3 ms·

Mine as well. I've been doing it as a VERY light hobby now for a few years (maybe building a little thing every few months or so, using an ESP8266 here and the

Mine as well. I've been doing it as a VERY light hobby now for a few years (maybe building a little thing every few months or so, using an ESP8266 here and there). I still don't quite get where the hell they are getting the amount of resistance needed, or why this capacitor is needed here, etc... I still haven't found any good resources that are between "plug x into y" and "read the whitepages for every component you will use and figure it out yourself". Most "advanced" tutorials/guides will just throw equations at you and say something like "you need to use this equation to figure out your resistance" but never why it's that equation, or why i should use that over the other one, or what situations that will apply to, or where they got the magic number they plugged into it. I want to gain the "intuition" (probably not the right word) to know when I need to use this equation, where I'll need resistance at all, when it might be a good idea to have a capacitor. I know what each does on a basic level, i just need that next level of understanding.

yathern 10y ago
I very strongly second this - I have the same problem. Once or twice a year I'll fiddle around and build something small - but I have serious trouble getting an intuitive grasp on how everything interacts at a high level. It's often a lot of trial and error for me, and while enjoyable, the lack of good learning material has seriously hampered the amount of projects I've attempted.
joshvm 10y ago
Could you give a specific example? Sometimes ICs require external passives with specific values (e.g. a 1uF ceramic on pin 3), but you'll never really understand why those values because the chip is a black box to you. Usually you have to place external components because they would be too large to design onto the die itself, particularly large things like capacitors and inductors. As such their value is whatever the manufacturer says it should be and you go along with it. Often the most magical component requirements are found in RF circuits, and then you may as well go with what the manufacturer recommends because the designers probably simulated it first. That said, I would guess you're talking about things where various combinations of components would work - e.g. a voltage divider, do you use 1R/10R or 1kR/100kR? That particular example is explained quite well [here](http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/28897/how-to-choose-value-of-resistor-in-voltage-divider http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/28897/how-to-...).

yathern 10y ago

I very strongly second this - I have the same problem. Once or twice a year I'll fiddle around and build something small - but I have serious trouble getting an intuitive grasp on how everything interacts at a high level. It's often a lot of trial and error for me, and while enjoyable, the lack of good learning material has seriously hampered the amount of projects I've attempted.

joshvm 10y ago

Could you give a specific example? Sometimes ICs require external passives with specific values (e.g. a 1uF ceramic on pin 3), but you'll never really understand why those values because the chip is a black box to you. Usually you have to place external components because they would be too large to design onto the die itself, particularly large things like capacitors and inductors. As such their value is whatever the manufacturer says it should be and you go along with it. Often the most magical component requirements are found in RF circuits, and then you may as well go with what the manufacturer recommends because the designers probably simulated it first. That said, I would guess you're talking about things where various combinations of components would work - e.g. a voltage divider, do you use 1R/10R or 1kR/100kR? That particular example is explained quite well [here](http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/28897/how-to-choose-value-of-resistor-in-voltage-divider http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/28897/how-to-...).