4 ms·

> You always start with a schematic. How does one get started making schematics? Is there a simulator tool?

by sown 14y ago

digikata 14y ago
Look at KiCad (open source) or Eagle (free to hobbyist) for a schematic capture / electronic design. But for a starter in hobby electronics, you might start by following a blog like "Dangerous Prototypes" or "HackADay"
subsystem 14y ago
While fairly basic, the Arduino boards are probably some of the most documented out there and would be a decent starting point.
- sown 14y ago
  That sounds like a plan.
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    Also check out the MITx/edX introductory electronics course: https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.002x/2013_Spring/about https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.002x/2013_Spring/about (I did the prototype version last Spring: https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/ https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/)
mindslight 14y ago
"Making a schematic" is more of a thing you do in facilitation of something else, like designing a circuit (or documenting a circuit you already built, etc). You say you "know digital circuits and simple DC circuits", but it doesn't sound like you have the necessity of the design part in your head as solid as it should be. It really sounds like you're asking how to get started in electronics and build complete circuits rather than tinkering with demo boards. I'd recommend choosing a microcontroller, probably a PIC or AVR, in a DIP package and putting it on a breadboard (or are there even ARMs in DIPs these days?). Figure out how to program the chip directly, and get it running by hooking up its supporting components (power, crystal, etc). You can rely on schematics of others' designs for the same chip. At this point you should have similar functionality (blinking LEDs, etc) as if you were using an Arduino (AFAIK Arduino, that is). It won't seem like you've accomplished much, but the whole point is to get comfortable working with raw components instead of anything "magic" (although an MCU is quite magic). You then want to get comfortable building other kinds of independent circuits on the breadboard, probably hooking them up to the MCU so you're able to use your programming abilities as leverage. I'd recommend starting to play with opamps next (and ADCs on the MCU), but if you've got some ultimate goal in mind (and you probably will), figure out what type of chips are meant to comprise that functionality, get some in DIP packages, and start making them work using manufacturer's application notes as a starting guide. 1. Analysis, both before and after, are much more important than for software. Imagine you're working on a program that modifies its own source code, with no ability to backup. 2. There are no magic black boxes. Every component and pre-baked solution is made up of sub devices that you can be familiar with. Abstractions are there to simplify your overall thinking, but when trying to debug, you are going to be thinking about eg what the specific circuit behind the pin of a chip looks like. 3. Eventually you'll be confident enough to know what parts of the circuit you should build out before even laying out a board, and which should be relatively straight forward to blindly fab. But this only comes with knowing your experience and strengths. 4. This stuff takes a long time to get right. Good luck!
Kliment 14y ago
Email me, I'll be happy to walk you through the process of getting your first board made. I'm also available on IRC as Kliment on the freenode network. It's an incredibly fun thing to do if you like attention to detail, and incredibly frustrating otherwise.

> You always start with a schematic. How does one get started making schematics? Is there a simulator tool?

by sown 14y ago

> You always start with a schematic. How does one get started making schematics? Is there a simulator tool?

Look at KiCad (open source) or Eagle (free to hobbyist) for a schematic capture / electronic design. But for a starter in hobby electronics, you might start by following a blog like "Dangerous Prototypes" or "HackADay"

subsystem 14y ago

While fairly basic, the Arduino boards are probably some of the most documented out there and would be a decent starting point.

sown 14y ago
That sounds like a plan.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  Also check out the MITx/edX introductory electronics course: https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.002x/2013_Spring/about https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.002x/2013_Spring/about (I did the prototype version last Spring: https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/ https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/)

mindslight 14y ago

"Making a schematic" is more of a thing you do in facilitation of something else, like designing a circuit (or documenting a circuit you already built, etc). You say you "know digital circuits and simple DC circuits", but it doesn't sound like you have the necessity of the design part in your head as solid as it should be. It really sounds like you're asking how to get started in electronics and build complete circuits rather than tinkering with demo boards. I'd recommend choosing a microcontroller, probably a PIC or AVR, in a DIP package and putting it on a breadboard (or are there even ARMs in DIPs these days?). Figure out how to program the chip directly, and get it running by hooking up its supporting components (power, crystal, etc). You can rely on schematics of others' designs for the same chip. At this point you should have similar functionality (blinking LEDs, etc) as if you were using an Arduino (AFAIK Arduino, that is). It won't seem like you've accomplished much, but the whole point is to get comfortable working with raw components instead of anything "magic" (although an MCU is quite magic). You then want to get comfortable building other kinds of independent circuits on the breadboard, probably hooking them up to the MCU so you're able to use your programming abilities as leverage. I'd recommend starting to play with opamps next (and ADCs on the MCU), but if you've got some ultimate goal in mind (and you probably will), figure out what type of chips are meant to comprise that functionality, get some in DIP packages, and start making them work using manufacturer's application notes as a starting guide. 1. Analysis, both before and after, are much more important than for software. Imagine you're working on a program that modifies its own source code, with no ability to backup. 2. There are no magic black boxes. Every component and pre-baked solution is made up of sub devices that you can be familiar with. Abstractions are there to simplify your overall thinking, but when trying to debug, you are going to be thinking about eg what the specific circuit behind the pin of a chip looks like. 3. Eventually you'll be confident enough to know what parts of the circuit you should build out before even laying out a board, and which should be relatively straight forward to blindly fab. But this only comes with knowing your experience and strengths. 4. This stuff takes a long time to get right. Good luck!

Kliment 14y ago

Email me, I'll be happy to walk you through the process of getting your first board made. I'm also available on IRC as Kliment on the freenode network. It's an incredibly fun thing to do if you like attention to detail, and incredibly frustrating otherwise.