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Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?

#11
The Minecraft mod Electrical Age is surprisingly useful to (literally play around and) get a feel for things. It was originally designed to teach electrical engineers once upon a time. Currently it's been a bit gamified -sure-, but the core MNA solver is still there.

Still somewhat surprising to me, this kind of simulation actually does help. It turns out that you actually do pick up a lot of intuitive feel that can serve well in an industrial context. I guess no matter how much theory you study on, it's still really insightful to just blow up some circuits. ;-)

Note that Electrical age currently works with older versions of minecraft (1.7) , though a rewrite is in the works.

https://electrical-age.net/

Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?

#14
post #7

Hmm. What level do you want to start from, and do you want to start from a practical/experimentalist viewpoint or go straight to the mathematical models? How comfortable are you with "lies for children" oversimplifications of things that are extremely complicated but mostly irrelevant except in edge cases? (This phrase sounds perjorative but isn't, most of the time you don't need the complicated version and it active…

I just want to weigh in and say that fantastic as _The Art of Electronics_ is, it is _not_ geared for learning about electricity and electric circuits. The first 13-ish pages (3rd edition) deals with electricity and then quickly moves on to signals, electronics and everything else needed to _develop_ electronic systems.

I think you're wrong, mainly because learning how to develop electronic systems is, in my opinion (and also in the opinion of the authors of that book), the best way to learn how electricity actually works.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?

#15
I originally learned electricity from Isaac Asimov's understanding physics, volume 2 when I was 13(?). I don't remember the details, but it clearly worked and helped me in all future education.

If you want to try and learn some basics, and then try apply them, both AoE (mentioned already by pjc50) and "Practical Electronics for Inventors" are good choices.

The latter is much more affordable than AoE.

Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?

#16

I personally learned a lot from sparkfun's tutorials. The format is pretty digestible, there are some good videos, and it links out to a few other good resources as well. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/where-do-i-start/all

Sparkfun and Adafruit schematics are a great source for learning, too. I designed an I/O shield (with optoisolated inputs and relay outputs) with their open source hardware as the main learning material, and I was delighted that it passed the review of an experienced EE!

Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?

#17
For the basics of how electricity works (as well as for an in depth understanding) my recommendation is Electricity 1-7. It's a textbook originally published in 1966, so it doesn't cover anything digital, just good old analog electricity.

https://www.amazon.com/Electricity-One-Seven-Harry-Mileaf/dp...

Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?

#18

I personally learned a lot from sparkfun's tutorials. The format is pretty digestible, there are some good videos, and it links out to a few other good resources as well. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/where-do-i-start/all

I second this. Hobby focused content might seem amateur but it has some advantages in my mind.

Context: My biggest gripe with traditional education is lack of context for why a principle is important or useful. Not a problem when you are focused on a project.

Practicality: The practical aspects of theory are usually limited to core principles and help you see through the fog of all the details.

Narrative: Bringing many topics together in a project narrative give a linear path through the related principles which is less overwhelming.

https://hackaday.com articles, in my experience, have been a good jumping off point and often have solid links for better understanding.

A weakness of this approach is that it ignores the mathematical techniques to solving some of the problems. I doubt you will learn how to analyze circuits with differential equations or phasor analysis on a hobby site. That said, I rarely use these tools outside of an academic setting.

I'm sure someone will recommend The Art of Electronics. Its a great resource once you have the basics under your belt, but hard to use as a learning tool without prior knowledge. It touches on a lot of details by presenting a circuit and summarizing key points about its operation.

Once you have a handle on the basics I highly recommend playing with some circuits in a simulator. LTSpice is free and very high quality. There are other online options too.

You can experiment on hardware relatively safely if you stay away from high voltages and currents (avoid mains power and car batteries, always use circuit protection such as fuses). You will be frustrated if you have no test equipment though, a multimeter is a must-have.

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