How to start? Asking some hints on first design, laptop, CAD...

[claudiostazzone]

Hi Dave! Hi to you all!
My name is Claudio (39 years old) and I live in Italy (on the other side of the planet.. ). I am an EMC engineer since 2008 and I work in an EMC lab in Turin.

I have subscribed to your channel after having seen a lot of your videos.. I really like the way you explain things!!

As an EMC engineer I am developing (the path is very long though..) the ability to troubleshoot PCB board, because I see that this is what our customers are asking every day.

I graduated in Telecommunications and I have never practiced Electronics design... except three projects in school, using an old Orcad version running under DOS..!!
But now, I would like to join my experience in EMC together with Electronics design. So, for this I have a few questions for you...

1) Am I late to learn Electronics Design? (Yeahh, stupid question??)
2) How can I begin? To start, could be useful to replicate at home a (opensource) project by somebody else? Other strategies?
3) What software can I use? Is it worthy to begin with free ones (like KiCad?), or let's go with PRO packages like Altium (they cost a lot of money...)?
4) What kind of PC do you use? Ram, CPU, video card?

I think that's all... I really thank you for your time!

Cheers!

Claudio
PS: I do think that Mr. Crocodile Dundee is one of my favorite film characters.. when I watch your videos, in some ways you resemble him... especially when it's Mailbag time... guess why..

[hamster_nz]

1) It is never too late to learn anything!

2) Build something simple you are interested in having as a project to build experience with the tools.

3) I find KiCAD is actually pretty good.

4) For me, any recent PC or laptop is fine for initial projects. Mine is an i3 laptop, 8GB RAM using Intel graphics. A SSD helps

[claudiostazzone]

Hi Hamster_Nz,
thank you very much for your reply and for your suggestions!!
Cheers!

Claudio

[james_s]

I designed dozens of PCBs using KiCad on an ancient Pentium 4 with 1GB of RAM so you don't need anything fancy there. Any computer capable of running a modern web browser will run a tool like KiCad, I've even run it on a raspberry pin just to see if it would work.

[rstofer]

My projects are simple so I don't use a fancy package like KiCad or Altium.  I looked at Eagle one time and the learning curve was too steep, for me.  So I use ExpressPCB software and board services.  Nothing is automated, I have to do all the routing by hand but, somehow, it all works out.  For my projects.  FWIW, I use the 'Classic' version because it ties the schematic to the routing process.  I don't think the new version has that feature although it is planned.  I haven't looked into it in a couple of years, the Classic version is entirely adequate.

https://www.expresspcb.com/expresspcbplus/

If I need a uC for a project, I don't design a board with a uC, I plug a stamp format uC board into a daughter card that I design.  The Arduino NANO comes to mind but I'm much more likely to use the MBED LPC1768.  I have also designed daughter cards for the STM Nucleo boards.  The SLab project is one such daughter card - works well!

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9564
https://store.arduino.cc/usa/arduino-nano

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/small-lab-(slab)-release/msg1428529/#msg1428529
https://github.com/R6500/SLab

I like messing around with FPGAs and I find Xilinx Vivado to be quite slow.  The older ISE was bad, Vivado is worse.  So I built up a machine with an I7 7700K, 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD drive.  Now, it is tolerable.  Clearly, Vivado will run on lesser hardware but I have a short attention span.

[rstofer]

And consider making friends with a mathematics solver like MATLAB (I have the Home license) or the nearly equivalent GNU Octave (no cost).  Perhaps you have used these before?

You're never too old to learn!  I'm 73 and helping my grandson through his college BSME program.  I'm relearning stuff I thought I learned and I'm learning new stuff as we go along.  I really eat up his MATLAB homework and Physics is a course that I really enjoyed back in the day.  So, age isn't a problem!  I was 31 when I finished grad school and most of the other students were in my age group.  The program was oriented toward working engineers so that kind of implied a little older but with a ton more experience.

You will absolutely need LTSpice and there is a great forum on Yahoo Groups.  There are two, one for questions and answers, the second is just a files repository.  There are a couple of guys in that group that are closely associated with the developer and they are VERY knowledgeable.

Consider the RealAnalog program at Digilent https://learn.digilentinc.com/classroom/realanalog/  Also consider the EE track at Khan Academy as well as their math topics.  Their web site seems slow today https://www.khanacademy.org/science/electrical-engineering

[MarkF]

I agree with everyone here.  It's never too late to learn something new.  I'm 63 retired and learning something new every day.

Start with a small project you're interested in.  Build it on a solderless breadboard and test.  Then, layout a PCB.

If your project has a microcontroller, I started with an 8-bit Microchip PIC.  But, an Arduino is probably easier.  Both the MPLAB X and XC8 or Arduino IDE are not too difficult to write C code.  Both IDEs are free.  For the PICs you would need a PicKit 3 to program them.

I like the small 8-bit PICs to learn on. They will get you close to the hardware.  You will directly see the effects of toggling bits in software and resulting hardware changes.  It gives you a good understanding of how the microcontroller and large mainframe computer I/O work.  Many computer science majors I've worked with over the years have no clue when trying to write code to control a piece of hardware.

Personally, I use DipTrace for the Schematic and PCB layout.  It's free and easy to learn and use.  I would start with the free tools to get your feet wet.
I develop on a recent Windows 10 laptop but have also used an OLD Windows XP machine.  The XP machine will only run an old version of MPLAB X IDE (which is available).  DipTrace runs on both.

I don't have Linux on any of my home computers to comment.

[KC0PPH]

1) Am I late to learn Electronics Design? (Yeahh, stupid question??)
Nope
2) How can I begin? To start, could be useful to replicate at home a (opensource) project by somebody else? Other strategies?
Start by getting a Breadboard and some random components (But a Resistor and Capacitor Assortment off of ebay and a grab bag of silicon stuff). and just build little circuits. Play with Transistors and Fets, and some devices in DIP packages (Op Amps, Logic Devices ect). Once you understand a bit then move up to building your first real project. A lab power supply is a good way to start (this is where I currently am).
3) What software can I use? Is it worthy to begin with free ones (like KiCad?), or let's go with PRO packages like Altium (they cost a lot of money...)?
I use Eagle and really like it. I hear great things about KiCad and Diptrace as well. Pick your Poison. I use Eagle bc I used it a long time ago and now that Autodesk owns it I am hopeful they will harmonize it with Autocad so I dont have to remember how to use multiple programs.
4) What kind of PC do you use? Ram, CPU, video card?
If you are looking for a PC, then build you own. AMD has some great Ryzen Proccessors as does Intel. Pick a Processor in the 150-300 range and get it with a motherboard combo (Newegg is where I buy from). From there get a single 8g stick of ram (unless there are 4 ram slots then 2 4 gig is ok). Verify the RAM is on the Motherboards QVL list. Last you need a decent graphics card. If you go AMD the RX 580 is a good option. If you go Intel or AMD the Geforce 1060 or 1070 are great options.

Just mashing things together on Newegg for around 750 USD you can get a pretty nice system that will last for years. As mentioned before though you really dont need any Hot PC to run these circuit programs. I have a REALLY hot PC and the autoroutter on Eagle takes just as long as on my slower laptop (I have a Threadripper with 64gig of ram and RTX2080Ti Graphics Cards -- and no I dont game lol).

[james_s]

Computers are so cheap these days that very few things require truly high end anymore. I run a Plex server on a $300 i7 mini pc and it has enough power to transcode several 1080p streams at once.