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There is also a complete Romanian version which I've translated more than ten years ago: https://mihaiolteanu.me/circuiteelectrice/ These lessons were so helpful for my University classes that I wanted to help "spread the word" and show my support in whatever way I could.
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That’s me! Definitely a slow work in progress… Thank you for the kind words of encouragement :)
Unless you’re doing specialized physics, in the electronics world we always talk in terms of current flow – never electron flow. Rather weird line from the site. My entire training and career have dealt with things from an electron flow perspective and it made understanding nearly every electronics concept easier. If you base your concept of electricity on positive current flow (remembering the words positive and neg…
The CircuitLab founder https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=compumike has written an excellent book https://ultimateelectronicsbook.com/
That’s me! Definitely a slow work in progress… Thank you for the kind words of encouragement :)
I’m a lapsed EE (gone into SWE), and I really appreciate the clear, from first principles exposition and build up.
Keep up the good work!
There is also a complete Romanian version which I've translated more than ten years ago: https://mihaiolteanu.me/circuiteelectrice/ These lessons were so helpful for my University classes that I wanted to help "spread the word" and show my support in whatever way I could.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s me! Definitely a slow work in progress… Thank you for the kind words of encouragement :)
Unless you’re doing specialized physics, in the electronics world we always talk in terms of current flow – never electron flow. Rather weird line from the site. My entire training and career have dealt with things from an electron flow perspective and it made understanding nearly every electronics concept easier. If you base your concept of electricity on positive current flow (remembering the words positive and neg…
But I'm not convinced that it helps, outside of semiconductors and tubes, because it can lead to a whole category of misconceptions. I see it come up reasonably frequently:
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/245610/is-vo...
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/139327/elect...
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/490021/how-i...
https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/288248/if-el...
If you're taking a top-down or phenomenological approach, best to just start from observing that there is a property called "current" which has magnetic and thermal observable effects and quantifying from there.
I ended up becoming an electrical engineer and credit this site significantly for giving me the courage to choose EE in uni.
The guide does an excellent job of building up knowledge without assuming any prior knowledge - just what a curious 15 years needed to get started.
dspguide.com is another great resource and thought me Fourier transform when I barely knew what cos() and sin() were.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s me! Definitely a slow work in progress… Thank you for the kind words of encouragement :)
Unless you’re doing specialized physics, in the electronics world we always talk in terms of current flow – never electron flow. Rather weird line from the site. My entire training and career have dealt with things from an electron flow perspective and it made understanding nearly every electronics concept easier. If you base your concept of electricity on positive current flow (remembering the words positive and neg…
Once you get to capacitors, inductors, transmission lines and antennas, you are no longer just considering electrons, but also fields (usually via classical approximations to the underlying QED.) In electrolytes, you have both positive and negative ions...
I recently passed my extra-class exam and had a lot of fun learning in the process.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s me! Definitely a slow work in progress… Thank you for the kind words of encouragement :)
Unless you’re doing specialized physics, in the electronics world we always talk in terms of current flow – never electron flow. Rather weird line from the site. My entire training and career have dealt with things from an electron flow perspective and it made understanding nearly every electronics concept easier. If you base your concept of electricity on positive current flow (remembering the words positive and neg…
1. Discuss the simplified EE model. The diode with 0.7 forward voltage is the best example, its highly unrealistic, but its also highly useful. ("Reality" is closer to an exponential function, at least at that region of voltage vs current)
2. Discuss that most EE models are unrealistic, but useful. (Vce saturation, MOSFET voltage-controlled transconductor, etc. etc.). EE is filled with _completely_ wrong, but highly useful models. My favorite has to be the "virtual short circuit" model of OpAmps / negative feedback. (OpAmp analysis technique where you simply set the + and - leads of the OpAmp to the same voltage)
3. Have a brief (but not overwhelming), discussion of Maxwell's Equations, which is a more accurate model, but useless in most of EE. Discuss radios and transmission lines (two situations where we have to start leaning into Maxwell's Equations for understanding), but also discuss their simplified models. (Ex: Impedance matched antenna is "just a resistor").
4. Return to the mantra of EE. The entire point of EE is to simplify circuits and simplify models. Its fine to be wrong, as long as the circuit works at the end of the day. It is highly useful to think in the wrong manner on a wide variety of subjects. (Diodes, BJT transistor voltage drops, Simplified OpAmps / negative feedback models). And only use complicated analysis on the cases that you recognize as "worthy" of deeper analysis. (Antennas, Transmission Line Theory, etc. etc.)
5. And now, teach the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumped-element_model