3 ms·

"Either way, one of the best feelings in engineering for me is go draw a 3D rendering for a class and watch it show up as something I can hold in my hand 2 week

by tmuir 13y ago

"Either way, one of the best feelings in engineering for me is go draw a 3D rendering for a class and watch it show up as something I can hold in my hand 2 weeks later. No amount of deploying/pushing/launching in software can ever beat that, yet." Embedded development offers this gratification.

voltagex_ 13y ago
I'm currently trying to shift my out-of-hours efforts over to more hardware work (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, now Udoo and Cubieboard). I feel like I'm missing a huge amount of electronics knowledge as soon as I see a discussion about how such and such a trace has been misplaced on a revision of a board or how certain pins could have been better used as an extra SD card reader (ref: the Udoo board) Is there a less time-intensive way to pick up an understanding of hardware (I'm currently a software guy) than to go an do an ME or EE? I'm certainly not looking for an easy way out but at the moment it feels like trying to go from crawling to supersonic flight.
- columbo 13y ago
  Have you looked at nand2tetris? http://www.nand2tetris.org/ http://www.nand2tetris.org/ Going even farther back up the chain there's stuff like this: http://www.jpmsupply.com/servlet/the-1082/AM,-Radio,-Solder/Detail?gclid=CP3mwJus3roCFYhcMgodCREA0w http://www.jpmsupply.com/servlet/the-1082/AM,-Radio,-Solder/...
  - voltagex_ 13y ago
    NAND2Tetris looks fantastic, thank you!
- analog31 13y ago
  Actually, building and playing with published Raspberry Pi or Arduino projects wouldn't be too bad a way to go. Most of the designs are open, and hobbyists tend not to overcomplicate things. See how many layers of the onion you can peel back, or what small changes you can make. Choose a board and see how much mileage you can get out of it. For the lowest level nuts and bolts, Horowitz and Hill's _Art of Electronics_ is still a classic. Going through the first few chapter exercises will get you thinking in terms of voltages and currents.
  - voltagex_ 13y ago
    Heh, I seem to lose motivation after the first set of blinkenlights, or (this week) when I burnt out my one buzzer by misreading which resistor it needed. I think I'll go back to a breadboard for a while - Art of Electronics looks like what I need right now. Edit: Egads! $150AUD for that book
    - analog31 13y ago
      Try for an older edition, second hand. The fundamentals haven't changed. In fact, that brings up an idea for a way that hardware is sometimes easier than software. The laws of physics that constrain our designs don't go obsolete every 2 weeks.

by tmuir 13y ago

voltagex_ 13y ago

I'm currently trying to shift my out-of-hours efforts over to more hardware work (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, now Udoo and Cubieboard). I feel like I'm missing a huge amount of electronics knowledge as soon as I see a discussion about how such and such a trace has been misplaced on a revision of a board or how certain pins could have been better used as an extra SD card reader (ref: the Udoo board) Is there a less time-intensive way to pick up an understanding of hardware (I'm currently a software guy) than to go an do an ME or EE? I'm certainly not looking for an easy way out but at the moment it feels like trying to go from crawling to supersonic flight.

columbo 13y ago
Have you looked at nand2tetris? http://www.nand2tetris.org/ http://www.nand2tetris.org/ Going even farther back up the chain there's stuff like this: http://www.jpmsupply.com/servlet/the-1082/AM,-Radio,-Solder/Detail?gclid=CP3mwJus3roCFYhcMgodCREA0w http://www.jpmsupply.com/servlet/the-1082/AM,-Radio,-Solder/...
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  NAND2Tetris looks fantastic, thank you!
analog31 13y ago
Actually, building and playing with published Raspberry Pi or Arduino projects wouldn't be too bad a way to go. Most of the designs are open, and hobbyists tend not to overcomplicate things. See how many layers of the onion you can peel back, or what small changes you can make. Choose a board and see how much mileage you can get out of it. For the lowest level nuts and bolts, Horowitz and Hill's _Art of Electronics_ is still a classic. Going through the first few chapter exercises will get you thinking in terms of voltages and currents.
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  Heh, I seem to lose motivation after the first set of blinkenlights, or (this week) when I burnt out my one buzzer by misreading which resistor it needed. I think I'll go back to a breadboard for a while - Art of Electronics looks like what I need right now. Edit: Egads! $150AUD for that book
  - analog31 13y ago
    Try for an older edition, second hand. The fundamentals haven't changed. In fact, that brings up an idea for a way that hardware is sometimes easier than software. The laws of physics that constrain our designs don't go obsolete every 2 weeks.