How do I get started with electronics?

[Smertrios]

I ordered 1 of the $20 encoders (model E4P) from usdigital, centering kit for $5.25, 6ft cable for $7.35 and spacer for $0.53 the total was $42 somehow! must cost $11 for a small box and UPS shipping... Anyway the purpose of purchasing just 1 encoder was to let me experiment with motor control, electronics and micro controller programming. That said I am a noob to electronics at the moment and have just started an online course or rather have started reading these webpages to gain knowledge...

http://www.electronics-tutorials.com...lectronics.htm

Programming I have more than just an introduction to including the assembly language so I really don't expect micro controller coding to throw me any curves even when using limited instruction sets like on some of the $1-$12 chips (an assumption tho I have not tried to use them yet). My question is this... anyone else taken the initiative to make their own closed loop steppers control circuits?

OH... reason I have not tried programming the microcontrollers yet is this... I have ZERO electronic components. What do I need to be well equipped for accomplishing what I am trying to do which includes "learning electronics". I mean books, test equipment, resistors, caps?? how much what values where to get??? what else? How about cabinets with lots of small drawers?

[andy55]

Get a good introductory textbook. Horowitz&Hill is old but the introductory chapters are ok - the digital electronics section is a bit old but probably still relevant.

To program the PIC you need a programmer - I've used a Microchip ICD2 which has worked fine. There are lots of cheaper clones, some better than others. In the beginning it is probably best to get a starter kit for the microcontroller you want to program. There is a cheap picstart kit which includes the microcontroller, but it might not be powerful enough. for the dspics there are dspicstart kits.

learn some schematics/pcb software. eagle is free up to some finite size board. learn how to make your own pcbs.

[fkaCarel]

For the cheap side I would say, 4k7 resistors for pullups, 100n capacitors for noise suppression, and BC547 as general transistors for voltage level translation.

For the expensive side: you need an oscilloscope. An embedded controller does'nt have a monitor. You need a scope to see what is going on in there and check execution times and debug through dedicated controller pins. I would'nt say it's impossible without it, but you would give yourself a very miserable live.

Carel

[NC Cams]

Good sources for electronic fundamental knowledge follow:

Research
CNC Information
specifically post #15

Electronics books (great beginners stuff):
http://www.forrestmims.com

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/pro...lance&n=283155

The "holy grail" of electronics info for the DIY CNC'er but a bit deep for the neophyte - not necessarily for the faint of heart or rookies:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052...lance&n=283155

[Genguy]

Originally Posted by NC Cams Electronics books (great beginners stuff): http://www.forrestmims.com

That is a great beginner book. I bought a copy from radio shack about 20 years ago. Amazon sells it if you can't find it anywhere else.

[daedalus]

you can get some pretty good icd2 clones for a lot less then the microchip rate, I bought both an icd1 and icd2 clone from olimex, and never had a problem with them (google them).

There is a free C compiler that hooks into mplab (the pic dev tool) and lets you compile C code, which is worth learning how to use. Everything on a pic is very low level, so you need to still understand how it all works, but at least your not stuck with miles of asm to deal with.

NC Cams already mentioned the art of electronics, it is THE reference for modern electronics, and an intimidating read for new people, but still worth getting through. It may be pricey, but i would trade a shelf full of my other electronics books for this one in an instant, it really is worth having.

As for getting kitted up for doing electronics, it all depends on your budget and what you want to do, are you planning to do surface mount parts? make your own pcbs?
Are you more interested in designing things or making them?

Get a (trial) copy of electronics workbench, and a good electronics cad package, such as altium designer 6 (which has a free 30 day trial on their site). Both will be out of your price range, but the functional trial copies should give you something to work with.

get yourself a good digital multimeter, not the $5 crap you see going cheap, as it will pay for itself time and time again.

An oscilloscope would be useful, but the good ones are expensive, and the cheap ones are near useless. Put this off until you really need it, or scrounge an old one from a local college/uni (where mine came from).

Some suppliers still do component bulk packs, with all the common resistors / electrolytics etc, they are a bit pricey, but worth every penny when your building something and need one part. I never properly stocked up to begin with, just ordering what i needed, but when your one resistor off finishing something and you have to put in another order it really gets irritating.

Also get a good (read big) breadboard, as its far easier to test your designs in one before you waste an afternoon designing pcbs.

Other bits of kit to scrounge:
variable psu, signal generator, good set of tweezers, magnifying glasses (some smt stuff really needs a microscope). For the psu and sig gen, ebay is your friend, as second user gear is a lot cheaper.

I used to do my own pcbs here, by chemical etching. Again this really depends how many you plan to make and what level of complexity. Its not exactly expensive to get set up to make pcbs, but it is messy and time consuming, plus with the cost of pooled pcb production being so low nowerdays, i would probably just order my boards from someone like pcbpool, as its a lot less hassle.

Also surface mount parts dont need to be expensive to use, i use a hot air rework station ($50 on ebay) and a modified toaster oven for reflow, do all my solder paste application by hand with a syringe (this sucks, but its cheap). On a good day i can make boards which look almost identical to the ones that roll out the reflow ovens at uni (which cost a LOT more).

[dfro]

Check out these open-source books:

http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/electricCircuits/

These books got me unstuck in learning electronics. The author, Tony R. Kuphaldt, and contributors keep adding to them and making them better.

[dhweizel]

First of all sorry about my english, second you will need a much simpler project to start, make to work a closed loop stepper controller needs much more that "learn electronics", needs power control (drivers), math (pid?),hardware (encoder mount) so any part may become a problem in the learnnig

A few years ago (well about 12 ears ago , i have 29 years old now ) i do my start with electronics using a microcontroller that a friend gives to me, i made my own microcontroller programmer with 2 transistors and a few resistors, a multimeter and my old pc with the basic that comes in the DOS, i made the program for the programer (a lot of in and out instructions ) and my first "firmware" a led that blink if one input was high. I worked about a month later but at the end the circuit works. the only tool that I had liked to have is an oscilloscope.

I hope that my point is understood , if you want to lear how to make a complex microcontroller system first you need to know how make a simpler microcontroller project, and normally the difficult part is to know how to make it works and no how to make it.
At my oppininon the PIC is the best to learn becouse this micros has well writen datasheets, a lots of sites whit projects and a lot of good C compilers (i use the CCsc PICC)

Best luck

[martinw]

Horowitz and Hill, The Art of Electronics is a really excellent book, and a lot of fun.

Best wishes

Martin

[NC Cams]

You can get a FREE pcb and schematics desigh package from

ExpressPCB.

Easy to use and learn and FREE.

Their $59 proto board package is GREAT for small quickie jobs.

BTW, did I mention that it was FREE????

[Madclicker]

I can second recommendation of expresspcb. I figure I have half my 4 ch pic controller done in about 3 evenings. Can't see that it will teach any electronics though.

What's that RC thing?

[sdantonio]

Also, don't be afraid to take a bunch of wire cuttoffs and an old hunk of PC board with holes in it and practice your soldering.

Some people will tell you that it is a skill that isn't as easy as the pros make it look.