8 ms·

While I expect it could take years to get to the level of being able to design an interesting IC, could anyone recommend some good online EE introductory materi

• rikthevik 16y ago
  When you're getting started, most of what you're going to do is be hooking up a microcontroller to various inputs and outputs. I'm partial to the ATMega series by Atmel. I've never used the Arduino, but I've heard tons of good things about them. When you're comfortable with your ability building circuits that aren't permanent, maybe look into a PCB.
• X-Istence 16y ago
  Take a look at the beginners offerings from http://parallax.com/ http://parallax.com/. Stuff like the boe-bot and others. They will allow you to get your feet wet with electronics and circuit design. After you have the basics down, you can start looking at the tutorials that SparkFun has for example to get some basic circuits out, and building them, learn how to solder (screwing up when you have 20 boards made is not that big of a deal, buy SparkFun's broken boards and play with them, I learned how to solder from my professor and have always had extremely neat boards). Just take your time, and don't rush it. It is an absolutely blast to create your first circuit with an LED and blink it with a microcontroller. The one thing I will mention is, get ready to decipher all kinds of data sheets to get the information you need so you don't accidentally burn up your electronic parts.
  • blacksmythe 16y ago
    >> so you don't accidentally burn up your electronic parts The biggest thing to watch out for is incompatible voltage ranges (lots of parts are 3.3V compatible, most parts are not 5V compatible).