7 ms·

Electronics Course (45 episodes, YouTube)

161 points by childintime 3y ago

pizzaknife 3y ago
This is exactly what I need right now. I have a rudimentary understanding but I have a large project on the wipeboard which I don't yet have the knowledge to begin - this is the material i need. Thank you for sharing!
- hbrav 3y ago
  What's the project?
  - pizzaknife 3y ago
    im admittedly embarrassed to mention it because I know its very rudimentary but here goes - small solar array //and// an exercise bike transformed into a generator - both going to same battery store - stretch goal: generation and draw telemetry dashboard. What will it power you might ask? automated garden system (water delivery essentially), a nintendo switch and accompanying TV/peripherals. "Why a stationary bike?" Make the kids work for video game time lmao - EDIT: my current electrical engineering experience is limited to RC and full sized vehicle troubleshooting, like an RC servo or a motorcycle's stator etc...
    - sheepshear 3y ago
      Not sure this YouTube series is the right fit for your project. Razavi's course is focused on signal processing (for future integrated circuit designers), whereas your project is power processing. Quite different approaches. The only comparable academic alternative that comes to mind is maybe CU Boulder on Coursera, which covers at least some of your project. I'm not conversant enough with hobbyist-oriented resources to make a more relevant suggestion. How deep do you want to go in terms of where to draw the line between building and buying parts?
      - pizzaknife 3y ago
        Thanks for this feedback! I admittedly am not sure, to answer your last question. I am approaching it as one of those "I will know it, when I get there" sort of thing - example: i have replaced (successfully!) individual gears within a 900cc inline 4 motorcycle engine, I have performed the replacement of many different systems / components to home HVAC and larger appliances (without any formal training - some of these endeavors took longer than the aforementioned motorcycle transmission work, due to lack of instruction/schematic access). Would I do these things again? Absolutely not! But I'm a little stubborn as I will try and complete something to best of my abilities and will either reach a cognitive or personal initiative limit.
        sheepshear 3y ago
        Academic resources will never get to a useful punchline. Maybe try a hands-on course like this for general electronics and PCBs https://youtu.be/aqVgYasrBs0 https://youtu.be/aqVgYasrBs0 Avoid lithium ion batteries. Use a deep discharge lead acid battery instead.
znpy 3y ago
An hour-long video on the PN junction... This is going to be good.
- analognoise 3y ago
  Then I'd need to watch three hours of videos to refresh the bits of rusty calculus. At least.
- whartung 3y ago
  So, this course seems to be about going into the depth, I guess the chemistry and physics, of solid state electronics. Diodes, transistors, etc. But do I need to spend 45 hours watching this to empower me to successfully design, say, a microcomputer board? A Z80? 6502? Even an 8088? Do I need this level of depth to get a microcontroller to make a stepper motor do what I want to do (whatever that may be)? Or a power circuit to drive a higher power motor controller? (Do I need relays for that? Power transistors? Big capacitors?) Because that's what I think many who are interested in "electronics" want to do. Will the lack of understanding of a PN junction cause those kinds of projects to fail? Or be more difficult to do? For someone interested in these kinds of projects, is there a better place to put 45 hours of study? Perhaps just wiring stuff together, stamping out fires, and tracing down the smoky parts?
  - epolanski 3y ago
    45 hours of watching is not the hard part, it is actually learning and understanding and exercising. I've followed few MIT courses (mostly on algebra, category theory and some more CS-related) and while a video took me 1 hour, the actual amount of time around it (writing down the important things, summarizing, exercising, finding answers about the topics touched) was much more. Between twice and 4 times the amount. On that front in-person education has definitely two benefits: you have peers in your same situation with whom you can discuss the topics and obviously access to teachers and their assistants.
  - chongli 3y ago
    Do I need this level of depth to get a microcontroller to make a stepper motor do what I want to do (whatever that may be) Dave over at the EEVBlog likes to draw a distinction here. He distinguishes between people who want to learn electronics (build power supplies, radios), that is, analog circuits, from people who want put together Arduino projects. He refers to the latter as more of embedded programming rather than electronics. The linked course definitely leans way over to the side of the former. If you’re more interested in the latter, there are tons of YouTube channels out there about building projects with the Arduino.
hbrav 3y ago
This is the sort of thing that is solid gold for a well-motivated hobbyist. Lots of content together in one place that takes a (I hope) coherent journey through the "what's important" of a subject. If anyone knows of something similar for mechanical engineering I would be very interested. (Thanks in advance from a physicist who should probably have been an engineer instead :-) )
- epolanski 3y ago
  I'm a chemist who should've went for Informatica (computer science) or Ingegneria Informatica (computer engineering) too, I can relate. While I don't think that a degree would've added much to my professional life as I learned what I wanted/needed I can't but say that chemistry gave me even less (aside of being generally good at theoretical and practical sciences).
- spacemadness 3y ago
  A well-motivated hobbyist with a physics degree maybe. As someone who studied EE, I wouldn’t recommend most hobbyists sit through all this unless they have a solid background in basic engineering math. He assumes some knowledge of the Laplace transformation for instance. Really, you don’t need to know this stuff to do hobby electronics. You can get pretty far in thinking about circuits at a higher level. Of course, if you want to build your own amplifiers and know exactly what’s going on everywhere you will need sit down and learn and get a more in-depth foundational understanding.
  - fumoto 3y ago
    What do you recommended for non-EE major hobbyist?
    - spacemadness 3y ago
      I think answering that depends on ones goals and current level of understanding. Some others in the other thread did a good job pointing in the right direction. Whatever gets you away from just watching Youtube and actually building basic circuits. Adafruit has some good starting points, or used to. If you can hook up an op-amp IC and get it to amplify a signal and why that works intuitively you will have gotten pretty far. Really, the intuition comes from understanding what frequencies capacitors and inductors help and hinder, and what happens to components in parallel and in series. Build a radio kits used to be pretty awesome for this.
friend_and_foe 3y ago
This reminds me, off topic but I once found a YouTube channel or playlist of this African women teaching how to read. Apparently a lot of African women can't read and she wanted to solve the problem by making a video course to teach them. I can't for the life of me find it, when I search its either kids ABCs videos or TED talks about empowered black woman authors. I wonder if any video course aficionados might know what channel I'm talking about.
- hathawsh 3y ago
  Is it this channel? https://www.youtube.com/@adultliteracyandenglishlang https://www.youtube.com/@adultliteracyandenglishlang Here is the reading/writing playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9RaD1SLwSoZhMNz7pqRw2xdnOsun_PBW https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9RaD1SLwSoZhMNz7pqRw... I like her pacing (not fast, not too slow) and the way she presents herself. It seems like a high quality course, even if the audio and video quality are not perfect. I wonder how we could bring more awareness to this great work and others like it.
  - friend_and_foe 3y ago
    No, the one I was looking for was a west African woman in Africa, teaching people to learn to read English from scratch.
    - jcutrell 3y ago
      It’s so disheartening that you can have this much of a laser focused understanding of what you’re looking for and not be able to find it.
      - elkos 3y ago
        I have the gut feeling that a while back you could find it with a Google search. Nowadays I don't think I can find such stuff.
      - news_hacker 3y ago
sourcepluck 3y ago
https://invidious.flokinet.to/playlist?list=PL7qUW0KPfsIIOPOKL84wK_Qj9N7gvJX6v https://invidious.flokinet.to/playlist?list=PL7qUW0KPfsIIOPO... Here's the same course, but on invidious, for those who don't go onto Youtube "proper". Is there a HN policy on this? Seems more "neutral" to post the non-youtube link to me. There are people who don't go on to youtube, whereas I don't know of anyone with a moral issue with invidious? Anyway, course looks cool, I'm bookmarking for after doing a few more practical fun things first to build motivation. Cheers.
- helmette 3y ago
  thanks
- cinntaile 3y ago
  I'd bookmark the Youtube link though, I expect them to stick around for longer.
- seabass-labrax 3y ago
  I always prefer to have plain YouTube links, because then my LibRedirect extension for Firefox redirects me to my self-hosted Invidious instance, or another one of my choice. If someone posts a link to a specific Invidious instance, the extension can't detect it to redirect me to my own.
philipov 3y ago
I love finding full course lecture series like this, although I'm usually looking more for History or Political Science lectures these days.
reachtarunhere 3y ago
You do NOT need this as a hobbyist. I will go as far to say it will be counter productive. Pickup Art of Electronics or the lab manual that comes with it instead.

161 points by childintime 3y ago

This is exactly what I need right now. I have a rudimentary understanding but I have a large project on the wipeboard which I don't yet have the knowledge to begin - this is the material i need. Thank you for sharing!

hbrav 3y ago
What's the project?
- pizzaknife 3y ago
  im admittedly embarrassed to mention it because I know its very rudimentary but here goes - small solar array //and// an exercise bike transformed into a generator - both going to same battery store - stretch goal: generation and draw telemetry dashboard. What will it power you might ask? automated garden system (water delivery essentially), a nintendo switch and accompanying TV/peripherals. "Why a stationary bike?" Make the kids work for video game time lmao - EDIT: my current electrical engineering experience is limited to RC and full sized vehicle troubleshooting, like an RC servo or a motorcycle's stator etc...
  - sheepshear 3y ago
    Not sure this YouTube series is the right fit for your project. Razavi's course is focused on signal processing (for future integrated circuit designers), whereas your project is power processing. Quite different approaches. The only comparable academic alternative that comes to mind is maybe CU Boulder on Coursera, which covers at least some of your project. I'm not conversant enough with hobbyist-oriented resources to make a more relevant suggestion. How deep do you want to go in terms of where to draw the line between building and buying parts?
    - pizzaknife 3y ago
      Thanks for this feedback! I admittedly am not sure, to answer your last question. I am approaching it as one of those "I will know it, when I get there" sort of thing - example: i have replaced (successfully!) individual gears within a 900cc inline 4 motorcycle engine, I have performed the replacement of many different systems / components to home HVAC and larger appliances (without any formal training - some of these endeavors took longer than the aforementioned motorcycle transmission work, due to lack of instruction/schematic access). Would I do these things again? Absolutely not! But I'm a little stubborn as I will try and complete something to best of my abilities and will either reach a cognitive or personal initiative limit.
      - sheepshear 3y ago
        Academic resources will never get to a useful punchline. Maybe try a hands-on course like this for general electronics and PCBs https://youtu.be/aqVgYasrBs0 https://youtu.be/aqVgYasrBs0 Avoid lithium ion batteries. Use a deep discharge lead acid battery instead.

znpy 3y ago

An hour-long video on the PN junction... This is going to be good.

analognoise 3y ago
Then I'd need to watch three hours of videos to refresh the bits of rusty calculus. At least.
whartung 3y ago
So, this course seems to be about going into the depth, I guess the chemistry and physics, of solid state electronics. Diodes, transistors, etc. But do I need to spend 45 hours watching this to empower me to successfully design, say, a microcomputer board? A Z80? 6502? Even an 8088? Do I need this level of depth to get a microcontroller to make a stepper motor do what I want to do (whatever that may be)? Or a power circuit to drive a higher power motor controller? (Do I need relays for that? Power transistors? Big capacitors?) Because that's what I think many who are interested in "electronics" want to do. Will the lack of understanding of a PN junction cause those kinds of projects to fail? Or be more difficult to do? For someone interested in these kinds of projects, is there a better place to put 45 hours of study? Perhaps just wiring stuff together, stamping out fires, and tracing down the smoky parts?
- epolanski 3y ago
  45 hours of watching is not the hard part, it is actually learning and understanding and exercising. I've followed few MIT courses (mostly on algebra, category theory and some more CS-related) and while a video took me 1 hour, the actual amount of time around it (writing down the important things, summarizing, exercising, finding answers about the topics touched) was much more. Between twice and 4 times the amount. On that front in-person education has definitely two benefits: you have peers in your same situation with whom you can discuss the topics and obviously access to teachers and their assistants.
- chongli 3y ago
  Do I need this level of depth to get a microcontroller to make a stepper motor do what I want to do (whatever that may be) Dave over at the EEVBlog likes to draw a distinction here. He distinguishes between people who want to learn electronics (build power supplies, radios), that is, analog circuits, from people who want put together Arduino projects. He refers to the latter as more of embedded programming rather than electronics. The linked course definitely leans way over to the side of the former. If you’re more interested in the latter, there are tons of YouTube channels out there about building projects with the Arduino.

hbrav 3y ago

This is the sort of thing that is solid gold for a well-motivated hobbyist. Lots of content together in one place that takes a (I hope) coherent journey through the "what's important" of a subject. If anyone knows of something similar for mechanical engineering I would be very interested. (Thanks in advance from a physicist who should probably have been an engineer instead :-) )

epolanski 3y ago
I'm a chemist who should've went for Informatica (computer science) or Ingegneria Informatica (computer engineering) too, I can relate. While I don't think that a degree would've added much to my professional life as I learned what I wanted/needed I can't but say that chemistry gave me even less (aside of being generally good at theoretical and practical sciences).
spacemadness 3y ago
A well-motivated hobbyist with a physics degree maybe. As someone who studied EE, I wouldn’t recommend most hobbyists sit through all this unless they have a solid background in basic engineering math. He assumes some knowledge of the Laplace transformation for instance. Really, you don’t need to know this stuff to do hobby electronics. You can get pretty far in thinking about circuits at a higher level. Of course, if you want to build your own amplifiers and know exactly what’s going on everywhere you will need sit down and learn and get a more in-depth foundational understanding.
- fumoto 3y ago
  What do you recommended for non-EE major hobbyist?
  - spacemadness 3y ago
    I think answering that depends on ones goals and current level of understanding. Some others in the other thread did a good job pointing in the right direction. Whatever gets you away from just watching Youtube and actually building basic circuits. Adafruit has some good starting points, or used to. If you can hook up an op-amp IC and get it to amplify a signal and why that works intuitively you will have gotten pretty far. Really, the intuition comes from understanding what frequencies capacitors and inductors help and hinder, and what happens to components in parallel and in series. Build a radio kits used to be pretty awesome for this.

friend_and_foe 3y ago

This reminds me, off topic but I once found a YouTube channel or playlist of this African women teaching how to read. Apparently a lot of African women can't read and she wanted to solve the problem by making a video course to teach them. I can't for the life of me find it, when I search its either kids ABCs videos or TED talks about empowered black woman authors. I wonder if any video course aficionados might know what channel I'm talking about.

hathawsh 3y ago
Is it this channel? https://www.youtube.com/@adultliteracyandenglishlang https://www.youtube.com/@adultliteracyandenglishlang Here is the reading/writing playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9RaD1SLwSoZhMNz7pqRw2xdnOsun_PBW https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9RaD1SLwSoZhMNz7pqRw... I like her pacing (not fast, not too slow) and the way she presents herself. It seems like a high quality course, even if the audio and video quality are not perfect. I wonder how we could bring more awareness to this great work and others like it.
- friend_and_foe 3y ago
  No, the one I was looking for was a west African woman in Africa, teaching people to learn to read English from scratch.
  - jcutrell 3y ago
    It’s so disheartening that you can have this much of a laser focused understanding of what you’re looking for and not be able to find it.
    - elkos 3y ago
      I have the gut feeling that a while back you could find it with a Google search. Nowadays I don't think I can find such stuff.
    - news_hacker 3y ago

sourcepluck 3y ago

https://invidious.flokinet.to/playlist?list=PL7qUW0KPfsIIOPOKL84wK_Qj9N7gvJX6v https://invidious.flokinet.to/playlist?list=PL7qUW0KPfsIIOPO... Here's the same course, but on invidious, for those who don't go onto Youtube "proper". Is there a HN policy on this? Seems more "neutral" to post the non-youtube link to me. There are people who don't go on to youtube, whereas I don't know of anyone with a moral issue with invidious? Anyway, course looks cool, I'm bookmarking for after doing a few more practical fun things first to build motivation. Cheers.

helmette 3y ago
thanks
cinntaile 3y ago
I'd bookmark the Youtube link though, I expect them to stick around for longer.
seabass-labrax 3y ago
I always prefer to have plain YouTube links, because then my LibRedirect extension for Firefox redirects me to my self-hosted Invidious instance, or another one of my choice. If someone posts a link to a specific Invidious instance, the extension can't detect it to redirect me to my own.

philipov 3y ago

I love finding full course lecture series like this, although I'm usually looking more for History or Political Science lectures these days.

reachtarunhere 3y ago

You do NOT need this as a hobbyist. I will go as far to say it will be counter productive. Pickup Art of Electronics or the lab manual that comes with it instead.