Yo guys what's up.

I have a hundred electronics engineers on my linkedin network. I asked to all of them if they could build an electric motor - more specifically an in-wheel motor for cars - from scratch. They have no clue how to do that.
I taught myself electronics so i havent followed the traditional engineer path but it seems to me that their level is low. Are they just passing time as employees or what ? Or is it that building an electric motor is the holy grail and it is out of reach for whoever doesnt push his studies further ?
Please note that i'm not trolling electronics engineers I'm just surprised they're not as big as I thought.

 

One can be an EE without any particular knowledge of motors. The field is broad enough to allow for that. It seems strange to me that you would not realize that. Maybe you have an outlook on the field that is more 19th century than 21st century. I retired some years ago after a career lasting half a century, and there was no occasion where I had to build a motor of any type. The closest I came was writing firmware for an 8-pole brushless DC motor for a disk drive spindle motor. I did understand how it was built and the physics required to interpret the hall effect sensors, but I did not design or build the motor.

 

Building an electric motor requires very specialized knowledge.
Also specialized parts.
If they are not in the business of doing that, then a typical engineer would not know how to.
It's like asking your family physician to perform brain surgery.

Basic engineering courses teach you the mathematics of various disciplines and how to analyze.
They do not teach how to build specific things.

 

An electrical engineer designs and builds motors, using wire and magnetic materials: an electronics engineer designs the control systems using microcontrollers and power semiconductors.

When I first got interested in electronics at the age of about 18, people would ask me if I was going to build my own television. I still haven’t built a television! So I must be rubbish.

 

EEs do electronics, for the most part. Electric motors are electromechanical devices.

Bob

 

Please note that i'm not trolling electronics engineers I'm just surprised they're not as big as I thought.

Sure sounds like a diss to me...

I had no interest in motors and wouldn't have considered any job involving them. I didn't have any training in the area of semiconductors or computers, but I spent most of my career working in those fields. School taught me the basics and how to analyze problems, but most of the knowledge I needed and used for my jobs was from on the job training.

 

Apart from needing electrical knowledge/experience, building a motor would require mechanical engineering skills, which the EEs on your network may not have had.

 

I taught myself electronics

Then it would seem you need to teach yourself about how to build a motor.

 

Yo guys what's up.

I have a hundred electronics engineers on my linkedin network. I asked to all of them if they could build an electric motor - more specifically an in-wheel motor for cars - from scratch. They have no clue how to do that.
I taught myself electronics so i havent followed the traditional engineer path but it seems to me that their level is low. Are they just passing time as employees or what ? Or is it that building an electric motor is the holy grail and it is out of reach for whoever doesnt push his studies further ?
Please note that i'm not trolling electronics engineers I'm just surprised they're not as big as I thought.

@Yuseph It's because most people are narrow in their field in order to gain depth. Few can be both broad and deep. Many people also do not translate concepts. People rarely think outside of what they have been exposed to. Those that do, understand much more. Those that do it all the time, seeing the world unlike anybody else... well, that's a form of genius and I envy them.

 

I taught myself electronics

So how did you make out??

 

I taught myself electronics

One specialized version of one minor type of an electric motor is a trivial fraction of 1% of the world of Electrical Engineering.

Teach yourself to design the computer you are using. Better yet, design just the switching power supply, including its transformer. Next up, we'll skip over the VCR and microwave oven, and jump to the antenna on a cell phone tower.

Please note that i'm not trolling electronics engineers

Please note that yes, you are. However, I am not reporting this thread because I do not want the moderators to close it. We need a good chuckle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

ak

 

If you told those engineers that the couldn't feed their families until the figured out how to make an electric motor, I'm sure most would figure it out. Alternatively, if you ask an engineer if they could build something that is easily specified and purchases off the shelf of many different vendors, I doubt ANY a finer would wast his time building a suboptimal motor that would, in total, cost more in machine time, materials and labor and under perform vs a motor that could be delivered tomorrow.

Some people enjoy the practice and craftsmanship, some appreciate the work of experts and efficiency of high-volume manufacturing.

 

Ok mes amis. Being specialized in only one task. Is it the story you guys have been telling yourself to feel better ?
Let me show you something.
These are my favorite books. And as you will see, NOT ONE hasnt got a chapter dealing with motors.
If we go by your rules this would mean that someone can consider himself an electronics expert if he only masters a few chapters. Come on guys, get real.

Electronics cookbook (for beginners)
1.Theory 2. Resistors. 3. Capacitors and Inductors. 4. Diodes. . 5. Transistors and Integrated Circuits 6. Switches and Relays 7. Power Supplies. . 8. Batteries 9. Solar Power 10. Arduino and Raspberry Pi. 11. Switching 12. Sensors. 13. Motors 14. LEDs and Displays. 15. Digital ICs 16. Analog. 17. Operational Amplifiers 18. Audio 19. Radio Frequency 20. Construction. 21. Tools

Practical electronics for inventors (intermediate level)
Introduction to Electronics - Theory - Basic Electronic Circuit Components - Semiconductors - Optoelectronics - Sensors - Hands-on Electronics - Operational Amplifiers - Filters - Oscillators and Timers - Voltage Regulators and Power Supplies - Digital Electronics - Microcontrollers - Programmable Logic - Motors - Audio Electronics - Modular Electronics

Electrical circuit Theory and Technology (advanced level)
1 Some mathematics revision 2 Further mathematics revision 3 Units associated with basic electrical quantities 4 An introduction to electric circuits 5 Resistance variation 6 Batteries and alternative sources of energy 7 Series and parallel networks 8 Capacitors and capacitance 9 Magnetic circuits 10 Electromagnetism 11 Electromagnetic induction 12 Electrical measuring instruments and measurements 13 Semiconductor diodes 14 Transistors 15 D.c. circuit theory 16 Alternating voltages and currents 17 Single-phase series a.c. circuits 18 Single-phase parallel a.c. circuits 19 D.c. transients 20 Operational amplifiers 21 Ways of generating electricity – the present and the future 22 Three-phase systems 23 Transformers 24 D.c. machines 25 Three-phase induction motors 26 Revision of complex numbers 27 Application of complex numbers to series a.c. circuits 28 Application of complex numbers to parallel a.c. networks 29 Power in a.c. circuits 30 A.c. bridges 31 Series resonance and Q-factor 32 Parallel resonance and Q-factor 33 Introduction to network analysis 34 Mesh-current and nodal analysis 35 The superposition theorem 36 Thévenin’s and Norton’s theorems 37 Delta–star and star–delta transformations 38 Maximum power transfer theorems and impedance matching 39 Complex waveforms 40 A numerical method of harmonic analysis 41 Magnetic materials 42 Dielectrics and dielectric loss 43 Field theory 44 Attenuators 45 Filter networks 46 Magnetically coupled circuits 47 Transmission lines 48 Transients and Laplace transforms

 

Ok mes amis. Being specialized in only one task. Is it the story you guys have been telling yourself to feel better ?
...

You sir are not my friend and it seems unlikely that you will be one of mine. I am looking back on my career with considerable satisfaction, both for what I have learned and what I have contributed. You on the other hand appear to be closer to the beginning rather than the end. Books are only the beginning, not the end. What you learn from sources other than books will be what sustains you.

 

Is there a point to this thread?

 

Is there a point to this thread?

Maybe the TS was hoping for some sense of self-validation from the community for his extraordinary viewpoint and is frustrated that it turned out different than he expected.

 

Congrats, you can build a motor. Building a motor is more a feat of mechanical metal working and commutation methods than electrical engineering. Taking the specification for the torque at a given RPM and determining the moment and force for a specified diameter or length or both to meet the torque requirements. On the other hand, some hacks build without the math skills to "engineer" the motor to a task and use trial and error methods to iterate to an acceptable solution. If motors are your hobby, fine. If you have the interest in metalworking to build it, and the patience to wrap wires around and around and around, fine. I don't. I'd rather buy a motor. If you want to criticize people for not being interested in one chapter of a textbook, that's just weird.

 

Yo guys what's up.

I have a hundred electronics engineers on my linkedin network. I asked to all of them if they could build an electric motor - more specifically an in-wheel motor for cars - from scratch. They have no clue how to do that.
I taught myself electronics so i havent followed the traditional engineer path but it seems to me that their level is low. Are they just passing time as employees or what ? Or is it that building an electric motor is the holy grail and it is out of reach for whoever doesnt push his studies further ?
Please note that i'm not trolling electronics engineers I'm just surprised they're not as big as I thought.

maybe you should be interviewing Electrical Engineers, NOT Electronics Engineers...

 

This looks like someone is trying to pick a fight, with no other beneficial intent.