Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

A newbie needing initial support / help. =) Support the youngs ^^

Status
Not open for further replies.

WindScar

New Member
Hello. Before anything, sorry for my bad english, I'm not a native english speaker. Hello again =) I'm new on this. My girlfriend loves eletronic and stuff but I don't know ANYTHING. I'm still 16yo, but I have 4 years of experience in computer programming in C++, wich is easy to learn Java from. I think that doesn't help at all but I suppose a system like a clock needs some programation somewhere and I have heard that cellphones use Java for their applications. o_O"

The deal is, I want a clock for me, that is able to send and receive information. (o_O) The sender must be able to send 1 byte protocols for another system at abound 40m of distance, and about 2 walls. The receiver must be able to receive and process information, displaying it somehow. Even a 8 small lighs on/off is enough. Like, every time it receives a byte, it updates the 8 lights. Note: 3 lights are enough for me, as I only need to send 5 kinds of messages. But more = better. And something that sends small integers = love. Something that sends text = eletronic will be my life.

I'm not sure but I think that's not impossible, considering TV controllers send information so easy, and the cheapness of the current cellphones.

So, my questions are:

Is this possible?

Can I buy something like that for a low cost?

Is it viable for a newbie to start with something like that? I'm not asking if it is easy because, even if it takes 2 years of my life to finish, I'm happy. I don't worry if it's necessary to start from something easier. Making that clock is just my initial goal, and this forum is my very first contact with eletronic. I'm obviously wanting to know, before everything, What is eletronic, how it works and all. So here comes the next 2 questions:

(This is the most important, if you don't have time) where can I find the necessary documentation to start learning eletronics? Is it a area? How do people work on it? It it the area of people that make the design of stuff like monitors, keyboards, signals, or I'm totally in the wrong place?

If I learn eletronics, will I be able to project (and make?) my own stuff like, a clock (even if it don't send anything), or something fun like a 1-button joystick for my PC? And, what about complicated stuff, like ... a functional game-joystick? Can someone/a team make things like that on their own or is it necessary some industry?

Sorry if I'm totally lost and maybe even in the wrong place, but I'm trying to enter in a field that I don't know even if exists. Any guide is totally, totally welcome. If not, at least give me some love in the answers so I won't not get totally ashamed. ^^
 
"Electronics" is quite a "Mysterious beast"; to know it... you have to already know it! :confused: And once you'll know it, you won't be able (or you won't want) to explain basis to newbies, as they are too simple.... :rolleyes:
So, how to get in? :confused:
Nice question. Don't know the answer... apart from going to some school which teaches electornics...
For autolearning... I can give you a starting point: Electronics is strictly divided into two big branches: Analog and Digital. The second one is of course the one used in computers, cellphones, and "techy" gadgets, so maybe it's what you are interested on.

So, look around for tutorials about digital electronics. You'll have to learn what a microprocessor is, what a RAM and a ROM, what is a bus, a pin, a logical level, a block diagram, what is binary code and boolean mathematics (maybe your c++ knowledge will help in this), what's the difference among assembly and assembler (although a few people actually know this...), ... just to give a few keywords to start searching.

It would be a long process to learn all you want... but is it worth the effort: knowing electronics is almost like being a "magician", a "wizard" or what else: you can get things doing things, without other people can even imagine how it is possible! ;)

Just think of a TV set: "normal" people just sees it as a box which allows looking at Big Brother or David Letterman Show... an "electronic magician" ;) sees a miscellany of complex circuits which allow transmitting the image of an event over thousands of miles in realtime.
 
You might start with this thread
 
You see, TV remotes are IR, which need to have a direct line of fire. Cell phones use a certain frequency to transmit to the cell towers, which either send the signal to another cell tower, or to a land line phone. What you may want to try, is looking up how Wireless Landline phones are worked. That may help.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top