got a lot of material online and in print for beginners on up to amateur RF engineers that might pique your interest, and getting your Amateur Extra ticket is a decent test of your knowledge of the basics of RF and of electronics in general. It all depends on where you want to go.
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