New To The Electronical World

[Circuit]

I am a computer programmer who loves Visual Basic 6.0. I believe it is very obvious somone who programs would be interested in electronics. They are both about building and operating a set code and make it do anything you dream of. The bad part is, I am new in the electronics world and I was wondering if anyone has a definitive electronics guide; to learn all of the basics. I have been all around the web and only find snippets of information - and you usually need to know a thing or two about what it is talking about.

Happy to be a new member here at this forum and I am looking foward to learning and eventually sharing schematics and ideas!

 

[TheOne]

Here is a good link to learn basics
**broken link removed**

This is very good with experiments
**broken link removed**

 

[samcheetah]

The bad part is, I am new in the electronics world

this isnt the bad part, its the good part. because learning electronics is so much fun 8)

you need a good book like the "Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill. i strongly recommend this book for you. some more books are

Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics

and

Fundamentals of Electric Circuits
by Mathew Sadiku

have fun

 

[bmcculla]

If you are a programmer I'd recommend getting a microcontroller and a C compiler and just start programming to get the feel for embedded systems. If you know a high level language like VB, C is easy to pick up and will let you get up and running much faster than having to learn assembly. As you learn more about microcontrollers it will be easy to pick up assembly later.

For getting started I recommend Silicon Labs' 8051. Their kits are a bit more expensive (~$100) than your average kit but they are by far the easiest I've ever used. They come with a built in JTAG debugger that lets you set breakpoints and watch variables in the hardware itself. A free C compler and IDE also come with the kit that let you write code up to 4kB of code - more than enough for simple tasks. Once you get a handle on programming for micorcontrollers it is fairly easy to switch to any architecture - PIC, AVR, Z8, etc. - or just stay with the 8051.

 

[tansis]

There is no real definitive guide , many sites will cover the basics
but from there on electronics branches many ways, am not saying
one cannot learn it all , but it will take time.

Building your own test gear is always a good place to begin when starting out. Power supplies , Signal / Waveform sources , freaquency counter..
I was going to say logic probe as well but given the rise of microcontrollers
a parallel port interface for data logging would be more usefull.

Etching your own boards is an art in in itself for the hobbyist and fraught with dangers never mentioned in the text books..I still wince at the beating my mother gave me for "borrowing" her big pyrex glass dish.