5 ms·

Maybe is not the best topic to ask, but does anyone know good sources (websites, books, kits) for playing with and learning a bit more about microcontrollers an

Maybe is not the best topic to ask, but does anyone know good sources (websites, books, kits) for playing with and learning a bit more about microcontrollers and electronics? I would prefer structured sources (those that take newbies by hand) than unstructured ones.. I used to play a little bit with the nerdkits (http://www.nerdkits.com http://www.nerdkits.com) and really enjoyed their approach but they seem to have gone out of business and their content has not been updated for some years..

pp19dd 9y ago
One quick thing you can get into is assembling electronics kits. Granted it's not programming, design, or theory, but it's an interesting alternative that'll get you started without having to catch up on theory. All you need is the kit and a few basic tools, like a soldering iron, some tweezers and pliers. There's a person (fairly active on reddit, I believe) who put together a youtube channel reviewing such kits. Sadly he stopped posting new videos years ago (bored and moved on?) Think he's an EE or something comparable for work, but, in either case take a look at some of his offerings: https://www.youtube.com/user/SUBLOOP/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/SUBLOOP/videos The video that I got started with and caught my attention was his "Active Speakers" kit, part 2. They're entertaining, his soldering is just hypnotic, and it covered some troubleshooting you'd run into with electronics.
deeg 9y ago
adafruit.com and sparkfun.com are two of my go-tos. Pretty strong community support.
- jventura 9y ago
  Thanks for your input, I briefly checked those links and they seem to be stores and quite overwhelming in their range of products and tutorials. What I'm looking for is mostly project tutorials or books at a basic level, as in "how do I start?". For instance, the nerdkit had me build a temperature sensor from the most basic parts and display the temperature in a LCD (bundled with the kit). Any other suggestions? Edit: typos
  - deeg 9y ago
    Sorry, I should have been more specific. For AdaFruit, there are two (among many) options. A general "Learn" page (learn.adafruit.com) with all sorts of step-by-step projects using different microcontrollers. Most products pages will also have a list of projects and introductory pages (many with video). For example, the Raspberry Pi has this: www.adafruit.com/product/3055 Sparkfun has pretty much the same thing with a "learn" page (learn.sparkfun.com) and all sorts of tutorials. E.g. here's a list of tutorials/projects dealing with ATtiny variants, a microcontroller discussed in the original artical: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/tags/attiny https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/tags/attiny
Jach 9y ago
I think there's a lot of fun to be had with electronics when you don't use a microcontroller. Breadboarding, analog components, maybe some digital logic circuitry... And if you use a microcontroller, either not putting a linux distro on it or getting one that is incapable of running linux... For finding structured sources, you can do pretty well by just picking a college, finding their computer engineering program, some classes that look interesting, and see what books they require then buy them or see if a library has them. https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Fundamentals-10th-Thomas-Floyd/dp/0132359235 https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Fundamentals-10th-Thomas-Floy... or https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Electronics-Practical-Approach-Seventh/dp/B0086X9RAW https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Electronics-Practical-Approac... are fairly good for instance but there are many others and some more appropriate for whatever your real study goals are. It's really important to have a specific goal in mind regardless of whether you prefer to learn how to solve it with structured or unstructured materials, and to have an initial idea of what level of detail you want to go in order to accomplish the goal. The lower level you want to learn the less up-to-date your resources have to be, our understanding of electricity hasn't fundamentally changed since Maxwell's equations. :) Something like "I want to turn on a smart light of this type when there is motion in this area, and turn it off after 5 minutes" is a nice goal. And you can accomplish it at many different levels of hackery, and learn very deeply if you want about each component of your solution (for instance there's the entire field of RF if you want to know how the antenna works).
TheCowboy 9y ago
Practical Electronics for Inventors, Fourth Edition by Scherz and Monk (1056 pages) ~$25 I've only used the 3rd edition, but I found it very accessible and well-written. I think the 4th edition has expanded content for microcontrollers and plan on getting it when I have the time to play around with electronics again. What I liked about the book is that it provided information in a practical way so you could "just build something" without knowing all of the theory, but the theory was available when you wanted to increase your depth of understanding. I admit the title is cheesy, but I could see this book being used to teach an introductory class on electronics. It also serves as a good reference entry point for topics/electronics where you're completely clueless.

pp19dd 9y ago

One quick thing you can get into is assembling electronics kits. Granted it's not programming, design, or theory, but it's an interesting alternative that'll get you started without having to catch up on theory. All you need is the kit and a few basic tools, like a soldering iron, some tweezers and pliers. There's a person (fairly active on reddit, I believe) who put together a youtube channel reviewing such kits. Sadly he stopped posting new videos years ago (bored and moved on?) Think he's an EE or something comparable for work, but, in either case take a look at some of his offerings: https://www.youtube.com/user/SUBLOOP/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/SUBLOOP/videos The video that I got started with and caught my attention was his "Active Speakers" kit, part 2. They're entertaining, his soldering is just hypnotic, and it covered some troubleshooting you'd run into with electronics.

deeg 9y ago

adafruit.com and sparkfun.com are two of my go-tos. Pretty strong community support.

jventura 9y ago
Thanks for your input, I briefly checked those links and they seem to be stores and quite overwhelming in their range of products and tutorials. What I'm looking for is mostly project tutorials or books at a basic level, as in "how do I start?". For instance, the nerdkit had me build a temperature sensor from the most basic parts and display the temperature in a LCD (bundled with the kit). Any other suggestions? Edit: typos
- deeg 9y ago
  Sorry, I should have been more specific. For AdaFruit, there are two (among many) options. A general "Learn" page (learn.adafruit.com) with all sorts of step-by-step projects using different microcontrollers. Most products pages will also have a list of projects and introductory pages (many with video). For example, the Raspberry Pi has this: www.adafruit.com/product/3055 Sparkfun has pretty much the same thing with a "learn" page (learn.sparkfun.com) and all sorts of tutorials. E.g. here's a list of tutorials/projects dealing with ATtiny variants, a microcontroller discussed in the original artical: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/tags/attiny https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/tags/attiny

Jach 9y ago

I think there's a lot of fun to be had with electronics when you don't use a microcontroller. Breadboarding, analog components, maybe some digital logic circuitry... And if you use a microcontroller, either not putting a linux distro on it or getting one that is incapable of running linux... For finding structured sources, you can do pretty well by just picking a college, finding their computer engineering program, some classes that look interesting, and see what books they require then buy them or see if a library has them. https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Fundamentals-10th-Thomas-Floyd/dp/0132359235 https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Fundamentals-10th-Thomas-Floy... or https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Electronics-Practical-Approach-Seventh/dp/B0086X9RAW https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Electronics-Practical-Approac... are fairly good for instance but there are many others and some more appropriate for whatever your real study goals are. It's really important to have a specific goal in mind regardless of whether you prefer to learn how to solve it with structured or unstructured materials, and to have an initial idea of what level of detail you want to go in order to accomplish the goal. The lower level you want to learn the less up-to-date your resources have to be, our understanding of electricity hasn't fundamentally changed since Maxwell's equations. :) Something like "I want to turn on a smart light of this type when there is motion in this area, and turn it off after 5 minutes" is a nice goal. And you can accomplish it at many different levels of hackery, and learn very deeply if you want about each component of your solution (for instance there's the entire field of RF if you want to know how the antenna works).

TheCowboy 9y ago

Practical Electronics for Inventors, Fourth Edition by Scherz and Monk (1056 pages) ~$25 I've only used the 3rd edition, but I found it very accessible and well-written. I think the 4th edition has expanded content for microcontrollers and plan on getting it when I have the time to play around with electronics again. What I liked about the book is that it provided information in a practical way so you could "just build something" without knowing all of the theory, but the theory was available when you wanted to increase your depth of understanding. I admit the title is cheesy, but I could see this book being used to teach an introductory class on electronics. It also serves as a good reference entry point for topics/electronics where you're completely clueless.