advice on learning electronics quickly?

Hi everyone,

What advice do you good people have on learning electronics quickly. I have been actively interested in the subject a few months now on and off and feel as if i am not progressing as quickly as i should be.

A short background of what i have been upto.

I bought some basic stuff from maplin. A breadboard , multimeter, resistors, capacitors, diode and transistor packs.

I am completely self taught and working through a couple of ebooks i downloaded. Lessons in circuits by Tony R. Kuphaldt and Mcgraw and Hill Teach yourself electricity and electronics.

I have no strong maths background but have been quite happy with the basic theories . i understand ohms law , how static electricity occurs, the ideas behind semiconductors , how to calculate resistances in parallel.

I have found the books pretty heavy going and have difficulty in judging if i would be better off just experimenting with my components more than reading .

Any advice on how you guys progressed more quickly.
What worked for you?

Thanks Mark S.

You can learn a lot by reading but experimenting is like re-inventing the wheel. You will do a lot of expirements that don't work and you might learn something if you figure out why it didn't work, but if you knew what you were doing, it would have worked.

What advice do you good people have on learning electronics quickly.

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Trial and Error. That is the best way to learn. (unless you fry something... then it isn't fun...)

You might search out E-bay for used military electronics training manuals. Most covered fundamentals in around 12-13 weeks and while you wouldn't get the hands on lab portion you would get to see the progression of topics needed to prepare for further learning.

Lefty

I found that the Art of Electronics explains a lot of stuff--sometimes it's a bit dense for my level of understanding yet, but it's really helped me more than just about any other book I've read.

Hang out here and read other people's posts. Also, reading topical magazines etc can help--you'll be totally over your head at first but more and more stuff will make sense as you keep reading. The questions-and-answers columns are especially helpful. I've enjoyed Nuts-n-Volts, Practical Everyday Electronics, Servo, etc.

I also found that studying toward a ham radio license explains a lot of the basics in a way that I found easier to understand than a lot of the more textbook-style sources.

Experimenting has also helped explain some things to me. Designing a basic filter and running it into a freeware PC-based frequency analyzer really shows the effects your changes are having.

Anyway, those are just some ideas. I wouldn't say I'm learning any faster than anyone else, though. Just that these things seemed to help me get further than some other things I tried.


Good luck!

Torben

Torben said:

Hang out here and read other people's posts. Also, reading topical magazines etc can help--you'll be totally over your head at first but more and more stuff will make sense as you keep reading. The questions-and-answers columns are especially helpful. I've enjoyed Nuts-n-Volts, Practical Everyday Electronics, Servo, etc.

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Absolutely I got many experience in reading other people's posts.Also Answering to the threads & also by asking help.

The ones I forgetting quickly I'm writing in a book other than saving in a Computer by a single click.

Another resource would be MIT's EECS courses which have been released as OpenCourseware. Have a look at this page:

**broken link removed**

You get all the lectures, notes, assignments, labs, quizzes and exams. It's like being at MIT!

Quickly?
You need more practice, not just quickly learning.
Learning electronics is about to learning something that gives you experience.

If I don't know "something" in electronics. I should know all part of that "something" and ready to learn that "something". What was I wrote?
For example: To learning about amplifier, you need their basic. Voltage, current, power, load, their components, gain, feedback, stability and many more. Finally, design it with datasheets, appnotes and anything help. You also got something new from any failures.

Learning electronics are very interesting.
The history! Not so important, but gives "something" too.

Leftyretro said:

You might search out E-bay for used military electronics training manuals. Most covered fundamentals in around 12-13 weeks and while you wouldn't get the hands on lab portion you would get to see the progression of topics needed to prepare for further learning.

Lefty

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I have an airforce electronics text book from the early 60's. Its very interesting entry level reading. It covers the basics and talks alot about radio related circuits and topics. Only bad thing is it spends alot of time on tubes and dosn't mention semi-condutors much. But I guess thats to be expected.

Marks256 said:

Trial and Error. That is the best way to learn. (unless you fry something... then it isn't fun...)

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Yeah, not much fun in a little smoke or a burnt finger, but it is kind of cool when there is actual flames, or some arcing. Exploding parts aren't fun, you can put your eye out...

yea at school once a kid conected an IC round the wrong way and a chip of plastic shot out of it into his eye, luckily no damage done, I suppose there was a small air bubble that got pressurized with the IC heating up and "shot the bolt"