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Ask HN: How to get started with practical hardware?

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21–26 of 26 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to get started with practical hardware?

#21
post #7

It depends, on what you want to do. - Electronics is now huge, and have few extremely different parts, which could be all in one project. As example, you mentioned 3d printers, they have digital part, power electronic part and some could have optic (vision) part. To be honest, in University typical person learn few years, and become master in one part, and learn others by books or now by videos. What I see from my ex…

Chemistry? I barely studied that at all.

That’s why it’s meant to be taught in highschool

You needn’t be an expert but you should be able to read the chemical terms and data in a data sheet and not make a dangerous or sufficiently risky choice on component selection

This is especially important for hardware applications in adverse environments

For example, knowing that you need to use a tinned copper alloy if your device is going to be used in marine environments rather than pure copper due to it reacting to chlorides dissolved in sea water

Or realising that you would generally avoid using batteries as the energy source for mission critical activities in polar areas as the chemical reactions for SLA or Lithium batteries are dramatically inhibited at sufficiently low temperatures

These aren’t hard intuitions to grasp and follow when designing a system, but you can find your design can go catastrophically wrong even a few units outside every component’s operating temperature or overall environment

Graphs and performance on datasheets are generally linear but the consequences of erring too close to the metaphorical sun may be anything but linear!

Re: Ask HN: How to get started with practical hardware?

#22
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chemistry? I barely studied that at all.

That’s why it’s meant to be taught in highschool You needn’t be an expert but you should be able to read the chemical terms and data in a data sheet and not make a dangerous or sufficiently risky choice on component selection This is especially important for hardware applications in adverse environments For example, knowing that you need to use a tinned copper alloy if your device is going to be used in marine enviro…

I took chemistry in high school as well as one course in university. I'm not saying it isn't useful but doesn't feature prominently in an EE curriculum. It is mostly math, physics and EE specific courses.

Re: Ask HN: How to get started with practical hardware?

#23
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chemistry? I barely studied that at all.

Ok, how you will learn polymer capacitors without chemistry? Or for you normal to make broken tech, just because you don't know chemistry specifics?

i = c*dv/dt

That is what the EE knows, not necessarily how to make a capacitor from scratch. A lot of time was spent on leading up to understanding how semi-conductors work however. Including modern physics and requisite math, particle in a box, wave functions, etc.

Re: Ask HN: How to get started with practical hardware?

#24
My journey to IoTs was through home automation, specifically using Home Assistant.

It allows to quickly integrate some hardware through a unified protocol (MQTT, or worst case HTTP) and your van write hardware code easily if you have any dev experience. Or just use ESPHome and YAML.

Coupled with 3D printing you can build near stuff (I will have the surprise of a 3D printer for Christmas :))

Re: Ask HN: How to get started with practical hardware?

#25

My journey to IoTs was through home automation, specifically using Home Assistant. It allows to quickly integrate some hardware through a unified protocol (MQTT, or worst case HTTP) and your van write hardware code easily if you have any dev experience. Or just use ESPHome and YAML. Coupled with 3D printing you can build near stuff (I will have the surprise of a 3D printer for Christmas :))

That's fun but I'm still missing some fundamentals I can't exactly put my finger on. Like: how to prevent microchip overload, how to stabilize a circuit, prevent rush-in current, handle different voltage levels, etc. I know how to drive a servo with an Arduino, but this still doesn't help me truly engineer a circuit.

Re: Ask HN: How to get started with practical hardware?

#26
post #25

My journey to IoTs was through home automation, specifically using Home Assistant. It allows to quickly integrate some hardware through a unified protocol (MQTT, or worst case HTTP) and your van write hardware code easily if you have any dev experience. Or just use ESPHome and YAML. Coupled with 3D printing you can build near stuff (I will have the surprise of a 3D printer for Christmas :))

That's fun but I'm still missing some fundamentals I can't exactly put my finger on. Like: how to prevent microchip overload, how to stabilize a circuit, prevent rush-in current, handle different voltage levels, etc. I know how to drive a servo with an Arduino, but this still doesn't help me truly engineer a circuit.

Ah ok - well I was in the same place as you a few years ago and asked a very similar question here - and got interesting answers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16920476

5 years later I did not proceed with the electronics part. For one I did not have time but even now I realize that learning to properly do things in electronics requires serious studies. A typical problem I had was: how should I connect a loudspeaker (which resistor, capacitator, etc. to add and where). I found out that it is better to use "building blocks" that include all the electronics and require cabling and coding.

For instance, as we speak, I am connecting a NodeMCU to a relay module and all I need are cables and a 3D-printed case.

This is really a matter of personal taste though - I prefer to code than to design electronics gven that I have limited time.

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