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Any hardware hackers on HN? I bought an Arduino board a few months ago and ended up blowing out the few LEDs the kit came with because I didn't understand how r

by chime 16y ago

Any hardware hackers on HN? I bought an Arduino board a few months ago and ended up blowing out the few LEDs the kit came with because I didn't understand how resistors/volts etc. worked. Can anyone direct me to a guide on electronics specifically for small hardware hacking? I'm certain taking EE classes or reading Physics/Electronics books would help but it would also take a lot of time. I'd rather concentrate on writing neat software once the hardware is wired up. Is there a guide to learning the basics of hardware so I can get started with Arduino and maybe LaunchPad? Edit: Thanks everyone for the links. These are pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Hopefully I'll hack up some interesting stuff soon :)

boots 16y ago
Ladyada's guide (http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/ http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/) has all of the basics to get you started with the physical parts of hooking up your Arduino. I've glanced at "Lessons in Electric Circuits" (http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/ http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/) by Tony Kuphaldt, and it seems to cover all of the physics that you would need to get started with hardware hacking. Volume I appears to be the most relevant to you, covering the basics of voltage and currents. Once you understand that, you'll most likely be looking at specific parts that perform all of the complicated electronic functions (A/D Converters, H-Bridges, Omp Amps, etc), and don't need to fully understand the physics behind them, although it helps. I'm currently going through "Making Things Talk" by Tom Igoe, whose audience appears to be non-technical, or at least non-hardware, people. It does not cover the physics and math behind the projects though.
- ygd 16y ago
  This (LadyAda) is what I used, and I turned out fine.
KC8ZKF 16y ago
You can read the United States Navy's NEETS modules for a quick introduction to electronics. Module 1, "Introduction to Matter, Energy, and Direct Current" would probably be enough to keep you from blowing LEDs. http://jricher.com/NEETS/ http://jricher.com/NEETS/
bockris 16y ago
Make: Electronics by Charles Platt is a very good beginners book with lots of projects. Not Arduino specific though. http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596153755 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596153755
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  Excellent suggestion. The book is a visual wonder, well-written, and fun.
kwantam 16y ago
It's understandable that you'd rather concentrate on writing neat software, but when your hardware doesn't work and your guide doesn't help you, I'm guessing you'll wish you'd spent a little more time learning basic circuits. To that end, Horowitz and Hill's The Art of Electronics is an oft-recommended starting volume, and it will remain useful as a reference---it's got little "cookbook" sections at the end of each chapter. At the very least, read through Chapter 1---that'll cover the basics of passive components (R, L, C) and diodes, and introduce you to some useful terminology. You can stop there, or continue through transistors, op-amps, filters, power circuits, et cetera, or just refer to chapters as necessary. You should be able to find used copies of H&H all over the place, since lots of intro courses use it as a textbook, and if you're doing anything more than wiring up a bunch of blinky lights, it's likely you'll find it very useful in the future. (I'm a mixed-signal IC designer, so I'll admit my view of what everyone "ought" to know might be a bit on the aggressive side. :)
dugmartin 16y ago
If Radio Shack still sells the Forrest Mims book I'd pick that up. It's a great book.
- ygd 16y ago
  They do. Amazon does as well for the same price. I just received mine yesterday.
- Kadin 16y ago
  I was going to suggest the Mims books as well. He had quite a few of them. I have several (or did at one point); the basic electronics is a decent intro, and then there are good ones on op-amps and the 555 timer. If you are totally new to hardware hacking it might not be a waste of your time to play around a little with some of those circuits just so you can learn how to wire up an IC on a breadboard. Plus even if you only think you're going to do embedded systems stuff, eventually you're going to want to interface with the rest of the world without going through a PC, and knowing a little about analog circuits or old-school TTL will come in handy. They were great books and it's a sad commentary on Radio Shack if they no longer carry them.
compumike 16y ago
As the parent comment suggests, information and education have real value in this space. At NerdKits (http://www.nerdkits.com/ http://www.nerdkits.com/), we spend our time empowering our customers through the kinds of hands-on electronics & microcontroller learning experiences that you aren't likely to get with a pre-made PCB and a stack of libraries. Hackers, even the "newbies," shouldn't be scared of interrupts, registers, transistors, or even Makefiles, and you can see that we try to bring that out in many of our video tutorials: http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/ http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/
- ygd 16y ago
  Why is your kit $80 when the individual components can be bought for less than <$40 and even less in bulk? Maybe $50 or $60 would be a reasonable price, but $80 is pushing it.
  - noonespecial 16y ago
    $40 for parts, $40 to support their customers in a satisfactory manner. Charge what its worth to your customers, not what it costs to make it. Add $40 in value and you'll have plenty of takers.
    - compumike 16y ago
      Yup... we've helped a lot of people get started with electronics and programming, and had a lot of fun doing it! We don't make money on parts. We see it as a combination of content (our non-free PDF guide, and our free video tutorials) and support (via e-mail and our forums (http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/) http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/)). We wrote the book, which took a lot of time and continues to evolve. And we have to deal with a dozen suppliers, testing the incoming microcontrollers, LCDs, USB cables, etc., picking dozens of different little resistors and LEDs and such into a bag, and assembling the kits and taking them to the post office. Then handle support questions, marketing, and hope to have a little time left in the day to make some progress toward a new video tutorial and/or kit! And last but not least, I'd like to be able to pay my rent and eat lunch. I think that the HN community understands that profit is not a dirty word, and information is valuable. More generally, as a business lesson: for a business selling physical goods, even when zero to minimal post-sale support is needed, I believe it's fairly well known that the business must set the retail price at typically 3 to 5 times the cost of the raw materials. This can vary a bit depending on the level of manufacturing/assembly/post-sale action/non-physical value-add needed, but it usually isn't too far from the 3-5x multiplier on either end. Too low and you can't cover costs (labor, marketing, etc), and too high and a competitor is likely to try to eat your lunch.
samlittlewood 16y ago
Also, I would strongly recommend getting a bench power supply that has an adjustable current limit. I have an old and trusted Thurlby Thandar supply which gets used for all development, including things that will later be powered by a host USB port. I have it set to a little above what the project needs, typically a few 10s of milliamps. My (regular) mistakes just result in the voltage dropping away - no fireworks.
mkramlich 16y ago
SparkFun.com has some books like that. I too got into Arduino hacking last week and no blown bits yet!
pjscott 16y ago
While this doesn't help you in general, you can stop an LED from blowing out by connecting it in series with a 220 Ohm resistor, if you're just hooking it up to an Arduino. You can vary the resistance up or down a little to get the LED brighter or dimmer. For properly learning what's what, I started out with Lessons in Electric Circuits, which is pretty decent: http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/ http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/
nitrogen 16y ago
http://www.opencircuits.com/Main_Page http://www.opencircuits.com/Main_Page is an electronics wiki.
cesare 16y ago
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/ http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

by chime 16y ago

boots 16y ago

Ladyada's guide (http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/ http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/) has all of the basics to get you started with the physical parts of hooking up your Arduino. I've glanced at "Lessons in Electric Circuits" (http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/ http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/) by Tony Kuphaldt, and it seems to cover all of the physics that you would need to get started with hardware hacking. Volume I appears to be the most relevant to you, covering the basics of voltage and currents. Once you understand that, you'll most likely be looking at specific parts that perform all of the complicated electronic functions (A/D Converters, H-Bridges, Omp Amps, etc), and don't need to fully understand the physics behind them, although it helps. I'm currently going through "Making Things Talk" by Tom Igoe, whose audience appears to be non-technical, or at least non-hardware, people. It does not cover the physics and math behind the projects though.

ygd 16y ago
This (LadyAda) is what I used, and I turned out fine.

KC8ZKF 16y ago

You can read the United States Navy's NEETS modules for a quick introduction to electronics. Module 1, "Introduction to Matter, Energy, and Direct Current" would probably be enough to keep you from blowing LEDs. http://jricher.com/NEETS/ http://jricher.com/NEETS/

bockris 16y ago

Make: Electronics by Charles Platt is a very good beginners book with lots of projects. Not Arduino specific though. http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596153755 http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596153755

jamesbritt 16y ago
Excellent suggestion. The book is a visual wonder, well-written, and fun.

kwantam 16y ago

It's understandable that you'd rather concentrate on writing neat software, but when your hardware doesn't work and your guide doesn't help you, I'm guessing you'll wish you'd spent a little more time learning basic circuits. To that end, Horowitz and Hill's The Art of Electronics is an oft-recommended starting volume, and it will remain useful as a reference---it's got little "cookbook" sections at the end of each chapter. At the very least, read through Chapter 1---that'll cover the basics of passive components (R, L, C) and diodes, and introduce you to some useful terminology. You can stop there, or continue through transistors, op-amps, filters, power circuits, et cetera, or just refer to chapters as necessary. You should be able to find used copies of H&H all over the place, since lots of intro courses use it as a textbook, and if you're doing anything more than wiring up a bunch of blinky lights, it's likely you'll find it very useful in the future. (I'm a mixed-signal IC designer, so I'll admit my view of what everyone "ought" to know might be a bit on the aggressive side. :)

dugmartin 16y ago

If Radio Shack still sells the Forrest Mims book I'd pick that up. It's a great book.

ygd 16y ago
They do. Amazon does as well for the same price. I just received mine yesterday.
Kadin 16y ago
I was going to suggest the Mims books as well. He had quite a few of them. I have several (or did at one point); the basic electronics is a decent intro, and then there are good ones on op-amps and the 555 timer. If you are totally new to hardware hacking it might not be a waste of your time to play around a little with some of those circuits just so you can learn how to wire up an IC on a breadboard. Plus even if you only think you're going to do embedded systems stuff, eventually you're going to want to interface with the rest of the world without going through a PC, and knowing a little about analog circuits or old-school TTL will come in handy. They were great books and it's a sad commentary on Radio Shack if they no longer carry them.

compumike 16y ago

As the parent comment suggests, information and education have real value in this space. At NerdKits (http://www.nerdkits.com/ http://www.nerdkits.com/), we spend our time empowering our customers through the kinds of hands-on electronics & microcontroller learning experiences that you aren't likely to get with a pre-made PCB and a stack of libraries. Hackers, even the "newbies," shouldn't be scared of interrupts, registers, transistors, or even Makefiles, and you can see that we try to bring that out in many of our video tutorials: http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/ http://www.nerdkits.com/videos/

ygd 16y ago
Why is your kit $80 when the individual components can be bought for less than <$40 and even less in bulk? Maybe $50 or $60 would be a reasonable price, but $80 is pushing it.
- noonespecial 16y ago
  $40 for parts, $40 to support their customers in a satisfactory manner. Charge what its worth to your customers, not what it costs to make it. Add $40 in value and you'll have plenty of takers.
  - compumike 16y ago
    Yup... we've helped a lot of people get started with electronics and programming, and had a lot of fun doing it! We don't make money on parts. We see it as a combination of content (our non-free PDF guide, and our free video tutorials) and support (via e-mail and our forums (http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/) http://www.nerdkits.com/forum/)). We wrote the book, which took a lot of time and continues to evolve. And we have to deal with a dozen suppliers, testing the incoming microcontrollers, LCDs, USB cables, etc., picking dozens of different little resistors and LEDs and such into a bag, and assembling the kits and taking them to the post office. Then handle support questions, marketing, and hope to have a little time left in the day to make some progress toward a new video tutorial and/or kit! And last but not least, I'd like to be able to pay my rent and eat lunch. I think that the HN community understands that profit is not a dirty word, and information is valuable. More generally, as a business lesson: for a business selling physical goods, even when zero to minimal post-sale support is needed, I believe it's fairly well known that the business must set the retail price at typically 3 to 5 times the cost of the raw materials. This can vary a bit depending on the level of manufacturing/assembly/post-sale action/non-physical value-add needed, but it usually isn't too far from the 3-5x multiplier on either end. Too low and you can't cover costs (labor, marketing, etc), and too high and a competitor is likely to try to eat your lunch.

samlittlewood 16y ago

Also, I would strongly recommend getting a bench power supply that has an adjustable current limit. I have an old and trusted Thurlby Thandar supply which gets used for all development, including things that will later be powered by a host USB port. I have it set to a little above what the project needs, typically a few 10s of milliamps. My (regular) mistakes just result in the voltage dropping away - no fireworks.

mkramlich 16y ago

SparkFun.com has some books like that. I too got into Arduino hacking last week and no blown bits yet!

pjscott 16y ago

While this doesn't help you in general, you can stop an LED from blowing out by connecting it in series with a 220 Ohm resistor, if you're just hooking it up to an Arduino. You can vary the resistance up or down a little to get the LED brighter or dimmer. For properly learning what's what, I started out with Lessons in Electric Circuits, which is pretty decent: http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/ http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/

nitrogen 16y ago

http://www.opencircuits.com/Main_Page http://www.opencircuits.com/Main_Page is an electronics wiki.

cesare 16y ago

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/ http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/