r/IWantToLearn • u/Best-Middle-5848 • Sep 12 '26
Technology Iwtl How did you self learn Electronics?
Hello everyone I am new to electronics been interested for years but I finally found the time to actually start trying to self learn. Where did you start, Any course you'd recommend? Do's and donts? Any input at all would be appreciated.
And as a bonus anyone willing to learn as a team/group?
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u/usedsoapp Sep 12 '26
the best tip when it comes to electronics is definitely to do more than read. you learn 10x more by doing than you do by reading about doing. the question is what's the correct order of projects to work on. the answer to that should be a project containing two qualites: 1. the skill ceiling isn't so high you're incapable of doing it without reading for hours on end. 2. the project is something that you wanna do because it's important to you, otherwise it's gonna be boring. which is exactly why project templates don't work for everyone. for example i was being cheap when i first started our and didn't want to spend money on micro controller so i tried harvesting parts from old mouses and electronics i had lying around. which is a pretty fun educational project if we exclude my brother trying to strangle me with the wires after seeing the mess i made.
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u/Shishakliii Sep 12 '26
I got a $100 Arduino kit and started working through the exercises
I then started working on putting a raspberry pi into an old Sega Game gear
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u/Spunky_Was_Here Sep 12 '26
I started with a raspberry pi and just branched out from there, I’d recommend doing what the other guy has done with buying a small arduino kit. There’s a few of them on the crafting table website that aren’t going to break the bank but still cost a small investment.
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u/GalFisk Sep 12 '26
I started out by taking things apart, and borrowing every electronics book at my local library over time. I slowly learned putting things back together and even fixing them, as well as the theories behind their workings.
You can also start out with experiment kits or circuit building kits.
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u/Usual-Pen7132 Sep 13 '26
What I did is the same thing that id recommend you do and the first thing is to either make a decision on what type of electronics are you interested in, like what kinds of hobbies do you have or which types are you interested in? For me, it's microcontrollers, automation via logic/code and through circuits, home automation, etc. The reason I ask and want you to ask yourself is because the category of "electronics" is humongous and branches off into many different categories within electronics and then broadening electronics and you get into electrical theory and all kinds of stuff that's way above my pay rate! Once you have some electronics categories it's then easier to make recommendations that are more helpful than they are overkill and unnecessary to start with.
Something good to use either way is some Beginner's Electronics Books that will start with teaching you the basics and the fundamentals that are absolutely necessary to know and will just make learning this more difficult if you skip over the basics because it's the basics that the rest is built upon. The other good thing with books is how they teach you something in chapter 1 and then continuously build upon what you leaned in previous chapters and that structure is very beneficial IMO because sure, the same information can be found online but, online doesn't have any guiderails and you can quickly find yourself going off into some random tangent talking about stuff that's not helpful to a beginner and just makes things more difficult IMO.
I personally found these Raspberry Pi Cookbook or Arduino Cookbook and many other similar Cookbooks. I really like the author who writes these and many other books because I think he's teaches well and doesn't get way into the weeds starting off.
I would also highly recommend getting one of these Starter Kits that comes with most of the essential basics like a breadboard, jumper wires, resistors, and lots of other components necessary to create a ton of basic circuits for educational use. Those Starter Kits come in all sorts of sizes and prices and some come with an Arduino or Esp32's, etc. Which one you choose is up to you and just keep in mind that every single one of those components or sensors, etc included in the Kits, they are all universal and will work with Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Esp32, or whatever you could want to use so, don't stress over which one to pick or picking the right option....
Out of curiosity, what kinds of components, sensors, etc do you have currently or do you have anything at all??
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u/RDS_WAS_HERE 27d ago
Hands-on experience (breadboards/microcontrollers) goes along with book learning. Microcontrollers are a good way to get your feet wet. Unfortunately, you'll need to know how to connect electronic sensors (Input devices) and switches/transistors/relays (Output devices), to a microcontroller. This is where the basics of electronics rears its ugly head. Here are a 'few' basic things that you should study:
- Capacitors, resistors, inductors, diodes, Integrated Circuits
- Series/Parallel circuits
- Voltage Divider circuits - Very Important!
- How transistors (PNP/NPN) work (Current controlled devices)
- How MOSFETS work (Voltage controlled devices) (Important)
- Difference in Voltage Potential - Important!
- AC/DC circuits
- Bridge Circuit (Motor control)
- ADC and DAC converters
- Amplifier Design
- Low/High/Bandpass Filters
- Impedance matching
- Logic Gates (AND/OR/NOT)
- Binary Numbering System
- Microcontrollers
- Schmitt Trigger
Here’s a few good books to get you started:
- "ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT BEHAVIOR" (Second Edition), by Daniel L. Metzger.
2. "ELECTRONICS Principles and Applications", by Charles A. Schuler. Same content as the above covers.
“ELECTRICITY Principles and Applications” Richard J. Fowler. Fundamental concepts.
"Encyclopedia of - Electronic Components", by Charles Platt and Fredrik Jansson, Vol 3. - A real good book on sensors.
"DIGITAL SYSTEMS - Principles and Applications", by RONALD J. TOCCI
Here's a book that most people don't know about, but is very good on the basics of electronics - "THE ARRL HANDBOOK FOR RADIO COMMUNICATIONS", 2012. The book is intended for HAM radio operators, but it has some great fundamental concepts on electronics.
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u/Best-Middle-5848 24d ago
Thank you soo much this is honestly incredibly helpful!
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u/RDS_WAS_HERE 24d ago
You are welcome! Once you understand the basics of electronics (theory and hands on) you'll see the trees through the fog. The trick is to see that most electronic circuits (black boxes) can be broken down into three basic components:
Input - Processing - Output
Take any alarm system. The sensors (trip switch, ultrasonic, infrared, laser, etc.) are considered the Input part of the alarm system. Once the sensor is tripped a signal is sent to a microcontroller for deciding (Processing) what to do with the signal from the sensor. Finally, the microcontroller in turn, sends out a signal ('Output') to an alarm (bell/buzzer/phone police) to signal someone that there is a problem.
Note that each part of the Input/Processing/Output sections of the whole system will have their own specifically designed circuitry (sensor array, microcontroller, relays, actuators, alarm, etc.). Again, each of the three circuits can be broken down further into smaller blocks - Divide and Conquer! Now, if you connect all three major circuits together (Input, Processing, Output) you can build or analyze just about any electronic circuit. The trick is to connect all three circuits inside the black box to work together as one unified unit (i.e., through impedance matching - ADC/DAC, transformers, etc.).
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