Hacker News Reader

Comment by Phenomenit | Hacker News Reader

I am interested but know nothing, where should I start?

This course https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-1-basic-circ... is excellent.

I took it for fun a few years ago, enjoyed it so much that I later enrolled in an EE program (while already having another degree) and I am soon to graduate :)

Cheers

* congrats on the degree.

I'm going back to school as well.

Start with single LEDs and understanding the voltage across them, and that you need a current limiting resistor and how to work out those values.

http://lednique.com/electrical-theory-basics/power-calculati...

http://lednique.com/electrical-theory-basics/ohms-law-and-re...

Buy a breadboard[1] and some components and build some flasher circuits. This 555 circuit is a nice first circuit. http://www.555-timer-circuits.com/flashing-led.html

Change the resistors R1 and R2 to different values (or use potentiometers) to see how they affect the flashing - you should see one changes the on time and the other changes the off time (the mark:space ratio). You need to see this because it helps understand "multiplexing" -- you strobe the LEDs because it saves power.

Then look at 7 segment displays. I'm not sure this page is particularly clear for beginners: http://lednique.com/display-technology/7-segment-display-bas...

This page walks you through using the 4511 to create a Binary Coded Decimal to 7 segment display: http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/4511-BCD-to...

If you're the kind of person who can learn from books The Art of Electronics and the Student Manual are great. I haven't read the new editions. The editions I have are good but have some stuff that's out of date.

For Youtube Kris Cochrane talks about hobbyist level (cheap) tools and kits: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh8JiW2G9yR2v7TwUm04m_g

And Big Clive does teardowns showing that sometimes the cheap tools can be scary for some uses: https://www.youtube.com/user/bigclivedotcom

[1] This is what I mean by "breadboard": https://uk.farnell.com/multicomp/mcbb400/breadboard-solderle...

Do you have some good tutorials on pro setups? I've got clients asking for pretty complicated lighting setups and we typically have to hire an AV partner who do a great job, but it's like a whole second system next to ours instead of being tightly integrated. These hobbyist setups are nifty, but I've got clients willing pay for quality. We're slowing muddling our way through DMX and PWM.

I don't, sorry.

I'm sure someone else on HN will know people who can do complex lighting setups with things like DMX and PWM, especially if there's reasonable money involved.

That's extensive, thank you for your time and effort.

Thought of another book I used in the beginning, Make: Electronics. Very suited for beginners, experiment first and then they give the theory afterwards. (https://www.makershed.com/products/make-electronics-2ed, many other good resources here)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com