9 ms·

Lessons in Electric Circuits

315 points by lobo_tuerto 4y ago

simojo 4y ago
Have been looking for something of this nature for months - thanks!
valdiorn 4y ago
This guide has been around since the early 00's. I read it, start to finish (well, some chapters weren't finished back then :) when I was a teenager and it got me started with electronic circuits. I ended up becoming an electrical engineer and credit this site significantly for giving me the courage to choose EE in uni. The guide does an excellent job of building up knowledge without assuming any prior knowledge - just what a curious 15 years needed to get started. dspguide.com is another great resource and thought me Fourier transform when I barely knew what cos() and sin() were.
- jimmydddd 4y ago
  I wish I had these resources when I was in school. I was studying EE back in the late '80s. I had a textbook with maybe two worked out examples for each concept. The answers to the odd-numbered homework problems were in the back, but just as a number. So if I worked out a long problem and got, say, 5 as an answer, and the answer in the back was, say, -5, I had no real way of knowing if I made a mistake somewhere, or if the answer in the back of the book was incorrect. Working in groups was discouraged as a kind of cheating because you were supposed to do your own work. The professors weren't that interested in teaching because they felt they were there more to rank us. And the teaching assistants were mostly foreign-born with limited spoken English skills.
klinquist 4y ago
If you are interested in learning electrical principals and want a practical application but don't know where to start, look into getting your ham radio license (three license tiers, each with more electrical knowledge required). I recently passed my extra-class exam and had a lot of fun learning in the process.
- gglitch 4y ago
  Where/how did you learn the electrical principles?
  - HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
    See my post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34340611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34340611
sizzzzlerz 4y ago
Coverage-wise, this is pretty close to the EE textbooks used in my sophmore and junior years. Depth-wise, it emphisizes the practical aspects of circuits whereas the textbooks in college had both practical as well as theoretical material. With some concetrated study and maybe some additional texts for reference, you should be able to have a really good, broad understanding of circuits.
whartung 4y ago
I've always struggled with electronics texts. Mostly because, rightly I'm sure, they discuss the individual components, or subsystems common to electronics: what's a capacitor, what's a resistor, what's an oscillator, what's an amplifier. But where they break down, for me, is they don't put it all together. It's like having your introduction to computers being nothing more than a book on data structures and algorithms. All important, fundamental concepts, but how do you get from an algorithm and data structure book to writing your own Rogue game, which uses all of those things. I've never found a book or other treatise that puts it all together, at least for me. Mind, I've never had any formal training. I took an electronics class in 9th grade which basically studied Ohms law and other fundamentals, and at the end I assembled an AM radio transmitter, but I had no idea how that transmitter worked, what choices were made and why, etc. It was just a kit, and more a testament of soldering and assembly skills than anything else. Same with all of those old Radio Shack kits that they used to sell. I need a "design your own radio" course or something that works from the top down "here's a radio, here's the structure, here's how we work on each part of that, stitch them together, why use this transistor vs that one".
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  > "design your own radio" Even before you said this, I was going to recommend the Radio Amateur's Handbook. https://www.amazon.com/arrl-handbook/s?k=arrl+handbook https://www.amazon.com/arrl-handbook/s?k=arrl+handbook Get an old one and save money. I haven't looked at it in probably 20 years and it was an amazing reference even back then. The theory of electronics doesn't change and this book does a great job of taking you from basic theory to designing complex circuits. There's also Horowitz & Hill's The Art of Electronics which some swear by. I probably read the ARRL handbook cover to cover in high school, so I'm biased :-)
- pjc50 4y ago
  > All important, fundamental concepts, but how do you get from an algorithm and data structure book to writing your own Rogue game, which uses all of those things. Yeah. In practice, a lot of (programming or electronics) education skips the intermediate step and assumes a certain amount of imagination in pattern-matching a solution out of the available pieces. There's a certain amount of design information scattered about in "Application notes", which are produced by IC manufacturers who want you to use a particular IC and therefore suggest a bunch of stuff you might want to do with it. The largest of these, which is basically a full course on op-amps, and has a slightly legendary status, is Linear Technology Application Note 47. https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/application-notes/an47fa.pdf https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/appl...
JKCalhoun 4y ago
For physical books, I picked up these at a used book store and found them wonderful: Basic Electronics (Valkenburg, 1954). Something about those vintage illustrations. Kind of nice they don't put up a window asking you to subscribe ... books that is. :-) https://archive.org/details/basic-electronics-volumes-1-5-by-valkenburg-van.-z-lib.org https://archive.org/details/basic-electronics-volumes-1-5-by...
KRAKRISMOTT 4y ago
The CircuitLab founder https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=compumike https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=compumike has written an excellent book https://ultimateelectronicsbook.com/ https://ultimateelectronicsbook.com/
- compumike 4y ago
  That’s me! Definitely a slow work in progress… Thank you for the kind words of encouragement :)
  - causi 4y ago
    Unless you’re doing specialized physics, in the electronics world we always talk in terms of current flow – never electron flow. Rather weird line from the site. My entire training and career have dealt with things from an electron flow perspective and it made understanding nearly every electronics concept easier. If you base your concept of electricity on positive current flow (remembering the words positive and negative are just labels), it makes understanding things like cathode ray tubes much more difficult.
    - mannykannot 4y ago
      I have heard that when transistors were new, there were a bunch of people claiming the theory behind them was nonsense because it treated current in p-doped semiconductors as a flow of positive charges (holes.) (These were not physicists - mostly hobbyists, some electricians and maybe a few EEs.) Once you get to capacitors, inductors, transmission lines and antennas, you are no longer just considering electrons, but also fields (usually via classical approximations to the underlying QED.) In electrolytes, you have both positive and negative ions...
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      IMO, the ideal is to: 1. Discuss the simplified EE model. The diode with 0.7 forward voltage is the best example, its highly unrealistic, but its also highly useful. ("Reality" is closer to an exponential function, at least at that region of voltage vs current) 2. Discuss that most EE models are unrealistic, but useful. (Vce saturation, MOSFET voltage-controlled transconductor, etc. etc.). EE is filled with _completely_ wrong, but highly useful models. My favorite has to be the "virtual short circuit" model of OpAmps / negative feedback. (OpAmp analysis technique where you simply set the + and - leads of the OpAmp to the same voltage) 3. Have a brief (but not overwhelming), discussion of Maxwell's Equations, which is a more accurate model, but useless in most of EE. Discuss radios and transmission lines (two situations where we have to start leaning into Maxwell's Equations for understanding), but also discuss their simplified models. (Ex: Impedance matched antenna is "just a resistor"). 4. Return to the mantra of EE. The entire point of EE is to simplify circuits and simplify models. Its fine to be wrong, as long as the circuit works at the end of the day. It is highly useful to think in the wrong manner on a wide variety of subjects. (Diodes, BJT transistor voltage drops, Simplified OpAmps / negative feedback models). And only use complicated analysis on the cases that you recognize as "worthy" of deeper analysis. (Antennas, Transmission Line Theory, etc. etc.) 5. And now, teach the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumped-element_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumped-element_model
pk455 4y ago
This got me through my electrical engineering degree and studying for EE interviews. Still use it whenever I need to brush up on op-amp math
dang 4y ago
Related: Lessons in Electric Circuits - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9379307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9379307 - April 2015 (11 comments)
molteanu 4y ago
There is also a complete Romanian version which I've translated more than ten years ago: https://mihaiolteanu.me/circuiteelectrice/ https://mihaiolteanu.me/circuiteelectrice/ These lessons were so helpful for my University classes that I wanted to help "spread the word" and show my support in whatever way I could.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- marmetio 4y ago
  Amazing. You even redrew the figures with translated labels. Also, your website design is objectively better than the original.

315 points by lobo_tuerto 4y ago

Have been looking for something of this nature for months - thanks!

This guide has been around since the early 00's. I read it, start to finish (well, some chapters weren't finished back then :) when I was a teenager and it got me started with electronic circuits. I ended up becoming an electrical engineer and credit this site significantly for giving me the courage to choose EE in uni. The guide does an excellent job of building up knowledge without assuming any prior knowledge - just what a curious 15 years needed to get started. dspguide.com is another great resource and thought me Fourier transform when I barely knew what cos() and sin() were.

jimmydddd 4y ago
I wish I had these resources when I was in school. I was studying EE back in the late '80s. I had a textbook with maybe two worked out examples for each concept. The answers to the odd-numbered homework problems were in the back, but just as a number. So if I worked out a long problem and got, say, 5 as an answer, and the answer in the back was, say, -5, I had no real way of knowing if I made a mistake somewhere, or if the answer in the back of the book was incorrect. Working in groups was discouraged as a kind of cheating because you were supposed to do your own work. The professors weren't that interested in teaching because they felt they were there more to rank us. And the teaching assistants were mostly foreign-born with limited spoken English skills.

klinquist 4y ago

If you are interested in learning electrical principals and want a practical application but don't know where to start, look into getting your ham radio license (three license tiers, each with more electrical knowledge required). I recently passed my extra-class exam and had a lot of fun learning in the process.

gglitch 4y ago
Where/how did you learn the electrical principles?
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  See my post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34340611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34340611

sizzzzlerz 4y ago

Coverage-wise, this is pretty close to the EE textbooks used in my sophmore and junior years. Depth-wise, it emphisizes the practical aspects of circuits whereas the textbooks in college had both practical as well as theoretical material. With some concetrated study and maybe some additional texts for reference, you should be able to have a really good, broad understanding of circuits.

whartung 4y ago

I've always struggled with electronics texts. Mostly because, rightly I'm sure, they discuss the individual components, or subsystems common to electronics: what's a capacitor, what's a resistor, what's an oscillator, what's an amplifier. But where they break down, for me, is they don't put it all together. It's like having your introduction to computers being nothing more than a book on data structures and algorithms. All important, fundamental concepts, but how do you get from an algorithm and data structure book to writing your own Rogue game, which uses all of those things. I've never found a book or other treatise that puts it all together, at least for me. Mind, I've never had any formal training. I took an electronics class in 9th grade which basically studied Ohms law and other fundamentals, and at the end I assembled an AM radio transmitter, but I had no idea how that transmitter worked, what choices were made and why, etc. It was just a kit, and more a testament of soldering and assembly skills than anything else. Same with all of those old Radio Shack kits that they used to sell. I need a "design your own radio" course or something that works from the top down "here's a radio, here's the structure, here's how we work on each part of that, stitch them together, why use this transistor vs that one".

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
> "design your own radio" Even before you said this, I was going to recommend the Radio Amateur's Handbook. https://www.amazon.com/arrl-handbook/s?k=arrl+handbook https://www.amazon.com/arrl-handbook/s?k=arrl+handbook Get an old one and save money. I haven't looked at it in probably 20 years and it was an amazing reference even back then. The theory of electronics doesn't change and this book does a great job of taking you from basic theory to designing complex circuits. There's also Horowitz & Hill's The Art of Electronics which some swear by. I probably read the ARRL handbook cover to cover in high school, so I'm biased :-)
pjc50 4y ago
> All important, fundamental concepts, but how do you get from an algorithm and data structure book to writing your own Rogue game, which uses all of those things. Yeah. In practice, a lot of (programming or electronics) education skips the intermediate step and assumes a certain amount of imagination in pattern-matching a solution out of the available pieces. There's a certain amount of design information scattered about in "Application notes", which are produced by IC manufacturers who want you to use a particular IC and therefore suggest a bunch of stuff you might want to do with it. The largest of these, which is basically a full course on op-amps, and has a slightly legendary status, is Linear Technology Application Note 47. https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/application-notes/an47fa.pdf https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/appl...

JKCalhoun 4y ago

For physical books, I picked up these at a used book store and found them wonderful: Basic Electronics (Valkenburg, 1954). Something about those vintage illustrations. Kind of nice they don't put up a window asking you to subscribe ... books that is. :-) https://archive.org/details/basic-electronics-volumes-1-5-by-valkenburg-van.-z-lib.org https://archive.org/details/basic-electronics-volumes-1-5-by...

KRAKRISMOTT 4y ago

The CircuitLab founder https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=compumike https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=compumike has written an excellent book https://ultimateelectronicsbook.com/ https://ultimateelectronicsbook.com/

compumike 4y ago
That’s me! Definitely a slow work in progress… Thank you for the kind words of encouragement :)
- causi 4y ago
  Unless you’re doing specialized physics, in the electronics world we always talk in terms of current flow – never electron flow. Rather weird line from the site. My entire training and career have dealt with things from an electron flow perspective and it made understanding nearly every electronics concept easier. If you base your concept of electricity on positive current flow (remembering the words positive and negative are just labels), it makes understanding things like cathode ray tubes much more difficult.
  - mannykannot 4y ago
    I have heard that when transistors were new, there were a bunch of people claiming the theory behind them was nonsense because it treated current in p-doped semiconductors as a flow of positive charges (holes.) (These were not physicists - mostly hobbyists, some electricians and maybe a few EEs.) Once you get to capacitors, inductors, transmission lines and antennas, you are no longer just considering electrons, but also fields (usually via classical approximations to the underlying QED.) In electrolytes, you have both positive and negative ions...
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    IMO, the ideal is to: 1. Discuss the simplified EE model. The diode with 0.7 forward voltage is the best example, its highly unrealistic, but its also highly useful. ("Reality" is closer to an exponential function, at least at that region of voltage vs current) 2. Discuss that most EE models are unrealistic, but useful. (Vce saturation, MOSFET voltage-controlled transconductor, etc. etc.). EE is filled with _completely_ wrong, but highly useful models. My favorite has to be the "virtual short circuit" model of OpAmps / negative feedback. (OpAmp analysis technique where you simply set the + and - leads of the OpAmp to the same voltage) 3. Have a brief (but not overwhelming), discussion of Maxwell's Equations, which is a more accurate model, but useless in most of EE. Discuss radios and transmission lines (two situations where we have to start leaning into Maxwell's Equations for understanding), but also discuss their simplified models. (Ex: Impedance matched antenna is "just a resistor"). 4. Return to the mantra of EE. The entire point of EE is to simplify circuits and simplify models. Its fine to be wrong, as long as the circuit works at the end of the day. It is highly useful to think in the wrong manner on a wide variety of subjects. (Diodes, BJT transistor voltage drops, Simplified OpAmps / negative feedback models). And only use complicated analysis on the cases that you recognize as "worthy" of deeper analysis. (Antennas, Transmission Line Theory, etc. etc.) 5. And now, teach the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumped-element_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumped-element_model

pk455 4y ago

This got me through my electrical engineering degree and studying for EE interviews. Still use it whenever I need to brush up on op-amp math

dang 4y ago

Related: Lessons in Electric Circuits - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9379307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9379307 - April 2015 (11 comments)

molteanu 4y ago

There is also a complete Romanian version which I've translated more than ten years ago: https://mihaiolteanu.me/circuiteelectrice/ https://mihaiolteanu.me/circuiteelectrice/ These lessons were so helpful for my University classes that I wanted to help "spread the word" and show my support in whatever way I could.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
marmetio 4y ago
Amazing. You even redrew the figures with translated labels. Also, your website design is objectively better than the original.