In 1975, I told my scout leader I was interested in Electronics, he gave me a 1974 Signetics Digital Linear MOS Data Data Book (One of the most beautiful Data books of it's time). I carried that book everywhere and taught myself digital electronics design. That Signetics Data Book was the start of a long career in electronics engineering . I'm now 60 and retired, but still have that Signetics data book in my library.
I was a Computer Engineering major in college. The thing I liked best about my EE classes was the total lack of memorization. It was all about developing certain ways of thinking about things and processes for analyzing them.
Absolutely agree with this. I’m a civil engineer and feel the same way. I hated chemistry because of having to memorize things and names that were so similar (nitrate, nitrite, nitride, etc.).
When I was learning trigonometry, I was struggling about memorizing the ration division, like when you wanna find the sin, but you don't remember if you have to divide the hipothenuse by the opposite or by the adjacent. I only managed to memorize after understanding that most of the rations are below 0. So it means that the hipothenuse is probably going to be the denominator(the number on the bottom of a fraction) or divider most of the times.
This is a 100 % guaranteed way to fail big time today. "Just let's do it", lol, what a load of crap. Just because your generation had everything handed to them and nothing was difficult or complicated, doesn't mean we need your bullshit experience to learn from.
I can still remember what made me fall in love with electronics as a kid. Looking through the holes in the wooden fibre board on the back of a twin cassette tape with record player on the top. Seeing all the components on brown pcb and thinking it looks like a mini city hidden in darkness. Good Times
@@1.8millionvolts87 Never heard anyone who's old enough to remember what OP is talking about, that talks like you. Not a single person I know says or writes OMG SAME 😅
This video explains my outlook on life/learning very well. The older I have got the more I have realized you can learn anything just by putting your genuine attention and curiosity into it. You said "you don't worry about the stuff until you need it then become an expert on it". I learned programming as a high schooler just from wanting to create stuff and I became good enough at it to secure a full time job in it. 3 years ago I purchased a corvette and now I am a pretty great mechanic just out of interest and necessity. You just have to go into stuff with the mindset of "I can do this" and you'll get there. I'm painting my car next week lol I've never painted a car before and most people will tell me that it's gonna turn out bad if I don't spend $5000 but you just gotta not listen to that and go for it. I'll just keep this outlook for the rest of my life because I love the freedom it gives me
Love this, same here. I’m embracing this more and more. Working on a 89’ Ford Ranger I bought last year. Gonna change the oil pan gasket this weekend. Never done a lot of what I’m gonna have to do to get it done but it’s exciting
This style of video is quality. No music and it gives you a first person view of learning something that a lot of people might think is more difficult than it needs to be.
I think this is brilliant. I learned electronic circuits in the early 90’s on a polytechnical school. At the end I received a diploma and was able to calculate voltage dividers, coil hysterisys curves, ntsc and pal vectors… but I had no clou how to build things. Because we had not learned how to bring this in practise. We had no youtube back then. Just our teachers who learned their ways to us the way they had learned it from their teachers. After a few years I quit my repairjob (Most of the time I had no idea how to repair. Just switched components until I had the right component removed and replaced) and went into computersciences. That was the end of my electronics ambition. Now, after almost 30 years, I reenter the world of electronics because I’m missing the one thing in my life that really has my interest. Electronics. But instead of learning all the equations, I bought a multimeter, a power supply, an oscilloscope and a function generator and some components and started playing. Blew up a lot of things (my first led went with a real ‘bang’) and learned by doing. And I have the greatest time of my life. Sometimes I look up the math to start understanding how it is working and it all falls into place now. In stead of trying to memorizing the math, it now is more like understanding the situation and applying the math out of it. I think this video deserves way more likes and views and should be an inspiration to everyone. Thank you sir!
I love your humility. I also have a degree in physics, grad degree as well. I work as “engineer” but there are so many things I simply don’t know but hungry to learn. This video was excellent. Thank you very much.
I have an EE degree, and what you learn in school, is mostly theory, on how circuits work. Very little is taught on circuit design itself. Some in digital electronics, but less in analog circuitry. Most of what I learned is self taught. As far a math goes, in engineering school, they do go into the derivations. But what's really important, is the concepts behind the math. Knowing the math concepts can often help you design a simpler circuit. For example, the "sampling theory", which is the SAME as side band modulation, mathematically. Lots of harmonics generated, but if generate a perfect square wave (exact 50% duty cycle), you'll see that all the even harmonics disappear. Only odd harmonics. One of my old bosses, used this to create a simple tape erase system, that REQUIRED a sine wave. He just used a simple flip-flop stage, that made a perfect 50% square wave, that he fed directly in the erase head, as the inductor, and a cap so it would resonate roughly near the square wave. That combine provided enough filtering to get a perfect sinewave, because the 3rd harmonic amplitude was small enough to not be worried about. The competition, used an overly complex multistage multiorder op-amp filter. Both worked the same, but our was cheaper and more reliable.
😭 I'm supposed to know all that (since I'm doing my masters in Electronics and communication) but I've forgotten. Right now on a quest to clear my doubts and strengthen my foundations again. 😤
"Just go do" is great advice... Prototyping circuits is a great way to learn. Your video really demonstrated your point. You were questioning the success of the video towards the end, but don't second guess yourself, it was perfect.
Im80 now. A a,kid,I,swept up in a radio tv,shop. They taught me to solder and change parts. I read the ARRL book. After high school i did get formal education, then the Army radio school. All my life meant self education and practice. One never stops learning formally or otherwise.😊
“Go do” is a great philosophy for gaining understanding and wisdom. I did EE a long time ago and, for a range of reasons, the “go do” philosophy did not feature in my undergraduate learning. “go do” is what you need to do to figure out the relationship between abstraction and reality. I salute your spirit of inquiry and investigation! Really enjoyed your vid!
I dropped out my EE because of there was no feature "go do" in my undergraduate learning. I dont have money to enroll to other college. I stucked at RnG MMORPG and Microstakes multitab poker which are, go do and math proven.
I like this perspective. A lot of people want to know how to get motivated to learn new things. I think your idea of just doing things is one answer. As you do things, you seem to find things that motivate you. It reminds me of the advice people give to artists: dont wait for inspiration to lead you to act. Instead, act, and let that lead you to inspiration.
This was a very good presentation. I'm a 3rd year General (41 year old) and I'm just getting into electronics. The presentation was very encouraging. You'd be a very good Elmer.
This is gold! I have been interested and active in electronics since childhood. Every learning step was complicated math and deep theory..... almost never starting with basic concepts that build intuition.
Mr electronics, respected dude, I am now 60 years old, and have done electronics since I was about 7 years old. (Simple experiments with radio) Nothing in this life is actually learned unless you learn it yourself. I did not go to school for the last 2 years of secondary school. This is because I am dyslexic and they did not help me. This is a good thing because it taught me how to teach myself. This is what they should teach people in the schools, colleges and universities IMHO
Absolutely solid advice, I think when we normally want to learn about any subject, we tend to get intimidated and overwhelmed by math, theory, etc.. I appreciate your simplistic approach and think your video came out great!. Thanks!
I totally agree that getting that gut feel for a circuit makes all the difference. I've been in love with circuits my whole life---I'm 61 and still get excited by a new circuit. One thing I have found useful in understanding a circuit, is to look at the limiting cases, and the mid-line case. So, for the filters of this example. The limiting case would be opening up the capacitor (low frequencies) or shorting the capacitor (high frequencies.) Midline would be where the frequencies start rolling off, or the 3 db point. That is where the gain is half, so the value where the capacitive reactance equals the parallel (or series) resistor. I have found this can give a real insight, for me anyway, on the circuits operation, or where it can go off.
I watched this video second time, I was contemplating my life decisions,thanks you reminded me that I don't need a degree in electrical engineering to learn electronics, salute to your work
Brilliant on all counts! All I would add (though you did it with the op amp circuits) is have something to build, especially something you want to have - it must be simple at first. That will enable you to buy only the tools and components you need and then learn all the skills whilst building. How many of us started out with a wooden block (bread board) crystal set!
When I was in high school, learning digital clock circuits; I overheated plenty of breaboards and 555 timer/leds for using the wrong wattage/value for the current limiting resistors. I started in electronics because I want to know how things work, my parents got tired of me taking stuff apart and sent me to a tech school to learn properly. been doing electronics repair and design ever since. best guess always work.... eventually.
Sir I am 23 and i am dead curious interested in electronics and i already have learned some tidbits like circuits resistor c language Arduino but I can't make any money out of it and that keeps me frustrated. Can you tell me if you have some cues about how I can make some money from electronics.
@@codingchacha3195 Hello, i'm 21 and i work as a freelancer doing PCB design, just pure electronics with no coding, although a coding background is really, really helpful. I have an EE degree but no employer has ever asked me about it. But i do want to tell you, Arduino and resistors are like, the really basic stuff, there is not much money to do there. It's a great starting point however, so keep doing and learning. Also, some mathematic background REALLY helps on the hard stuff, the stuff where there is a lot of money to be made, so don't neglect formal education if it's available to you, even something as seemingly useless as Maxwell equations are almost mandatory to understand when doing high frequency design (microprocessors and DDR3 RAM interfaces on the 1-2ghz frequency range). I would recommend you to learn about ESP32 since it's very used and demanded today, and also very similar to Arduino
@Thawne I started doing freelance because I wanted to work on Hardware Design and there were no opportunities where I live for that particular field. After I made some great work and reputation getting longer contracts was easy. I am not formally hired at the moment by the way
I'd say both. Following a degree in electronics (or other engineering fields) for the money while having no affinity for it will reuslt in a lot of wasted time. But having genuine interest and going to college will make learning easier and will certify your skills in the eyes of a possible employer.
lol i have started my second year of bachelors in EE and learned that they aint gonna teach me shit so i am here trying to figure out and learn stuff for myself, i loved electronics but the way they teach is awful, project based learning is the best and they avoid it at all costs to restrain creativity
Very true, you'll forget everything if stop using it because you didn't actually enjoyed it. I'm sadden that i lost my curiosity for electronics long, long ago, but now i just want to challenge myself!!!! AhhHhhHh!!!! :)
Wow this video is much more than a video about learning electronics. It's a philosophical way towards learning. I'm glad I found it. ¡Gracias por compartir!
My story with practical electronics was back in 2003 with "Handbook of Switchmode Power Supplies", by Keith Billings, from McGraw-Hill publisher. I've really read that book from cover to cover many times, even slept with it. I wanted to design power converters, but learned through atx power supplies repair, from old PCs. My firs one I've ever touched blew up in front of my eyes, by my mistaken switch on 120V, but plugged into 230V outlet.
I just found your video and wanted to say thank you for encouraging me to read and study this hobby and not get discouraged . I’m 38 and always wanted to understand electronics and do projects as a hobby . I’m starting at the basics .
Learning this stuff now in college and oh boy did they throw us into the depend of all the math straight away. Watching this helped me reflect and remember my passion. THANKS!
Well here’s a fun fact once you leave school if you’re not going into engineering you’ll never do that math again unless you want to for the hell of it. We mostly just swap whole board now. Tbh none of the engineers I know use the math either 😂
Wonderful Video!!! I'm a Chief Engineer (aerospace), and took the challenge to resolve reliability issues of an electronic box (simillar to a Variable Freq Drive, but converts variable frequency to a fixed frequency). With only a high school level electronics education, I embarked on this challenge 40-years later....basically my own self-study; which I learned a TON of electronics and electrical knowledge, while helping to solve the relaibility issues. Again...Excellent Video!!!
True on the equation's ! I too started to learn electronics when I was 7. I'm now 76. At the age of 9, I started repairing my neighbors Radio & TV's. In 1975, I finally got my EE.
I've been repairing electronics professionally for the last 10 years or so. It all started back when I was 6 or 7 years old, my dad picked me up an "electronics learning lab" kit from Radioshack. I'm pretty sure I still have that thing in a box somewhere. The kit was amazing! It was a big rectangle with all these knobs, switches, lights, connectors and meters, with a breadboard slapped in the middle. The kit came with a huge assortment of components and three books. Two of them were lab books (containing exercises to perform on the kit), and one was a book on how to actually read and interpret schematics. My dad and I would spend HOURS assembling different circuits out of those books. To this day, the _only_ reason I know how to even read schematics and make sense of them is because of what I learned in those books. I may not know the equations and the math for how a lot of that stuff works, but when it comes to repairing electronics, you don't need to know _why_ the designers specifically chose a 200uF 12v polymer capacitor to place in that particular spot of the circuit, you just need to have an idea of _what_ that circuit does, and what purpose that capacitor serves. Is it filtering? Is it decoupling? Is this particular circuit supposed to produce a necessary voltage to make something else in the device work? Is it maybe not working because this capacitor has a fault? Repair in specific is one of the coolest aspects of electronics work in my opinion. It combines so many different fields of work into one. PACE put out some amazing videos on rework and repair back in the 80's, and they described repairing electronics as being your very own process engineer. You have to find the fault, fix the problem, and restore the circuit back to as good as or equal to manufacturer specifications. You have to do all of this maybe without even knowing _exactly_ how the circuit works or the math and equations involved. I for example don't know the exact math behind the principles of a resonating circuit, or the exact breakdown of how PWM works, but I know what a boost and buck converter look like. I know _what_ they are supposed to do and roughly how they do it. I may not know _how_ filtering works and what that does to apparent and real power, and what the current over voltage waveform would look like, but I know that if one filtering cap out of a dozen is shorted, it's going to screw the whole rail and that voltage won't go where it's supposed to go.
I mean, microelectronics have negative capacitance available now and every month brings more magnonic and memristive components; serial ports can deliver 200 W safely. Fire up Wolfram and see if it helps decide whether to throw a stonking ultracap in here or there. There's some decisions to be made to bring circuits to polity outside the context of just picking the right family of FPGA and IDE.
I stumbled into this video at 2AM the night before my midterm and now I’m so excited to try out actually building real circuits! I’m an electrical and computer engineering student, and I soo agree with how he said they throw equations at you without actually having the students learn about what things you can do with what you learn! Thank you for the video sir!
Thanks for this video! Likewise I had a non-traditional path to becoming an engineer. Got interested in electronics in high school while playing with CB radio in the mid 70s and then discovered ham radio but didn't know any hams to get started. I did buy the ARRL handbook - 1977 edition - and started learning from that which gave me a jump start on later studies. Joined the Army in 1976 to get my college paid for and went through the Army satcom school to become a 26Y - satellite communications ground station equipment repairman. It was a year long school that took you from introductory basic electronics all the way to microwave and satellite communications concepts, and included also included repair of cryogenically cooled low noise amplifiers, heat exchangers for liquid cooled power amplifiers, and air conditioners. Took additional studies while in the service including a communications engineering correspondence course and some college math classes. Had every intent of going on to college after leaving the Army but the experience in satcom from the Army actually landed me a nice position with a commercial satellite communications company right out of the service. Hired on as a field engineer and was promoted to a junior engineer and then started moving through the ranks. Had many great mentors along the way and supplemented that with a lot of self studies and a class here and there. Eventually someone suggested I look into getting licensed as a Professional Engineer and I did some additional studying to do that. Thankfully I had participated in an apprentice program while in the service and had logs for all my experience, and that plus transcripts of other studies were enough to satisfy the board that I had met the equivalence of an ABET accredited engineering degree program and I was able to take and pass the EIT exam and then later the P.E. electrical engineer exam and become licensed. So, for anyone interested in learning electronics - if you're here watching IMSAI Guy it's a good guess you are - then I totally second picking up a copy of the ARRL Handbook and some other great publications that they have like the ARRL Antenna book, and digging in. Get a starter kit and just start playing around. Turns out the sky isn't the limit - you could communicate to satellites or beyond to another planet ;-)
This video has inspired me to get back into electronics. I was first interested as a kid/teen by studying PCB designs in my home computer and was fascinated in how everything was arranged and how it all worked. There werent any women I knew into those things so it was just my cousin and I taking apart every computer and radio in his house together ( much to the dismay of his parents). The same interest followed me into the Navy as an ET. Your comment about the math resonated with me as it was the math that sort of shied me away, but getting out there and doing, getting your hands dirty, and not being afraid to fry a couple cheap bits is really how you learn. The doing also helps you to then understand the theory. Im getting back into this at 32 as a hobby hoping to one day be able to design my own PCBs. Great video and advice.
Learn by doing. Many years ago, when I lost my job, I got a chance to take a class in analog and digital electronics. It led me to understand the connection between mechanics and electronics via various sensors and such. Back in those days, Sweden was a rich country that had money set aside to help people who showed interest in learning new skills to improve their chances on the job market. The education was based on "learn-by-doing", learning how to use various tools to measure and find errors in basic circuits. This UA-cam video brings me back to how I got my introduction into the world of electronics, something I've had great use for when I got into build-in systems and IoT. 👍
I’m a mechanical engineer under schooling but I work a lot with PCB’s so there’s an interest to learn some background there. This was a nice video to have randomly appear in my feed!
Hey man thanks! I think the video has the exact amount of humbling knowledge you need to start a journey onto learning the unknown. It gave me guidance.
INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRONIC AMPLIFIERS by Rodney B. Faber. 1971. And MODERN DICTIONARY OF ELECTRONICS by Rudolf F. Graf 3rd edition 1970. Best $5 spent at a yard sale. These Books are Gold. I’ve been contemplating a channel going over these old books. Shooting for mid-late summer. Thanks for your video’s.
Thank you for putting this out there. I have a mix of both school and road of hard knocks and got to say I’ve learned more just doing than I ever did in school. I’m not saying school is bad and there are some really great ones out there but for me the actual doing and seeing how things actually work in real life practical applications was key. Great message for basically anything anyone wants to learn. Go Do..
Great way to learn. I'm 6 months away from getting masters degree in EE and most of time I do what you do. Until you are interested or asked to do a project you don't need to know everything but you need to be welling spend the time to learn and explore.
@@Joe-ug3bb I don't have a specific book in mind but I would suggest picking up a project and then as you explore what skills you need to execute that project, search for books or tutorial to learn these skills.
@Thawne I don't know what you mean but I will answer anyway. I had high grade in math and physics then this was the start to go to bachelor then high grades again which got me into the master program. I graduated through hard works.
As a newcomer into electronics, I've found this video right on point. Getting hands dirty naïvely and then learning how/why you've seen such result is pretty much how we learn in life. Kudos to you for such a good channel. Just make sure you are in a safe sandbox and nothing will blow up if you mess things up😂.
Got my first ARRL handbook used at library sale, 1977 edition in 1983. Had the Radio Shack 150 in 1 project kit, and got a bunch of Forrest Mims books as a youngster.
I bought almost all the Forrest Mims books at Radio Shack as a little kid in the late 80s. :) I didn’t fully understand them at that age (8-11ish), but still, they helped spark my interest.
I love your explanation and teaching method. Curiosity is the key and don't be scared of tech. If you screw up, so long as you're playing with components which are very affordable you can afford to blow them up, and then hopefully that'll teach you why they blew up. Great work. Thank you for your videos.
Wow this video totally resonates in my soul! I totally agree with your ideas about learning subjects like Electronics. Learn the concepts first, the math LAST. Build, test play- always, real stuff is your best teacher- it never lies. Don't worry that you have gaps in your knowledge, fill them as you go - when you need to, it's 10X easier to learn something when it's for a real purpose, here and now. Browse 1000's of circuits, look for the recurring shapes and patterns, it's like leaning a language, the components are the letters, function blocks are the words, systems are the sentences.
Subscribed. Love your take, really down to earth, learn it when you need it, don't need to understand everything at once, learn through play and let that be the motivator to dig deeper down the rabbit hole.
One of the woodwork teachers at my school subscribed to a magazine called everyday electronics. When he'd finished with them he left them in the school library where I spent my lunch break fascinated with the various projects you could make. I was learning guitar but couldn't afford effects pedals or amplifiers. So ended up making them. I've still got a 300watt mosfet amp that I made in 1989 that I gigged with for years and it still works. The world of electronics has changed so much since then and I might say in a good way with the ease of access to information such as that provided on this channel.
I like it! A very good explanation. The practical side seems to often be missed because people see the math and then shy away, because they will "never be able to do the math". Thank you for sharing.
BSEE here. Great video and I like that you show an actual book to learn from. Let me comment on phase. Most of the time you're right, it's not important / can ignore. Where it matters: a) Non-linear phase change is distortion and too much distortion changes the frequency response. This is because phase modulation and frequency modulation are two forms of the same thing. The group delay is another metric. Smaller is better. Total harmonic distortion that an oscilloscope gives you can be a helpful objective measurement of said distortion, along with SNR. b) Analog to digital conversion (ADC) because the sampling occurs on a specified phase and the phase change, such as from a filter, changes the optimal sampling phase. Can either change the sampling phase or add an all-pass filter to cancel out most of the phase change.
For me, i got into this like i did with programming… I had a need.. Not job related or anything, but something at home i needed to fix and something i needed for various uses. Once you have that personal need, you will be more interested in seeing it through. Most people that have issues are just learning because of a job want or just curious. So for those people, all they can do are tutorials. Nice, but easy to give up when things get a little tough. So have a need that you can use in your daily life.. For me that was fixing kids toys and eventually enhancing them. You don’t need to start out building things from scratch. Just like programming where you can just download some code that will serve a function for you and then modify it to your likening or purpose.. You can use something simply thats not working and try to fix it. Usually kids toys fit that bill well. And make some kid happy at the same time .. Learn how different tweaks give you different results. For me, that process really sped things up and over tine you may encounter more complicated things that require more study. But that wont be so hard since now, you have a successful background going for you to build from and not start out cold turkey…. The key take away is to work on something you need, to learn from as it make the learning process more interesting and less likely for you to quit if things get a little tough. Also, when i was ready to start more advanced things… I started looking at power supplies. Anything that does AC to DC.. They are everywhere and will teach you A LOT.
Hope you are doing great. If we had more people like you, we'd have less youngsters making excuses like "I'm bad at maths or science". I'm an engineer myself and you are inspiring me to try do some non-profit teaching, thanks
Great video! The -3dB point is called the cutoff frequency. It's useful to know when making filters because at that point you have half the power than at 0dB.
I am very much a beginner. At this point I would have a lot of trouble building this circuit and getting my oscilloscope to read it. However, I get the point, and I love it! I’m inspired to get exploring. Thanks, fun video!
Not as complex as it seems. That particular book (which has a 2022 version) and some others include basic circuit explanation. In my opinion a nice-to-have would be for a book to include a typical component connection example (i.e. in this case say a 741 and include the power connections) and then example input and output scope traces and voltages, something I miss from my early days working in TV and radio. I know some books include such 'additional information' but there is nothing worse than having to refer to multiple sources of information to connect and understand a basic function.
The link between a physical circuit and theory to the point of physics being realised is very interesting...the understanding of subtleties in the circuit and it's improvement are a real asset to understanding
I had a similar experience in circuits class in university. I was struggling with the math on tests and having trouble completing them on time. By the final I started thinking about it in terms of what effects the components would have in circuit rather than doing all the math first. That gave me a close idea of the answer, and then afterwards I would go back to verify with math if time was available. Ended up with an A on the final :^)
@Thawne It's hard for sure. I went to university for a bachelors and got my job in the final semester. I think employers want to see a mix of education + practice (projects, experience, etc). I didn't have much experience outside of university at the time and think I got a bit lucky there. Maybe you can find like-minded people in your local area (interested in electronics or another passion). That would help keep you interested because there's peer pressure to continue participating.
While my father helped get me started with the basics, I learned MOST of what I know much the same way as you - my first book was the handbook written by Bill Orr, W6SAI followed weeks later by the 1977 ARRL Handbook. Loved the Forrest Mims series of books sold by Radio Shack too!
My interest in electronics began when I was no bigger than I could fit in the small cabinet under our fridge. It was cozy to close the door but it was dark. A flashlight first solved the problem. Then I wanted a permanent installation so I mounted a battery, a switch and a lamp on one wall.... When I started school and learned to read, my visits to the city library began but there were very few books on the subject. Fortunately, English was/is compulsory in the Swedish school early on. And pretty soon I could start buying electronics magazines in English. Both British and American. In these magazines there were ads for electronics books and I started ordering from the US. And I really want to say thank you to all the educational authors in the USA who produced very nice books on the subject!
I draw parallel to software engineering where it’s nearly impossible to know/think/comprehend the whole software and hardware stack, and it’s not strictly necessary. You make some assumptions, simplifications and optimistically move along. However, it’s good to recheck your assumptions and how things might go wrong if you want to have something robust and not just proof of concept. Learn by doing but also spend time reading to bring yourself to the next level. Some high level ideas require thinking and not just experimenting. Just my 2 cents.
I was interested by your closing comment, "the video didn't quite turn out the way I really wanted it to". It was great. As a teacher, you passion for your subject is clear, and with little to no understanding myself of electronics, you provided inspiration and an honest view of investigating by experimentation and learning by trying it, mistakes and all. go do. Thanks
I graduated high school in 1960. I spent most of my life as a manual laborer. In 2021 I passed my technician license in amateur radio. As I wanted to advance in the hobby I realized how ignorant I was about electronics so I got books and studied. In 2023 I passed my amateur extra. I find electronics almost magical. Thanks for the video.
I agree so much with your comment 'learn it when you need it'. It is often far better to have some broad knowledge in an area with a high capacity to self-teach, then to be super expert in one thing with no desire to learn something else. Certainly their are jobs for the super expert but there are far more jobs for the individual who can learn new things as needed.
I started young with electronics as a kid. First formal training was in the US Navy in the advanced electronics program. Challanged the Beginning section after they handed out the DC fundementals textbook. I tested out and went to ET A school, where I did learn to do series capacitors and parallel resistors, Maxwell's equasions, RC time constants, etc. After that went to my C school for my specialty where I learned the finer points of RF and Tempest. After the service learned VCR's (new at the time) Laserdisks, CD's, and tube projection television. From there learned two way trunked radio, paging systems (old school beepers), marine electronics, PC's, etc. Had a career in semiconductor manufacturing in Research and Development. On the side learned event sound and lighting. Yes, play with the light programming for concerts. Moral of the story, in electronics, you never stop learning as there is something new every day. Just bought my Midas digital console to learn and use. Day job is in robotics and motion control for photo-lithography for semiconductor manufacturing. I now have a good handle on tuning a PID control for motion control.
Your advice for people wanting to learn electronics is great. It is exactly how many of us have learned. Myself included. I have three grown children. Oldest a Mechanical engineer, a daughter who is a speech pathologist, and my younger son has a degree in physics. Carl the youngest is working as an electrical engineer, and he bootstrapped himself in exactly the way you describe. It takes curiosity, and being tolerant with yourself. Everyone feels stupid on occasion - everyone. That will happen as you investigate - and that makes the breakthrough events much more sweet. [ their father is an electronics engineer and their mother a speech pathologist - funny how that happens ]
This Video is a masterpiece, I recently graduated in Mechanical engineering but I really want to develop my electronics knowledge to become a well rounded professional. Since starting work as a project engineer, I've realised how much I know about memorising equations and how little I know about what they are really used for. Hearing you talk about the philosophy of learning and the "just do" approach brought a smile to my face as I find myself contending with these very topics throughout each day. I'm slowly making sense of things and this video has really given me an extra boost of confidence to keep on learning and spend less time worrying about what I may not know. Although unlikely, I do hope you read this comment. I don't think you realise quite how much knowledge you impart on your viewers and how much hope you instil in others on the same journey of development. Many thanks, a most grateful viewer.
I just picked up a book called beginners guide to reading schematics by stan gibilisco . It has helped me alot as being new to the electronics world. Hope it helps someone . I also agree that doing something is the best way to learn .
I started with another one of his books: Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics. He unfortunately put an end to his life recently. His youtube channel is still available.
Do you mean Stan Gibilisco is no more? Real bad news. A prolific author who helped so many people learn electronics. A real asset of humanity is lost but his work will continue to better lives of people.
@@chetananam475 Yes, unfortunately. Check the newest comments on his last video. There was also info about his funeral service. All his videos are still up.
"You will learn it when you need it" - so true. I've found that to be the case so many times when learning something new. No point learning something that you won't need or use.
absolutely, I got my first IEEE degree in 1994 and all I learned is I was good at memorization and taking tests on electronics by throwing numbers at the right equations. When I went to university I struggled with formula conversions and all that practical maths
As someone in IT, learning about the inner workings of electronics and computers has always been something I've been interested in learning. My interest in IT was not typical, most people did something as a kid that fascinated them about computers, I just grew up around computers because my dad was in IT when I was young and what he did fascinated me. I bet there's nothing like being able to easily tell why a motherboard failed or why the power switch in a GameBoy Color no longer works, it's so cool!
Great Video i learnt electronics back in the early 70s self taught just read books easy when you have interest in the subject remember being fascinated by Philips electronic sets later became a Tv engineer back in the UK Now retired in Thailand
Thank you very much for your sincere and honest advice, dear sir. Your good wishes are felt through your years of life, through your experience gained as an old man and the wisdom that came along with your elder hands. I felt your words in a hope of you for young people not to make avoidable mistakes if they humbly listen to words like yours. Thank you very much for that. I do keep your words with me. I know they are valuable and full of wisdom.
My passion for electronics dates back to 1986. But it took almost 40 years for me to understand why I had made little progress in the field. Firstly, a tantrum with digital electronics, which still costs me dearly. I am considered an intelligent person, but in order for me to learn, I need to know exactly what I am learning. I can't learn something if I don't deeply understand how it happens. Not because of a lack of cognition, but because of a lack of attention. I'm currently struggling to finish my bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, and when I realize that the course material skips a single step or is a summary of a book by a great author, like Ogata or Nise, I freeze and review everything until I find the missing piece. . This makes things very slow to achieve. This is called ADHD.
Don't be put off by the math!! I didn't truly understand electronic theory until I took a trigonometry class and realized how easy it was to change a component value in the formula and watch the results change. With visual math these days, any math formula can be run on a computer and the results displayed on the screen....
Yep, I've changed my attitude on learning a lot since I started teaching myself programming, electronics, and engineering. Physics teaches you how to approach a topic very rigorously from the ground up, and that's great for pure theory, but not so great when it comes to practical applications and just making a thing do a thing.
Great comments on learning electronics. I learnt electronics only after my undergrad EE degree, by fiddling around in an undergrad lab as a graduate TA. Currently pursuing a PhD in theoretical physics.
@@haveaniceday7950 Not as well as I wanted. We had terrible instructors and lots of formula memorization, a common deficiency of engineering programs. Learning things physics-first taught me much more about electronics in-depth.
Perhaps do a video on the importance of phase shift in circuit design. You might be surprised. For audio work, phase shifts cause "bad bass waves", which cause, booming, muddy sound. Understanding preserving phase and correcting phase leads to better sound and verbal comprehension.
This is great, I run an audio electronics company (company account) and I went to university went through and have got a Masters degree in EE. We do design and repair for the audio world. The funny thing is, I came out with a 2:1 (second class degree), most of my colleagues/friends got 1st class degrees. They were all better at exams - any project or practical design work and actually DOING electronics, I was miles ahead despite on paper being not as smart. Actually building stuff and having fun is how I learned what to do and not to do. The maths helps - but the maths is a means to an end whereas its taught largely as the end goal itself - hence why they did better in exams but in the real world I am far excelling. Electronics is as much a creative art as it is the physics behind it, you need to have a creative brain to design and repair and understand how everything works in reality - algebra is great until you don't understand why it doesn't work in real life! Great video, will subscribe.
This very much resonates. I finished my degree in electronic engineering without learning anything about circuits. It is just now that in lockdown I used the time to get into the topic again. Also i made my ham license which I think is a High motivation. Also availability of equipment and software makes things much easier and accessible. Thanks for this great vid.
Everything complex, is just made up of lots and lots and lots of simple things. I like to understand all the simple things, that way nothing scares me. If you wanted to design a 64-bit CPU from scratch, the best place to start is probably with a 2-bit CPU - totally useless as a computer, but one hell of a good place to start learning. Even just thinking about all the things you can not do with only 2-bits will help you learn.
Excellent. I find that I need to actively coach myself. To intentionally take on the role of active-learner. Apply basic learning 'tricks.' 1. "Do" is a good first trick. 2. "Be suspicious of one's memory/understanding" - Immediately apply any new information. Repeatedly. 3. "Try to guess ahead" when leaning something - it wakes up all sorts of unconscious/dormant knowledge. 4. "When curiosity flickers, immediately feed it and fan the flames even irrationally" - curiosity if the creature you are trying to tease out of hiding. Our conscious attention grossly overestimates its own abilities to understand, remember, recall. It thinks it is totally in control. It is not. Learning this and how to apply ones conscious attention in the moment might be the ultimate trick. I think many people assume you can sit back and mostly be "taught".
Your way to learn it sounds perfect to me as a hobbyist. It's very practical and efficient. I will remember it when I get tempted to over complicate things in the future
My teacher in tech school hated that we had to go to a math class-his opinion was "when was the last time you took the back off of a TV and a bunch of number fall out that were keeping the TV from working"--his idea for math was teaching us math that would help at the time you handed the customer the bill-on another note when we had a training class on the new digital microwave system the fellow running the class was going over how the digital microwave worked he justified the class by saying that " you want to make sure the data being passed it accurate and correct because that decimal point that may be being transmitted in the wrong place may be in the data relating to your paycheck"
Thanks for posting this. Very helpful! I was a hobbyist first, got a Novice License around 1976 (WN8TER was my call sign) then I studied electronics in college, and have worked since then doing product design for companies as well as my own projects. You definitely learn more by doing than by reading and studying (although that helps too). I have several projects and book reviews posted and will be posting more this year. Thanks again!
ARRL handbook is great. And don't feel like you need a recent version. Not a lot of change, especially on the fundamentals, year-to-year. Also a huge fan of Art of Electronics.
In 1975, I told my scout leader I was interested in Electronics, he gave me a 1974 Signetics Digital Linear MOS Data Data Book (One of the most beautiful Data books of it's time). I carried that book everywhere and taught myself digital electronics design. That Signetics Data Book was the start of a long career in electronics engineering . I'm now 60 and retired, but still have that Signetics data book in my library.
Wow
I've still got the Signetics 54/74 series "TTL Data Manual 1984" It was like the bible to me back then. Just love the layout.
I still have my 8051 Signetics book - really great data books (National Semi, Burr Brown etc.)
reading through this gave chills and made me understood your love for electronics
Digital linear- what is it?
I was a Computer Engineering major in college. The thing I liked best about my EE classes was the total lack of memorization. It was all about developing certain ways of thinking about things and processes for analyzing them.
Absolutely agree with this. I’m a civil engineer and feel the same way. I hated chemistry because of having to memorize things and names that were so similar (nitrate, nitrite, nitride, etc.).
Certain ways of thinking... Interesting.
Like when you know the π is just the division/ratio of the circle circumference by the radius.
When I was learning trigonometry, I was struggling about memorizing the ration division, like when you wanna find the sin, but you don't remember if you have to divide the hipothenuse by the opposite or by the adjacent.
I only managed to memorize after understanding that most of the rations are below 0. So it means that the hipothenuse is probably going to be the denominator(the number on the bottom of a fraction) or divider most of the times.
Enjoyed this presentation, no hype, no music, just pure down to earth chatter, many thanks even though I couldn’t grasp some of it.
60 years ago I started electronics with the "just let's do it" philosophy. That led to a fun and rewarding 47 year career as an electronics engineer.
i am also interested in electronics i just find it awesome
This is a 100 % guaranteed way to fail big time today. "Just let's do it", lol, what a load of crap. Just because your generation had everything handed to them and nothing was difficult or complicated, doesn't mean we need your bullshit experience to learn from.
Without ANY formal training?
Seriously?
How competitive you were in comparison with other electricians?
@@intellectualninjamonkey2496Electricians don't do electronics. Only electrical or mechatronics engineers do.
@@tanker242 ok, my bad.
So, what about the rest of the questin?
Can you really become good withour any formal training? Where and how you practice?
I can still remember what made me fall in love with electronics as a kid. Looking through the holes in the wooden fibre board on the back of a twin cassette tape with record player on the top. Seeing all the components on brown pcb and thinking it looks like a mini city hidden in darkness. Good Times
omg sameee lmaooo, and for that reason i'm now in EE education
Good comment
@@1.8millionvolts87 Never heard anyone who's old enough to remember what OP is talking about, that talks like you. Not a single person I know says or writes OMG SAME 😅
the designs of our cities is practically a blown up large scale electronic board
@@atlantic_lovethey were trying to be “hip”
This video explains my outlook on life/learning very well. The older I have got the more I have realized you can learn anything just by putting your genuine attention and curiosity into it. You said "you don't worry about the stuff until you need it then become an expert on it". I learned programming as a high schooler just from wanting to create stuff and I became good enough at it to secure a full time job in it. 3 years ago I purchased a corvette and now I am a pretty great mechanic just out of interest and necessity. You just have to go into stuff with the mindset of "I can do this" and you'll get there. I'm painting my car next week lol I've never painted a car before and most people will tell me that it's gonna turn out bad if I don't spend $5000 but you just gotta not listen to that and go for it. I'll just keep this outlook for the rest of my life because I love the freedom it gives me
Right
❤
Man i love that..
Love that outlook. Every time something breaks I see it as a great way to learn to fix it
Love this, same here. I’m embracing this more and more. Working on a 89’ Ford Ranger I bought last year. Gonna change the oil pan gasket this weekend. Never done a lot of what I’m gonna have to do to get it done but it’s exciting
This style of video is quality. No music and it gives you a first person view of learning something that a lot of people might think is more difficult than it needs to be.
I think this is brilliant. I learned electronic circuits in the early 90’s on a polytechnical school. At the end I received a diploma and was able to calculate voltage dividers, coil hysterisys curves, ntsc and pal vectors… but I had no clou how to build things. Because we had not learned how to bring this in practise. We had no youtube back then. Just our teachers who learned their ways to us the way they had learned it from their teachers. After a few years I quit my repairjob (Most of the time I had no idea how to repair. Just switched components until I had the right component removed and replaced) and went into computersciences. That was the end of my electronics ambition. Now, after almost 30 years, I reenter the world of electronics because I’m missing the one thing in my life that really has my interest. Electronics. But instead of learning all the equations, I bought a multimeter, a power supply, an oscilloscope and a function generator and some components and started playing. Blew up a lot of things (my first led went with a real ‘bang’) and learned by doing. And I have the greatest time of my life. Sometimes I look up the math to start understanding how it is working and it all falls into place now. In stead of trying to memorizing the math, it now is more like understanding the situation and applying the math out of it. I think this video deserves way more likes and views and should be an inspiration to everyone. Thank you sir!
I love your humility. I also have a degree in physics, grad degree as well. I work as “engineer” but there are so many things I simply don’t know but hungry to learn. This video was excellent. Thank you very much.
I have an EE degree, and what you learn in school, is mostly theory, on how circuits work. Very little is taught on circuit design itself. Some in digital electronics, but less in analog circuitry. Most of what I learned is self taught.
As far a math goes, in engineering school, they do go into the derivations. But what's really important, is the concepts behind the math. Knowing the math concepts can often help you design a simpler circuit. For example, the "sampling theory", which is the SAME as side band modulation, mathematically. Lots of harmonics generated, but if generate a perfect square wave (exact 50% duty cycle), you'll see that all the even harmonics disappear. Only odd harmonics. One of my old bosses, used this to create a simple tape erase system, that REQUIRED a sine wave. He just used a simple flip-flop stage, that made a perfect 50% square wave, that he fed directly in the erase head, as the inductor, and a cap so it would resonate roughly near the square wave. That combine provided enough filtering to get a perfect sinewave, because the 3rd harmonic amplitude was small enough to not be worried about. The competition, used an overly complex multistage multiorder op-amp filter. Both worked the same, but our was cheaper and more reliable.
You just reminded me of why I quit doing this shit years ago….
university basically lacks rigor and is boderline useless
Damn
😭 I'm supposed to know all that (since I'm doing my masters in Electronics and communication) but I've forgotten. Right now on a quest to clear my doubts and strengthen my foundations again. 😤
@@benjaminsmith-ql6tl same here, just started my masters in electronics and I realize I already forgot most of what I learned lol
"Just go do" is great advice... Prototyping circuits is a great way to learn. Your video really demonstrated your point. You were questioning the success of the video towards the end, but don't second guess yourself, it was perfect.
Im80 now. A a,kid,I,swept up in a radio tv,shop. They taught me to solder and change parts. I read the ARRL book. After high school i did get formal education, then the Army radio school. All my life meant self education and practice. One never stops learning formally or otherwise.😊
True words. Keep learning
“Go do” is a great philosophy for gaining understanding and wisdom. I did EE a long time ago and, for a range of reasons, the “go do” philosophy did not feature in my undergraduate learning. “go do” is what you need to do to figure out the relationship between abstraction and reality. I salute your spirit of inquiry and investigation! Really enjoyed your vid!
I dropped out my EE because of there was no feature "go do" in my undergraduate learning. I dont have money to enroll to other college. I stucked at RnG MMORPG and Microstakes multitab poker which are, go do and math proven.
I like this perspective.
A lot of people want to know how to get motivated to learn new things. I think your idea of just doing things is one answer. As you do things, you seem to find things that motivate you. It reminds me of the advice people give to artists: dont wait for inspiration to lead you to act. Instead, act, and let that lead you to inspiration.
As someone who's been doing the theory first, this video was the perfect kick in the butt I needed. Cheers man
"Rarely are there educational systems that will teach you the basics in a clear way".
One of the greatest truths I've seen on UA-cam.
This was a very good presentation. I'm a 3rd year General (41 year old) and I'm just getting into electronics. The presentation was very encouraging. You'd be a very good Elmer.
This is gold!
I have been interested and active in electronics since childhood. Every learning step was complicated math and deep theory..... almost never starting with basic concepts that build intuition.
Mr electronics, respected dude, I am now 60 years old, and have done electronics since I was about 7 years old. (Simple experiments with radio)
Nothing in this life is actually learned unless you learn it yourself. I did not go to school for the last 2 years of secondary school. This is because I am dyslexic and they did not help me. This is a good thing because it taught me how to teach myself. This is what they should teach people in the schools, colleges and universities IMHO
Absolutely solid advice, I think when we normally want to learn about any subject, we tend to get intimidated and overwhelmed by math, theory, etc.. I appreciate your simplistic approach and think your video came out great!. Thanks!
I totally agree that getting that gut feel for a circuit makes all the difference. I've been in love with circuits my whole life---I'm 61 and still get excited by a new circuit. One thing I have found useful in understanding a circuit, is to look at the limiting cases, and the mid-line case. So, for the filters of this example. The limiting case would be opening up the capacitor (low frequencies) or shorting the capacitor (high frequencies.) Midline would be where the frequencies start rolling off, or the 3 db point. That is where the gain is half, so the value where the capacitive reactance equals the parallel (or series) resistor. I have found this can give a real insight, for me anyway, on the circuits operation, or where it can go off.
I watched this video second time, I was contemplating my life decisions,thanks you reminded me that I don't need a degree in electrical engineering to learn electronics, salute to your work
Brilliant on all counts! All I would add (though you did it with the op amp circuits) is have something to build, especially something you want to have - it must be simple at first. That will enable you to buy only the tools and components you need and then learn all the skills whilst building. How many of us started out with a wooden block (bread board) crystal set!
When I was in high school, learning digital clock circuits; I overheated plenty of breaboards and 555 timer/leds for using the wrong wattage/value for the current limiting resistors. I started in electronics because I want to know how things work, my parents got tired of me taking stuff apart and sent me to a tech school to learn properly. been doing electronics repair and design ever since. best guess always work.... eventually.
Sir I am 23 and i am dead curious interested in electronics and i already have learned some tidbits like circuits resistor c language Arduino but I can't make any money out of it and that keeps me frustrated. Can you tell me if you have some cues about how I can make some money from electronics.
@@codingchacha3195 Hello, i'm 21 and i work as a freelancer doing PCB design, just pure electronics with no coding, although a coding background is really, really helpful. I have an EE degree but no employer has ever asked me about it.
But i do want to tell you, Arduino and resistors are like, the really basic stuff, there is not much money to do there. It's a great starting point however, so keep doing and learning. Also, some mathematic background REALLY helps on the hard stuff, the stuff where there is a lot of money to be made, so don't neglect formal education if it's available to you, even something as seemingly useless as Maxwell equations are almost mandatory to understand when doing high frequency design (microprocessors and DDR3 RAM interfaces on the 1-2ghz frequency range).
I would recommend you to learn about ESP32 since it's very used and demanded today, and also very similar to Arduino
I still have an old breadboard (like 30yrs old) with a melted spot from a 555. Lol
@Thawne I went to college.
@Thawne I started doing freelance because I wanted to work on Hardware Design and there were no opportunities where I live for that particular field. After I made some great work and reputation getting longer contracts was easy. I am not formally hired at the moment by the way
Curiosity is what makes you achieve this, not your degree. Congratulation, Sir.
I'd say both. Following a degree in electronics (or other engineering fields) for the money while having no affinity for it will reuslt in a lot of wasted time. But having genuine interest and going to college will make learning easier and will certify your skills in the eyes of a possible employer.
lol i have started my second year of bachelors in EE and learned that they aint gonna teach me shit so i am here trying to figure out and learn stuff for myself, i loved electronics but the way they teach is awful, project based learning is the best and they avoid it at all costs to restrain creativity
Very true, you'll forget everything if stop using it because you didn't actually enjoyed it.
I'm sadden that i lost my curiosity for electronics long, long ago, but now i just want to challenge myself!!!! AhhHhhHh!!!!
:)
@@dumbdavinchi3638 if you’re not being taught find a different school. However I don’t believe that at all. It’s more likely you not them.
Without my degree I’d never get to do this though 😂
Wow this video is much more than a video about learning electronics. It's a philosophical way towards learning.
I'm glad I found it. ¡Gracias por compartir!
My story with practical electronics was back in 2003 with "Handbook of Switchmode Power Supplies", by Keith Billings, from McGraw-Hill publisher. I've really read that book from cover to cover many times, even slept with it. I wanted to design power converters, but learned through atx power supplies repair, from old PCs. My firs one I've ever touched blew up in front of my eyes, by my mistaken switch on 120V, but plugged into 230V outlet.
I just found your video and wanted to say thank you for encouraging me to read and study this hobby and not get discouraged . I’m 38 and always wanted to understand electronics and do projects as a hobby . I’m starting at the basics .
Learning this stuff now in college and oh boy did they throw us into the depend of all the math straight away. Watching this helped me reflect and remember my passion. THANKS!
Well here’s a fun fact once you leave school if you’re not going into engineering you’ll never do that math again unless you want to for the hell of it. We mostly just swap whole board now. Tbh none of the engineers I know use the math either 😂
Depend
Deep end
Two, very different, meaning meanings
Wonderful Video!!! I'm a Chief Engineer (aerospace), and took the challenge to resolve reliability issues of an electronic box (simillar to a Variable Freq Drive, but converts variable frequency to a fixed frequency). With only a high school level electronics education, I embarked on this challenge 40-years later....basically my own self-study; which I learned a TON of electronics and electrical knowledge, while helping to solve the relaibility issues.
Again...Excellent Video!!!
0:43 "how did I become a bodybuilder? I have no experience with machines or weights - but I used to work lifting heavy things!"
True on the equation's ! I too started to learn electronics when I was
7. I'm now 76. At the age of 9, I started repairing my neighbors Radio
& TV's. In 1975, I finally got my EE.
Dude! Your experience is many times my age, I hope I'll be able to play around in electronics for long time like you
You're now 75! 25 years away from being 100!
Let’s take it he apostrophe from equations and pop it in neighbour’s. 😎
I've been repairing electronics professionally for the last 10 years or so. It all started back when I was 6 or 7 years old, my dad picked me up an "electronics learning lab" kit from Radioshack. I'm pretty sure I still have that thing in a box somewhere. The kit was amazing! It was a big rectangle with all these knobs, switches, lights, connectors and meters, with a breadboard slapped in the middle. The kit came with a huge assortment of components and three books. Two of them were lab books (containing exercises to perform on the kit), and one was a book on how to actually read and interpret schematics. My dad and I would spend HOURS assembling different circuits out of those books. To this day, the _only_ reason I know how to even read schematics and make sense of them is because of what I learned in those books.
I may not know the equations and the math for how a lot of that stuff works, but when it comes to repairing electronics, you don't need to know _why_ the designers specifically chose a 200uF 12v polymer capacitor to place in that particular spot of the circuit, you just need to have an idea of _what_ that circuit does, and what purpose that capacitor serves. Is it filtering? Is it decoupling? Is this particular circuit supposed to produce a necessary voltage to make something else in the device work? Is it maybe not working because this capacitor has a fault?
Repair in specific is one of the coolest aspects of electronics work in my opinion. It combines so many different fields of work into one. PACE put out some amazing videos on rework and repair back in the 80's, and they described repairing electronics as being your very own process engineer. You have to find the fault, fix the problem, and restore the circuit back to as good as or equal to manufacturer specifications. You have to do all of this maybe without even knowing _exactly_ how the circuit works or the math and equations involved.
I for example don't know the exact math behind the principles of a resonating circuit, or the exact breakdown of how PWM works, but I know what a boost and buck converter look like. I know _what_ they are supposed to do and roughly how they do it. I may not know _how_ filtering works and what that does to apparent and real power, and what the current over voltage waveform would look like, but I know that if one filtering cap out of a dozen is shorted, it's going to screw the whole rail and that voltage won't go where it's supposed to go.
I mean, microelectronics have negative capacitance available now and every month brings more magnonic and memristive components; serial ports can deliver 200 W safely. Fire up Wolfram and see if it helps decide whether to throw a stonking ultracap in here or there. There's some decisions to be made to bring circuits to polity outside the context of just picking the right family of FPGA and IDE.
I stumbled into this video at 2AM the night before my midterm and now I’m so excited to try out actually building real circuits! I’m an electrical and computer engineering student, and I soo agree with how he said they throw equations at you without actually having the students learn about what things you can do with what you learn! Thank you for the video sir!
Thanks for this video!
Likewise I had a non-traditional path to becoming an engineer. Got interested in electronics in high school while playing with CB radio in the mid 70s and then discovered ham radio but didn't know any hams to get started. I did buy the ARRL handbook - 1977 edition - and started learning from that which gave me a jump start on later studies.
Joined the Army in 1976 to get my college paid for and went through the Army satcom school to become a 26Y - satellite communications ground station equipment repairman. It was a year long school that took you from introductory basic electronics all the way to microwave and satellite communications concepts, and included also included repair of cryogenically cooled low noise amplifiers, heat exchangers for liquid cooled power amplifiers, and air conditioners.
Took additional studies while in the service including a communications engineering correspondence course and some college math classes. Had every intent of going on to college after leaving the Army but the experience in satcom from the Army actually landed me a nice position with a commercial satellite communications company right out of the service. Hired on as a field engineer and was promoted to a junior engineer and then started moving through the ranks. Had many great mentors along the way and supplemented that with a lot of self studies and a class here and there.
Eventually someone suggested I look into getting licensed as a Professional Engineer and I did some additional studying to do that. Thankfully I had participated in an apprentice program while in the service and had logs for all my experience, and that plus transcripts of other studies were enough to satisfy the board that I had met the equivalence of an ABET accredited engineering degree program and I was able to take and pass the EIT exam and then later the P.E. electrical engineer exam and become licensed.
So, for anyone interested in learning electronics - if you're here watching IMSAI Guy it's a good guess you are - then I totally second picking up a copy of the ARRL Handbook and some other great publications that they have like the ARRL Antenna book, and digging in. Get a starter kit and just start playing around. Turns out the sky isn't the limit - you could communicate to satellites or beyond to another planet ;-)
Thanks
How cool that you got your PE without doing the typical route!
This video has inspired me to get back into electronics. I was first interested as a kid/teen by studying PCB designs in my home computer and was fascinated in how everything was arranged and how it all worked. There werent any women I knew into those things so it was just my cousin and I taking apart every computer and radio in his house together ( much to the dismay of his parents). The same interest followed me into the Navy as an ET. Your comment about the math resonated with me as it was the math that sort of shied me away, but getting out there and doing, getting your hands dirty, and not being afraid to fry a couple cheap bits is really how you learn. The doing also helps you to then understand the theory. Im getting back into this at 32 as a hobby hoping to one day be able to design my own PCBs. Great video and advice.
Best video you’ve done so far 😉
The “learn it when you need it”, I’ve been saying that for years ! 👍🏻
Learn by doing.
Many years ago, when I lost my job, I got a chance to take a class in analog and digital electronics. It led me to understand the connection between mechanics and electronics via various sensors and such. Back in those days, Sweden was a rich country that had money set aside to help people who showed interest in learning new skills to improve their chances on the job market. The education was based on "learn-by-doing", learning how to use various tools to measure and find errors in basic circuits. This UA-cam video brings me back to how I got my introduction into the world of electronics, something I've had great use for when I got into build-in systems and IoT.
👍
I’m a mechanical engineer under schooling but I work a lot with PCB’s so there’s an interest to learn some background there. This was a nice video to have randomly appear in my feed!
Hey man thanks! I think the video has the exact amount of humbling knowledge you need to start a journey onto learning the unknown. It gave me guidance.
INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRONIC AMPLIFIERS by Rodney B. Faber. 1971.
And
MODERN DICTIONARY OF ELECTRONICS by Rudolf F. Graf 3rd edition 1970.
Best $5 spent at a yard sale.
These Books are Gold. I’ve been contemplating a channel going over these old books. Shooting for mid-late summer.
Thanks for your video’s.
Thank you for putting this out there. I have a mix of both school and road of hard knocks and got to say I’ve learned more just doing than I ever did in school. I’m not saying school is bad and there are some really great ones out there but for me the actual doing and seeing how things actually work in real life practical applications was key. Great message for basically anything anyone wants to learn. Go Do..
Great way to learn. I'm 6 months away from getting masters degree in EE and most of time I do what you do. Until you are interested or asked to do a project you don't need to know everything but you need to be welling spend the time to learn and explore.
Suggest a book to learn?
@@Joe-ug3bb I don't have a specific book in mind but I would suggest picking up a project and then as you explore what skills you need to execute that project, search for books or tutorial to learn these skills.
@Thawne I don't know what you mean but I will answer anyway. I had high grade in math and physics then this was the start to go to bachelor then high grades again which got me into the master program. I graduated through hard works.
As a newcomer into electronics, I've found this video right on point. Getting hands dirty naïvely and then learning how/why you've seen such result is pretty much how we learn in life. Kudos to you for such a good channel.
Just make sure you are in a safe sandbox and nothing will blow up if you mess things up😂.
Got my first ARRL handbook used at library sale, 1977 edition in 1983. Had the Radio Shack 150 in 1 project kit, and got a bunch of Forrest Mims books as a youngster.
I bought almost all the Forrest Mims books at Radio Shack as a little kid in the late 80s. :) I didn’t fully understand them at that age (8-11ish), but still, they helped spark my interest.
I love your explanation and teaching method. Curiosity is the key and don't be scared of tech. If you screw up, so long as you're playing with components which are very affordable you can afford to blow them up, and then hopefully that'll teach you why they blew up. Great work. Thank you for your videos.
Wow this video totally resonates in my soul! I totally agree with your ideas about learning subjects like Electronics. Learn the concepts first, the math LAST. Build, test play- always, real stuff is your best teacher- it never lies. Don't worry that you have gaps in your knowledge, fill them as you go - when you need to, it's 10X easier to learn something when it's for a real purpose, here and now. Browse 1000's of circuits, look for the recurring shapes and patterns, it's like leaning a language, the components are the letters, function blocks are the words, systems are the sentences.
@Artificial Hobos or you should learn math all over again because equations are everywhere and it's not that hard to play with this one.
@Artificial Hobos Ohm's law only works for resistors, and with constant temperature, tho.
@@w花b outside of ohms law we don’t use any of that math in the field.
@@alejandroperez5368 you need to go reread up on ohms law my dude 😂 it pertains to everything in electronics
Outstanding advice! The world needs more mentors like you.
Subscribed. Love your take, really down to earth, learn it when you need it, don't need to understand everything at once, learn through play and let that be the motivator to dig deeper down the rabbit hole.
One of the woodwork teachers at my school subscribed to a magazine called everyday electronics. When he'd finished with them he left them in the school library where I spent my lunch break fascinated with the various projects you could make. I was learning guitar but couldn't afford effects pedals or amplifiers. So ended up making them. I've still got a 300watt mosfet amp that I made in 1989 that I gigged with for years and it still works. The world of electronics has changed so much since then and I might say in a good way with the ease of access to information such as that provided on this channel.
I like it! A very good explanation. The practical side seems to often be missed because people see the math and then shy away, because they will "never be able to do the math". Thank you for sharing.
BSEE here. Great video and I like that you show an actual book to learn from. Let me comment on phase. Most of the time you're right, it's not important / can ignore. Where it matters:
a) Non-linear phase change is distortion and too much distortion changes the frequency response. This is because phase modulation and frequency modulation are two forms of the same thing. The group delay is another metric. Smaller is better. Total harmonic distortion that an oscilloscope gives you can be a helpful objective measurement of said distortion, along with SNR.
b) Analog to digital conversion (ADC) because the sampling occurs on a specified phase and the phase change, such as from a filter, changes the optimal sampling phase. Can either change the sampling phase or add an all-pass filter to cancel out most of the phase change.
you will probably like my book video: ua-cam.com/video/OBNl-6nFyL0/v-deo.html
For me, i got into this like i did with programming… I had a need.. Not job related or anything, but something at home i needed to fix and something i needed for various uses. Once you have that personal need, you will be more interested in seeing it through. Most people that have issues are just learning because of a job want or just curious. So for those people, all they can do are tutorials. Nice, but easy to give up when things get a little tough. So have a need that you can use in your daily life.. For me that was fixing kids toys and eventually enhancing them. You don’t need to start out building things from scratch. Just like programming where you can just download some code that will serve a function for you and then modify it to your likening or purpose.. You can use something simply thats not working and try to fix it. Usually kids toys fit that bill well. And make some kid happy at the same time .. Learn how different tweaks give you different results. For me, that process really sped things up and over tine you may encounter more complicated things that require more study. But that wont be so hard since now, you have a successful background going for you to build from and not start out cold turkey…. The key take away is to work on something you need, to learn from as it make the learning process more interesting and less likely for you to quit if things get a little tough. Also, when i was ready to start more advanced things… I started looking at power supplies. Anything that does AC to DC.. They are everywhere and will teach you A LOT.
Hope you are doing great. If we had more people like you, we'd have less youngsters making excuses like "I'm bad at maths or science". I'm an engineer myself and you are inspiring me to try do some non-profit teaching, thanks
Great video! The -3dB point is called the cutoff frequency. It's useful to know when making filters because at that point you have half the power than at 0dB.
.707 of the power
@@mtrest4 If I remember correctly, it's 1/sqrt(2) or 0.707 of the voltage, and 1/2 of the power.
This style of video is quality. No music and clean speech. this is what merites likes and share. Congratulations
I am very much a beginner. At this point I would have a lot of trouble building this circuit and getting my oscilloscope to read it. However, I get the point, and I love it! I’m inspired to get exploring. Thanks, fun video!
Not as complex as it seems. That particular book (which has a 2022 version) and some others include basic circuit explanation. In my opinion a nice-to-have would be for a book to include a typical component connection example (i.e. in this case say a 741 and include the power connections) and then example input and output scope traces and voltages, something I miss from my early days working in TV and radio. I know some books include such 'additional information' but there is nothing worse than having to refer to multiple sources of information to connect and understand a basic function.
@@StormDAleph Thanks for the tip. I found his channel and subscribed.
The link between a physical circuit and theory to the point of physics being realised is very interesting...the understanding of subtleties in the circuit and it's improvement are a real asset to understanding
I had a similar experience in circuits class in university. I was struggling with the math on tests and having trouble completing them on time. By the final I started thinking about it in terms of what effects the components would have in circuit rather than doing all the math first. That gave me a close idea of the answer, and then afterwards I would go back to verify with math if time was available. Ended up with an A on the final :^)
@Thawne It's hard for sure. I went to university for a bachelors and got my job in the final semester. I think employers want to see a mix of education + practice (projects, experience, etc). I didn't have much experience outside of university at the time and think I got a bit lucky there. Maybe you can find like-minded people in your local area (interested in electronics or another passion). That would help keep you interested because there's peer pressure to continue participating.
Honestly, this is the best approach to learning anything.
While my father helped get me started with the basics, I learned MOST of what I know much the same way as you - my first book was the handbook written by Bill Orr, W6SAI followed weeks later by the 1977 ARRL Handbook. Loved the Forrest Mims series of books sold by Radio Shack too!
My interest in electronics began when I was no bigger than I could fit in the small cabinet under our fridge. It was cozy to close the door but it was dark. A flashlight first solved the problem. Then I wanted a permanent installation so I mounted a battery, a switch and a lamp on one wall....
When I started school and learned to read, my visits to the city library began but there were very few books on the subject.
Fortunately, English was/is compulsory in the Swedish school early on.
And pretty soon I could start buying electronics magazines in English.
Both British and American. In these magazines there were ads for electronics books and I started ordering from the US.
And I really want to say thank you to all the educational authors in the USA who produced very nice books on the subject!
I draw parallel to software engineering where it’s nearly impossible to know/think/comprehend the whole software and hardware stack, and it’s not strictly necessary. You make some assumptions, simplifications and optimistically move along. However, it’s good to recheck your assumptions and how things might go wrong if you want to have something robust and not just proof of concept. Learn by doing but also spend time reading to bring yourself to the next level. Some high level ideas require thinking and not just experimenting. Just my 2 cents.
I was interested by your closing comment, "the video didn't quite turn out the way I really wanted it to". It was great. As a teacher, you passion for your subject is clear, and with little to no understanding myself of electronics, you provided inspiration and an honest view of investigating by experimentation and learning by trying it, mistakes and all. go do. Thanks
My favourite analogue book was written by Burr-Brown BB (now TI) approximately in the 70's.
I graduated high school in 1960. I spent most of my life as a manual laborer. In 2021 I passed my technician license in amateur radio. As I wanted to advance in the hobby I realized how ignorant I was about electronics so I got books and studied. In 2023 I passed my amateur extra. I find electronics almost magical. Thanks for the video.
I agree so much with your comment 'learn it when you need it'. It is often far better to have some broad knowledge in an area with a high capacity to self-teach, then to be super expert in one thing with no desire to learn something else. Certainly their are jobs for the super expert but there are far more jobs for the individual who can learn new things as needed.
I started young with electronics as a kid. First formal training was in the US Navy in the advanced electronics program. Challanged the Beginning section after they handed out the DC fundementals textbook. I tested out and went to ET A school, where I did learn to do series capacitors and parallel resistors, Maxwell's equasions, RC time constants, etc. After that went to my C school for my specialty where I learned the finer points of RF and Tempest.
After the service learned VCR's (new at the time) Laserdisks, CD's, and tube projection television. From there learned two way trunked radio, paging systems (old school beepers), marine electronics, PC's, etc. Had a career in semiconductor manufacturing in Research and Development. On the side learned event sound and lighting. Yes, play with the light programming for concerts.
Moral of the story, in electronics, you never stop learning as there is something new every day.
Just bought my Midas digital console to learn and use. Day job is in robotics and motion control for photo-lithography for semiconductor manufacturing. I now have a good handle on tuning a PID control for motion control.
Your advice for people wanting to learn electronics is great. It is exactly how many of us have learned. Myself included. I have three grown children. Oldest a Mechanical engineer, a daughter who is a speech pathologist, and my younger son has a degree in physics. Carl the youngest is working as an electrical engineer, and he bootstrapped himself in exactly the way you describe. It takes curiosity, and being tolerant with yourself. Everyone feels stupid on occasion - everyone. That will happen as you investigate - and that makes the breakthrough events much more sweet. [ their father is an electronics engineer and their mother a speech pathologist - funny how that happens ]
This Video is a masterpiece, I recently graduated in Mechanical engineering but I really want to develop my electronics knowledge to become a well rounded professional. Since starting work as a project engineer, I've realised how much I know about memorising equations and how little I know about what they are really used for. Hearing you talk about the philosophy of learning and the "just do" approach brought a smile to my face as I find myself contending with these very topics throughout each day. I'm slowly making sense of things and this video has really given me an extra boost of confidence to keep on learning and spend less time worrying about what I may not know. Although unlikely, I do hope you read this comment. I don't think you realise quite how much knowledge you impart on your viewers and how much hope you instil in others on the same journey of development. Many thanks, a most grateful viewer.
I do read them. Thank you
I just picked up a book called beginners guide to reading schematics by stan gibilisco . It has helped me alot as being new to the electronics world. Hope it helps someone . I also agree that doing something is the best way to learn .
I started with another one of his books: Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics. He unfortunately put an end to his life recently. His youtube channel is still available.
Do you mean Stan Gibilisco is no more? Real bad news. A prolific author who helped so many people learn electronics. A real asset of humanity is lost but his work will continue to better lives of people.
@@chetananam475 Yes, unfortunately. Check the newest comments on his last video. There was also info about his funeral service. All his videos are still up.
What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.
"You will learn it when you need it" - so true. I've found that to be the case so many times when learning something new. No point learning something that you won't need or use.
absolutely, I got my first IEEE degree in 1994 and all I learned is I was good at memorization and taking tests on electronics by throwing numbers at the right equations. When I went to university I struggled with formula conversions and all that practical maths
As someone in IT, learning about the inner workings of electronics and computers has always been something I've been interested in learning. My interest in IT was not typical, most people did something as a kid that fascinated them about computers, I just grew up around computers because my dad was in IT when I was young and what he did fascinated me. I bet there's nothing like being able to easily tell why a motherboard failed or why the power switch in a GameBoy Color no longer works, it's so cool!
It's never easy but yea it's cool.
Great Video i learnt electronics back in the early 70s self taught just read books easy when you have interest in the subject remember being fascinated by Philips electronic sets later became a Tv engineer back in the UK
Now retired in Thailand
Each thing you learn adds an arrow to your quiver
Thank you very much for your sincere and honest advice, dear sir. Your good wishes are felt through your years of life, through your experience gained as an old man and the wisdom that came along with your elder hands. I felt your words in a hope of you for young people not to make avoidable mistakes if they humbly listen to words like yours. Thank you very much for that. I do keep your words with me. I know they are valuable and full of wisdom.
My passion for electronics dates back to 1986. But it took almost 40 years for me to understand why I had made little progress in the field. Firstly, a tantrum with digital electronics, which still costs me dearly. I am considered an intelligent person, but in order for me to learn, I need to know exactly what I am learning. I can't learn something if I don't deeply understand how it happens. Not because of a lack of cognition, but because of a lack of attention. I'm currently struggling to finish my bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, and when I realize that the course material skips a single step or is a summary of a book by a great author, like Ogata or Nise, I freeze and review everything until I find the missing piece. . This makes things very slow to achieve. This is called ADHD.
I am a Mechatronics professor and I agree 110% about your analysis on teaching math too early!
Don't be put off by the math!! I didn't truly understand electronic theory until I took a trigonometry class and realized how easy it was to change a component value in the formula and watch the results change. With visual math these days, any math formula can be run on a computer and the results displayed on the screen....
What programs do you suggest? Is trigonometry needed?
Just a hobbyist trying to learn some things about electronics, this was actually really helpful. Thank you.
Yep, I've changed my attitude on learning a lot since I started teaching myself programming, electronics, and engineering. Physics teaches you how to approach a topic very rigorously from the ground up, and that's great for pure theory, but not so great when it comes to practical applications and just making a thing do a thing.
I think it was a really good video. I’m on that path now, just learning and learning about electricity. 👏🏼
Quick start guide: Do an electronics education to get the basics. Once you got all that, do more stuff at home, with the stuff you wanna learn.
Your attitude is amazing! Really enjoyed the style of video. 👌
Great comments on learning electronics. I learnt electronics only after my undergrad EE degree, by fiddling around in an undergrad lab as a graduate TA. Currently pursuing a PhD in theoretical physics.
So your undergrad EE degree didn't teach you electronics? Did I understand that correctly?
@@haveaniceday7950 Not as well as I wanted. We had terrible instructors and lots of formula memorization, a common deficiency of engineering programs. Learning things physics-first taught me much more about electronics in-depth.
Well done. I learned in the US Navy Electronics Technician school in Great Lakes IL almost 40 years ago.
Perhaps do a video on the importance of phase shift in circuit design. You might be surprised.
For audio work, phase shifts cause "bad bass waves", which cause, booming, muddy sound. Understanding preserving phase and correcting phase leads to better sound and verbal comprehension.
One of the most honest answers, i heared on Internet. You are a legend, and you are awakened. :)
This is great, I run an audio electronics company (company account) and I went to university went through and have got a Masters degree in EE. We do design and repair for the audio world. The funny thing is, I came out with a 2:1 (second class degree), most of my colleagues/friends got 1st class degrees. They were all better at exams - any project or practical design work and actually DOING electronics, I was miles ahead despite on paper being not as smart. Actually building stuff and having fun is how I learned what to do and not to do. The maths helps - but the maths is a means to an end whereas its taught largely as the end goal itself - hence why they did better in exams but in the real world I am far excelling. Electronics is as much a creative art as it is the physics behind it, you need to have a creative brain to design and repair and understand how everything works in reality - algebra is great until you don't understand why it doesn't work in real life! Great video, will subscribe.
This very much resonates. I finished my degree in electronic engineering without learning anything about circuits. It is just now that in lockdown I used the time to get into the topic again. Also i made my ham license which I think is a High motivation. Also availability of equipment and software makes things much easier and accessible. Thanks for this great vid.
Everything complex, is just made up of lots and lots and lots of simple things. I like to understand all the simple things, that way nothing scares me. If you wanted to design a 64-bit CPU from scratch, the best place to start is probably with a 2-bit CPU - totally useless as a computer, but one hell of a good place to start learning. Even just thinking about all the things you can not do with only 2-bits will help you learn.
Excellent. I find that I need to actively coach myself. To intentionally take on the role of active-learner. Apply basic learning 'tricks.'
1. "Do" is a good first trick.
2. "Be suspicious of one's memory/understanding" - Immediately apply any new information. Repeatedly.
3. "Try to guess ahead" when leaning something - it wakes up all sorts of unconscious/dormant knowledge.
4. "When curiosity flickers, immediately feed it and fan the flames even irrationally" - curiosity if the creature you are trying to tease out of hiding.
Our conscious attention grossly overestimates its own abilities to understand, remember, recall. It thinks it is totally in control. It is not.
Learning this and how to apply ones conscious attention in the moment might be the ultimate trick.
I think many people assume you can sit back and mostly be "taught".
As an EE student, 4:56 hit so hard
Your way to learn it sounds perfect to me as a hobbyist. It's very practical and efficient. I will remember it when I get tempted to over complicate things in the future
My teacher in tech school hated that we had to go to a math class-his opinion was "when was the last time you took the back off of a TV and a bunch of number fall out that were keeping the TV from working"--his idea for math was teaching us math that would help at the time you handed the customer the bill-on another note when we had a training class on the new digital microwave system the fellow running the class was going over how the digital microwave worked he justified the class by saying that " you want to make sure the data being passed it accurate and correct because that decimal point that may be being transmitted in the wrong place may be in the data relating to your paycheck"
Thanks for posting this. Very helpful! I was a hobbyist first, got a Novice License around 1976 (WN8TER was my call sign) then I studied electronics in college, and have worked since then doing product design for companies as well as my own projects. You definitely learn more by doing than by reading and studying (although that helps too). I have several projects and book reviews posted and will be posting more this year. Thanks again!
ARRL handbook is great. And don't feel like you need a recent version. Not a lot of change, especially on the fundamentals, year-to-year. Also a huge fan of Art of Electronics.
I'm a little late to this party but I found your video a nice boost of interest in my education and growth . Thank you