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As someone who came into electronics in a pretty indirect manner (started designing software for electronics testing, hard to be good at it without at least a d
by xnyan 6y ago
As someone who came into electronics in a pretty indirect manner (started designing software for electronics testing, hard to be good at it without at least a decent understanding of how it works), connecter names/terminology/nomenclature proved to be one of the most annoying parts. I ended up doing a lot of reverse engineering to understand how things worked, and I hope that when a prospective EE is going through their ABET accredited program that they have some class that breaks it all down for them, but I had no such luck so just sort of brute forced my way into learning all connector types I encountered.
For anyone who wants to know - turns out, there a surprisingly limited number of types of connectors that are commonly used in most electronics today. You can go to any decent electronics supply outfit (mouser, digikey and many others) and in the space of a few hours familiarize yourself with most of what you need to know just by clicking through the connectors category and sorting by number of parts in stock.
- stevenhuang 6y agoThat's a good tip for the in-stock browsing. Would also be interested in a guide on common connector terminology for hobbyist makers, please share if you find one or write one up!
- sokoloff 6y agoThis one is pretty decent. https://core-electronics.com.au/tutorials/Identify-Electrical-Connectors.html https://core-electronics.com.au/tutorials/Identify-Electrica... I long for a better wire-to-wire answer than JST-SM.
- auxym 6y agoNot done yet, but a prominent redditor on r/electronics is writing this: http://connectorbook.com/ http://connectorbook.com/, which I'm looking forward to.
- stevenhuang 6y agoThat's fantastic, exactly what I'm looking for. I especially love this: http://connectorbook.com/identification.html http://connectorbook.com/identification.html Looking forward to the completion of the book.
- bacon_waffle 6y ago> I hope that when a prospective EE is going through their ABET accredited program that they have some class that breaks it all down for them That wasn't the case in the 2000s when I got my ECE degree (more-or-less EE, but with many course choices replaced by CS curriculum), from a state university in the US. EE is a very broad field, lots of grads won't need to know names of connectors for instance.
- markrages 6y agoThat's technician stuff and won't be taught as engineering. Maybe a BSEET degree would cover it.
- imtringued 6y agoI've had the exact opposite experience. There are so many connectors (thousands of connector families) finding the right one is extremely difficult.