Electronics Course Suggestions

So the other night I was messing around with a stepper motor controller on a bread board when my brother-in-law asked me to explain to him what everything did. Turns out he really wants to learn electronics and how to design his own circuits from scratch. I'm in no position to teach it to him as I barely understand it myself. We started to look at the local colleges for classes only to discover all of them have dropped their electronics programs. I started dragging out the various electronics kits and books I've learned from over the years, only to be completely disappointed that most didn't even mention Ohm's Law. The ones that did, didn't seem to cover the information in a logical progression. I now understand why I have had such a hard time understanding some of this stuff.

Do any of you know of a good online course, preferably something in the free price range? However, I would like to hear about good paid courses as well.

Thanks in advance,

Jeremy

I can't recommend any courses, all I took was "volts for dolts" in university. It was a good primer, but most of it I learned much earlier just by messing about with things. If I'd only had Wikipedia back then!

I'd say get him some parts to play with, and let him learn as he goes. If he's at all interested in programming, get him an Arduino, ideally with the breakout shield - there's a ton of fun things you can do with one of those. Find a project he can work on, like controlling the room lights from a PC, or even an "emergency party button" like this:

[www.plasma2002.com]

I find I learn things easier if I have an actual project with a goal in mind.

Wade

I have learned what I know from doing simple projects; however, one downside to this approach is, you may be able to get the project done but still not really know what is happening. Which is where I am at with my electronics knowledge. I do a lot of build/program "by example".

Jeff (my brother-in-law) on the other hand, and myself to some degree, really want to know why things work they way they do. A good example came from last night. He asked me about putting resisters in a series, which I explained that you add up their values to get the total resistance. Then he asked one of those questions that makes perfect sense to ask, that I just don't have a good answer for. If I have a resister of say 3 ohms followed by a resister of 1 ohms, why doesn't the 1 ohm resister, being the smaller of the two, restrict the current down to whatever 1 ohm represents. If you have a pipe with flowing water and two valves. The output of water is going to be based on the smallest opening. It took me quiet awhile thinking about it to come up with, a resister restricts the current by "removing" some of it through heat. So instead of it being two valves in the pipe it is more like two holes with water going else where. Which just caused more confusion.

I should tell you that Jeff is starting from ground zero, when he first asked me to teach him electronics, we where at dinner and what he asked was, "Can you teach me about the things in your geek magazine with the green fields, different sized building, and the grain silos?" Referring to a green PCB, surface mounted components and capacitors. Which is why I try to use a lot of pipe analogies.

At this point, I have given him some of the beginner project books I had and the components needed. If he still has interest after going through those, we may both sign up for a course at DeVry University online.

Jeremy

Cool; any good course should help out!

Hey, the pipe analogy actually works well for circuits. The trick is that the 3 ohm resistor is actually the smaller valve - it resists the flow of water (current) more than the 1 ohm resistor. Think of a 1 mega-ohm resistor in series with a 1 ohm resistor - the total is 1,000,001 ohms, which is indistinguishable from 1 mega-ohm with most equipment. A 1 M ohm resistor hardly lets any current flow at all, so it would be like having a microscopic pore for the water to flow through, vs a 1 ohm resistor is almost as good as an open pipe.

Hope that help!

Wade

lol. I actually knew that. The bigger the number the more resistance. I'm going to blame it on the cold medicine.

Thanks,

Jeremy

cptwinder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So the other night I was messing around with a
> stepper motor controller on a bread board when my
> brother-in-law asked me to explain to him what
> everything did. Turns out he really wants to learn
> electronics and how to design his own circuits
> from scratch. I'm in no position to teach it to
> him as I barely understand it myself. We started
> to look at the local colleges for classes only to
> discover all of them have dropped their
> electronics programs. I started dragging out the
> various electronics kits and books I've learned
> from over the years, only to be completely
> disappointed that most didn't even mention Ohm's
> Law. The ones that did, didn't seem to cover the
> information in a logical progression. I now
> understand why I have had such a hard time
> understanding some of this stuff.
>
> Do any of you know of a good online course,
> preferably something in the free price range?
> However, I would like to hear about good paid
> courses as well.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Jeremy

Jeremy, et al,

It's a shame that local colleges have dropped electronics. What are the admins thinking?!?


Learning by doing worked well for me. A solderless breadboard, a (low current or current limited) DC power supply (a DC wall-wart will do, in a pinch), and a few handfuls of parts can take the interested student a *long* way. Add a cheap DMM, and the sky's the limit.

But tutorials are helpful to suggest what to build, and how to get it working if it doesn't behave on the first try. One source of tutorials and similar is the usenet newsgroup family sci.electronics.* which one can read via (e.g. sci.electronics.basics) via: [groups.google.com]

I searched these NGs for the keyword tutorial and found many hits. Among them was this:

Black Ops wrote:
> Hey! does anyone now where I can get a tutorial or something for beginners
> in electronics. My email is c0demas...@hotmail.com . thanx in advance

Here are several which I have found, of varying quality:

[www.proaxis.com]
[www.electronics2000.com]
[junitec.ist.utl.pt]
[lonestar.texas.net]
[www.seattlerobotics.org]
[webhome.idirect.com]
[www.lucent.com]
[www.irf.com]
[www.btinternet.com]

-Ian Hayes
iha...@globalserve.net

I can't speak to the quality of the links (or whether they stil exist), but this NG (and the whole sci.electronics.* family) contain some good info.

I learned from the TTL/CMOS/Op-Amp cookbooks. Not the most theoretical, but they worked for me.

_The Art of Electronics_ by Horowitz and Hill is a *great* book [en.wikipedia.org] , but it's not a good beginner's book, by itself, IMHO. The authors cover linear circuit theory (usually a course in its own right!) in less than a chapter! That is very tough going if you haven't already done some electronics. However, the authors aren't just theoreticians (though they are that, as well.) They develop amazing electronics! I'm eagerly wwaiting the 3rd Edition.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2009 01:32PM by Larry Pfeffer.

---

Larry Pfeffer,

My blog about building repstrap Cerberus:
[repstrap-cerberus.blogspot.com]

Think of resistance as a viscous liquid flowing through a small pipe, voltage as pressure and current as flow rate .

If you put resistors(small pipes) in series then they would both contribute to slowing down the flow rate at a given pressure. Just like the longer the hole in the extruder nozzle, the more force is required to keep the flow rate up.

And, viscous resistance produce heat, just like electrical resistance.

The analogy with fluids can get a bit tenuous but in this case it a good conceptual model.

---

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

you can also apply the mechanical analogy.

voltage is like potential energy (perhaps stored in a spring or simply a hanging mass), resistance as friction (also dissipates energy as heat) and current as velocity. transformers as levers or gear ratios, etc.

all the parallels are pretty interesting.

andres

Humm,

I would recommend:-

[nptel.iitm.ac.in]

A pretty comprehensive introduction,

Best,

arun