I have been trying to learn electronics now for almost a year. And I can say I picked up quite a bit of knowledge, but I can't seem to put it all together. I would like to take it to the next level, can anyone recommend an online course, or a class at the local college for beginning electronics. I am located in south Florida, and I have looked around but can't seem to find anything. Thank you in advance.
Where do I learn?
- Thread starter Kid347
- Start date
Hello,
On the engeneering page of the LEARNERSTV you will find several video courses on electronics subjects:
http://learnerstv.com/Free-Engineering-video-lecture-courses.htm
Bertus
On the engeneering page of the LEARNERSTV you will find several video courses on electronics subjects:
http://learnerstv.com/Free-Engineering-video-lecture-courses.htm
Bertus
I looked online, but all I saw was computer IT stuff. I will give the school a call to see if I missed something .
Thank you, looks like some good useful stuff.
I have been through a lot of books, and a lot of kits. Although I get through the books and build the circuits, I don't feel I have the complete understanding of what is going on. If you look at my other post, you will see that I am unable to answer questions that I should know the answers. If you reword the question a little, I get lost.
If you do use the AAC E-book and such, be aware that most of it is written from an "electron-current" perspective (and, like almost all such treatments, requires you to apply a few magical mystery minus signs here and there, but usually in places that won't give you much grief). But switching between electron-flow and charge-flow conventions can be confusing for some.
Hello there,
What are you having trouble with, perhaps you can give a few examples?
I would recommend learning circuit analysis, if you have some math already. You can then begin to analyze circuits that you find on the web. That gives you more insight. If you dont have much math, you should take up learning math. Algebra as a min, geometry, trig, then if you feel good about it on to calculus. You can do quite a bit with just algebra though.
I have been trying to learn on my own now for almost a year now. I was building a 555 circuit last night, and I eventually got it to work. But it was by trial and error, I would like to be able to read the schematic and build the circuit. I can build the circuit, but I don't fully understand it. The multiple connections through me for a loop. Also the more complex formulas get the better of me. I get Ohm's law but when it gets into KVL, KCL and the more complex dividers, I get stuck. Also I contacted my local community college, and no course on electronics. I will keep reading my books, and the internet until I find a class to take.
Is there a four-year public university nearby that has an EE program? You could possibly take a few courses there on a non-degree basis, though that will likely be a more expensive route (unless Florida heavily subsidizes undergraduate students for residents at state schools).
I will look into it, and reply when I get the answer. EE I take means Electronic Engineer?
Normally it means Electrical Engineering, which may be more electrical or more electronic at any particular school. Also, there are other variants such as ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering) for example.
Hi,
The 555 circuit is a very good example. But you should realize that although it does a fairly simple function or two, it is a little more complicated then when you start from scratch with just resistors and batteries for example. If you never saw a car before and one drove by for the first time, you probably would not know there was an engine inside, and that engine was fairly complicated. The car goes by without much effort and it looks simple, but it's not as simple as it looks. Once you learn more of the preliminaries then it becomes more easy to understand.
When you learn this subject you usually take a course that is laid out in a fashion that takes you step by step up to more and more complex circuits, you dont start out with a complicated circuit and work backwards.
For the 555 example, there are various mechanisms inside that make it work such as comparators and flip flops, and those are made up of transistors. If you dont at least know how comparators and flip flops work you cant understand how a 555 works. So you must learn how comparators and flip flops work.
This brings up the possibility that you could ask some questions right here and you could be directed on what to cover next.
For example, did you study resistors in series and parallel yet? Ohms Law is a good one to learn and it seems you may have learned that already. You obviously need a little math here.
So you could start by studying resistors in series and parallel, then move on to caps in series and parallel, then inductors in series and parallel.
After that, start working with resistors and batteries and Nodal Analysis. Did you cover simultaneous equations yet? For some basic circuits Nodal Analysis works pretty easy, but you should know how simultaneous equations work. They are not that hard to learn either though, if you dont know that already.
I ask some questions so i can better understand where you are in the learning process and thus give better advice
The Naval Services are not the only entities that use electron flow vice conventional flow.
One important thing is that getting into really understanding the function of a circuit, especially using KVL and KCL, is you have to get comfortable with doing a fair amount of algebra. Solving circuits generally works out to be a set of x equations with x unknowns. Also common is trying to rearrange an algebraic expression to get in the form of a reference expression, so you can find, for example, the Q and center frequency of a bandpass filter.
As you walk around a circuit loop and account for all the voltages, or you tally up all the currents going into a node, you are building equations. So algebra is a good skill.
Regards
As you walk around a circuit loop and account for all the voltages, or you tally up all the currents going into a node, you are building equations. So algebra is a good skill.
Regards
Yeah, many of the EE techs I've worked with wanted to do that, too. I guess it's a matter of defining current in the same direction the physical particles are going, to avoid being confused, and chasing around a bunch of minus signs in your equations. Or you simply define current to be the flow of positive charge and forget about electrons.
Regards,
