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Picking up Electrical Engineering as a Hobby
Inquisitor
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, I've been thinking of trying my hand at doing some electrical engineering stuff as a hobby, or at least give it a shot and see if I like it or not. I just want to do simple things, at least for now, you know, building a blinking LED light or something of that sort, eventually work my way up to more complicated things. I've found a couple of websites that look promising to learn on, but, I was wondering if anyone had any advice on books or websites to read or places buy or order kits from to get started. I live on the West Coast of the U.S., if that helps in recommending retailers at all.
Thanks!
Thanks!
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All issues of Make Magazine in digital form
Circuit building for dummies.
Bebop to the Boolean boogie.
All supposedly stuff that will suck you in. What I really need is an apprenticeship with some old guy who just happens to be interested in the same kind of projects I am... maybe I'll hit up my local open hacking hut in DC - I forget what they're called but in some areas nerds form a commune where you can hang out and work on projects.
http://www.abra-electronics.com/products/catalog/Evil-Genius-Electronic-Kit-p-4138.html
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/ae39/?cpg=ab
Once you've put together a few battery powered kits, consider a mains power supply and rectifying it to power your already built kit.
Watch ebay/craigslist/hamfests for classic books. I wouldn't suggest anything tube related until you're extremely comfortable working with mains. Any of the Don Lancaster books are great, the old TAB books, Electronic Projects for Guitar is good, Buchsbaum's Handbook, The Bible (Art of Electronics), ARRL handbook, back issues of Popular Electronics and Everyday Practical Electronics. Make and Nuts and Volts tend to be heavily microcontroller biased which, imo, you shouldn't worry about getting into for a while. You'll start doing crazy things like replacing 555 timers in even simple circuits with uCs.
Buying crap-
Hamfests/Swapmeets; before you get all excited about smelly basement dwellers pounding morse out, these are THE BEST places to get components, tools, gear to fix/strip and are a valuable source of local friends that you can get help or advice from. If you can handle the ramblings. And stank. (KB1FJQ SRI SRI)
Ebay; hit or miss but usually hit if you buy from a high-feedback surplus seller
New parts/tools; I almost always use Mouser even if the price is lower somewhere else. I've used Jameco, too. Both have great catalogues. Jameco has more kits, iirc, and a clearance section. If you have a local electronics supplier or surplus house, support them! Ma and Pop places have been dying for decades. We've got You-Do-It Electronics here in MA and they're awesome. A lot of my friends have been using dealextreme for bulk packs of LEDs and things, they're HK 100% so I can't speak for any kind of quality concerns, but I haven't heard complaints yet.
~IMPORTANT~
Don't cheap out on your iron! If you spend real money on nothing else, spend it on a good soldering station. Especially in these heady days of tighter and tighter restrictions on leaded solder. Once you get good with it, got a desoldering bulb attachment or a good reel of wick, you can make up the money stripping things. :P
I didn't even thinking of building something like that, thanks!
I love this site for many reasons. Including my man-crush on Tim Anderson (check out any of the videos he's done for Bacon Soap, Carbonated Fruit, etc.). You probably won't get a whole lot of structured learning, meaning you'll have to figure out what's above your head and what isn't, but if you want to know how to do something and what is involved in doing it, you'll likely find it here.
this is a page that got me started building my own guitar effects pedals. There are tons of sites that offer kits that will guide you step by step.
It offers links to other sites that sell kits and suppliers that offer parts.
Be forewarned...it is addicting as hell
Like the page says, I'd start with a kit. Usually they come with a pcb and all the parts; including an enclosure, jacks etc. Later I would start doing perfboards for your own designs and so forth if you are considering going that far.
Simple effects to do first are overdrives and stuff. More complicated circuits like delay pedals need to be callibrated and are more complex.
The Arduino lets you combine little bits of code with basic electronic components which lets you do simple things like playing with LEDs, knobs, and wires as well as big, complicated things if you're so inclined. Check out the tutorial to see if it's something that might catch your attention.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
First is microcontroller programming. This is the easiest to pick up. You can buy a *lot* of interesting components, and if you're even a slightly comfortable programmer you should be able to jump right in. You can also make tons of seriously cool shit.
Microcontrollers are like processors, but they have pins on them that you can connect to components. You can then buy things like small screens, buttons, lights, even breathalyzers (http://www.futurlec.com/Gas_Sensors.shtml) and wire them up.
If you can code, you've got a huge head start here. You just write (usually C) code and upload it to the microcontroller with a programmer and then you're all set. I think there are also some microprocessors targeted at newbies that have easier languages so you can get up and running faster.
Read the slides at http://supernova.stanford.edu/ee292c-2007/ . I took this class a few years ago and it really helped me feel comfortable around "practical" EE, not just how to design stuff but how to prototype and build it easily.
The second "type" of EE is analog circuits. This is the kind of thing where you just have a wire and resistors and capacitors and stuff and it does something magical. You should know basic analog circuits for any EE, because a lot of components you'll buy for a microprocessor will have voltage/current requirements and if you don't understand basic circuits you'll fry those parts immediately.
To get into this, buy yourself a good EE book. Find your nearest college, go to their textbook store, and look at the EE 101 (or equivalent) book. Look at a few until one seems to be written so that you understand it. Then, go home, go on Amazon, and buy it used. Get an old edition if it's cheaper. You'll be doing a little bit of math and theory here, but it's easy and absolutely necessary. If you don't understand electrons and can't explain how a wire or magnet works, you won't be able to use those components in more complicated ways.
Finally, you can learn digital systems. This is Verilog-style programming where you're building complex digital devices like processors, RAM, and specialized chips to do things like video processing. This is less esoteric than it sounds, is an interesting blend of EE and programming. To pick this up, buy yourself an FPGA and programming tools.
The fourth part (out of three...) is signal analysis. This is really interesting, but isn't suited to a new hobbyist unless you're really interested in Fourier transforms. You'll know when you need to learn this stuff, and it isn't now.
It *should* be the first thing you learn, but it's painfully boring. If you're picking this up as a hobby, you'll want to build some fun things to keep yourself interested. Get some basic knowledge in analog circuits, use it to build some cool (and simple) things with microcontrollers, and go from there. Don't start with a signal analysis book or you'll probably never get to actually make something because you made it halfway through and lost interest.