Suggestion: Learning by building a circuit.

[HecticZA]

I'm not a teenager anymore, unless you ask my wife. I'm sure she will describe me as the other kid in the house, accompanied by a lot of eye rolling and headshakes.

I've always loved electronics, but never pursued it as a career choice. I ended up as a policeman and in the process got interested in computers and that led to influencing my path within the Police service. I got involved with training, all software related.

I later was declared medically unfit for work and I fell back to pc repairs &  sales to supplement my income. Unfortunately medical problems eventually put a stop to that aswell.

During the pc repairs I always maintained my love for electronics and it was obviously handy and useful at times.

I've managed to improve my health a fair bit and would like to get much more involved in electronics as a hobby. I will never become an engineer, but I would like to to increase my knowledge a lot more, just to enjoy the hobby.

Although this interest has come over many years, I have not grown much.
I'm still at a Noob/ Beginner level.

After that longish boring intro, this is where my questions/suggestion actually start.

I've read that in order to design or build a circuit you must first learn learn to recognize and build small sections and eventually you will be able to throw them together and create your desired outcome. Don't know if that is actually how it works, but it sounds plausible.

Is it then possible to create a section or sub forum where a moderator could post a circuit or part of a circuit or instructions that target a specific component or set of components?
This can be on a monthly basis or as fast the Mod(s) can pump out. This can include schematics and maybe component list.

Obviously this must aimed at beginners and that can maybe include intermediate levels?
We can then build the various circuits and in the process pick up experience in building and recognizing sections. Along with that the trouble shooting process will be affected aswell.

The way the forum software works, you can appoint moderators and limit their function to that one section, so you don't have to use current moderators or Admin staff. Mods or members can answer or give advice with regards to the specific task or comments can be disabled.

Is this something that there is a need for and if so, can it be considered by the Admin team please?



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[ucanel]

When you got the basic concepts it gets easier.
As always stated you need to understand 3 passive components resistor, inductor, capacitor,
and then active boss transistor.

When I started i had build  a lot of simple circuits on breadboard,
talkingelectronic.com was very helpful, simple designs and simple enough explanations was there.

Nowadays "diodegone wild youtube channel" got my attention,
he rewiews smps circuits explains section by section and draws schematics from reverse engineering them.
If you watch his videos lets say more than 10 of the same subject,
you will see that section by section method helps to understand how it works and how i can build questions easily.

[john21443]

There are different ways to learn of course.  For me, it starts with a particular problem I want to solve.   From there I break it down into smaller pieces that are (relatively) easily googled or can result in queries posted to a forum.

For example, I wanted to develop an audio mixer with very specific inputs and outputs.  At the highest level I googled for audio mixing circuits.   As I gained an understanding I learned about op amp circuits.   Since those circuits were comprised of other components I learned about even more basic concepts.

For me, I would not benefit from random circuits being presented.

John

[rstofer]

The electronics sandbox is a pretty large place to play and folks have different interests.

For me, I need a project.  The needs of the project will determine whether and where I might have to go to find more information.  Google is full of projects.

OTOH, if you have an interest in 'circuits' for their own sake, "Learning The Art Of Electronics" just might be the best choice.  It is a lab manual for "The Art Of Electronics" textbook and there are plenty of circuits to play with.  You will probably need to be creative because the entire basket of parts is quite expensive.  Not every experiment will be worth the cost.  We  used to call it 'pencil whipping' when we just calculated the results without building the project.

There are many web sites with electronics tutorials.  EEVblog is one, of course, but a search on YouTube of 'w2aew' will turn up some great videos.  w2aew has several videos on transistor circuits and these can be very helpful for beginners learning about amplifiers.  Plan to spend some time on those playlists.  Detailed explanations are the reason I like his videos.  Very professional!

I hesitate to suggest other textbooks because they usually have a very pedantic approach to electronics and it usually includes more theory and math than a hobbyist might need.  It takes too long to get anywhere, frankly, it can get boring.

If you do want a more 'engineering' approach, consider Khan Academy as a start.  They have an EE program as well as a gigantic math program.

Digilent has a "Real Analog" program that combines lectures with labs.  I have watched some of the lectures and, once again, they are heavy on the theory of electronics (as you would expect) and I haven't worked through the labs.

https://learn.digilentinc.com/classroom/realanalog/

Other resources are listed in the 'stickies' at the top of this forum.

[HecticZA]

Thank you for the feedback and suggestions.

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[Old Printer]

There is so much electronics content out there, the pretty much any basic "course" would be a duplication of something that already exists. Maybe not exactly of what you have in mind, but close enough as to not justify the amount of time that someone or a group of someone's would have to invest. After a lifetime of very basic electronic tinkering (blindly) I have spent the last year or so gathering the basic equipment and trying to teach myself the basic theory. One major problem that has held me back is that everything I see interests me, and I spend a lot of time going through things haphazardly. This chews up a lot of time, and though I have learned a lot, I could be much farther if I had focused on the basics in their proper order. A website that I really find useful is    https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/         
It is text & graphic based, rather than video, but the different subjects are presented very orderly, so that if you pick say Resistors you get a section like this -  https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/resistor/res_1.html    Once you had a chance to read through a section a couple times, a few minutes on Google would furnish all of the circuits you could want.  I find that videos are easier to use, but text/graphic based tutorials teach me more, but as usual, YMMV and both is the best

[HecticZA]

Thank you for the link. I've bookmarked it.

I understand what you are referring to and you are correct ito duplicating info available at various resources.

I was just hoping that a couple of other guys would join me in the process and we could maybe discuss any obstacles and in the process increase understanding the circuit or module.

Thank you for your feedback.


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[rstofer]

I was just hoping that a couple of other guys would join me in the process and we could maybe discuss any obstacles and in the process increase understanding the circuit or module.

This kind of thing is done all the time around here.  Perhaps in the Beginner's Forum or maybe in the Projects Forum.  Microcontroller questions have their own forum along with FPGAs.  One advantage of EEVblog over some other sites is that there are some fairly accomplished people responding to questions.  You are far more likely to get the 'right' answer around here.

Ask away!