MIT 6.002 course, by Prof. Anant Agarwal. Videos are on youtube. Absolutely fantastic!
Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?
151–160 of 184 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?
#152First, it is important to distinguish between electricity and electronics. The difference is like being physicist and mechanic. Do you want to be physicist and understand electricity as a phenomena or do you want to be an engineer and use it for something useful. Believe me, there is less overlap than you think. One good resource I have found is series of articles on http://amasci.com/ele-edu.html which mixes a littl…
Engineers should understand the underlying physics plus know how to use it for something useful. There are degrees such as "electrical engineering technology", which cut out the harder fundamentals (and advanced classes that require it) and just focus on things you can do with current technology. Such skills become obsolete faster as technology changes.
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?
#153I highly recommend the All About Circuits textbook: https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/ It starts from the very basics and builds up to quite complex circuits and their workings. It's an all-round great website, too.
That's a nice TOC!
Flipping through, I think the thyrister treatment is a bit weak, and I would ideally like to see more in terms of comm-sys, (like how NTSC works for analog/radio TV), but this looks solid.
TIL about a nice reference.
Thank you!
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?
#154MITx Circuits & Electronics [1][2][3] (it's in 3 parts) MOOC. They are just starting a new instance today, so your timing is perfect.
This is a seriously good course. I've been interested in electronics on and off since I was a kid. I tried learning from various Radio Shack books, but never got very far. I tried some introductory classes at Caltech, and never got very far. Tried "The Art of Electronics" and it just didn't work.
That MITx course worked.
That said, it does get fairly mathematical...circuits involving inductance and capacitance are going to be analyzed using differential equations so if you have never had any exposure to such things it could be rough going.
If you've been through college calculus you should be fine, even if (like me) you've forgotten most of it. They have some refresher material that should bring enough back to get through it.
Here's what you learn in part 1:
• How to design and analyze circuits using the node method, superposition, and the Thevenin method
• How to employ lumped circuit models and abstraction to simplify circuit analysis
• How to use intuition to solve circuits
• Construction of simple digital gates using MOSFET transistors
• Measurement of circuit variables using tools such as virtual oscilloscopes, virtual multimeters, and virtual signal generators
Part 2 teaches:
• How to build amplifiers using MOSFETs
• How to use intuition to describe the approximate time and frequency behavior of first-order circuits containing energy storage elements like capacitors and inductors
• The relationship between the mathematical representation of first-order circuit behavior and corresponding real-life effects
• How to improve the speed of digital circuits
• Measurement of circuit variables using tools such as virtual oscilloscopes, virtual multimeters, and virtual signal generators
• How to compare the measurements with the behavior predicted by mathematical models and explain the discrepancies
Part 3:
• How to construct and analyze filters using capacitors and inductors
• How to use intuition to describe the approximate time and frequency behavior of second-order circuits containing energy storage elements (capacitors and inductors)
• The relationship between the mathematical representation of first-order circuit behavior and corresponding real-life effects
• Circuits applications using op-amps
• Measurement of circuit variables using tools such as virtual oscilloscopes, virtual multimeters, and virtual signal generators
• How to compare the measurements with the behavior predicted by mathematical models and explain the discrepancies
The first course is 4 weeks:
Week 1: From physics to electrical engineering; lumped abstraction, KVL, KCL, intuitive simplification techniques, nodal analysis
Week 2: Linearity, superposition, Thevenin & Norton methods, digital abstraction, digital logic, combinational gates
Week 3: MOSFET switch, MOSFET switch models, nonlinear resistors, nonlinear networks
Week 4: Small signal analysis, small signal circuit model, dependent sources
The second course is also 4 weeks:
Week 1: Amplifiers, MOSFET large signal analysis, MOSFET small signal analysis
Week 2: Capacitors, first-order RC circuits
Week 3: Inductors, first-order step response, first-order circuit analysis, impulses, digital circuit speed
Week 4: Impulse, step, ramp superposition, digital memory, state, ZIR, ZSR
The third is 6 weeks:
Week 1: Second-order circuits, damping in second-order systems
Week 2: Sinusoidal steady state analysis, frequency response, frequency response plots, impedance methods
Week 3: Filters, quality factor, time and frequency domain responses
Week 4: Op-amp abstraction, negative feedback, Op-amp amplifiers, Op-amp filters and other circuits
Week 5: Stability, positive feedback, oscillators, energy and power
Week 6: CMOS digital logic, breaking, the abstraction barrier
[1] https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-and-electronics-1-basic-...
[2] https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-and-electronics-2-amplif...
[3] https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-and-electronics-3-applic...
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?
#155I'm on the opposite side of this question. I've offered to explain motorcycle charging systems in terms anyone can understand. My thought is to use the water flow analogy. Voltage => pressure. Current => flow volume. Resistance => constrictions in the system (or things where the water does work.) Flow at one point in the system must match flow in other parts except for places where water can accumulate (battery => pr…
Bad starting can also be a result of physical resistance in the engine, especially as temperatures fall below the normal operating range. When engines get cold enough they put enormous load on the starter motor which has to draw more amperage to compensate. I think it's very important to teach people that moving electric charges, represented by current, result in magnetic forces, and that these magnetic forces are wh…
>Bad starting can also be a result of physical resistance in the engine, especially as temperatures fall below the normal operating range.
Is that true? Low temperatures directly affect the maximum output current of the battery, but I don't think engine tolerances are such that the engine starts to effectively seize up below freezing.
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?
#156I highly recommend the All About Circuits textbook: https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/ It starts from the very basics and builds up to quite complex circuits and their workings. It's an all-round great website, too.
Second that :-)
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?
#157I highly recommend the All About Circuits textbook: https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/ It starts from the very basics and builds up to quite complex circuits and their workings. It's an all-round great website, too.
The Art of Electronics is also fantastic
This book ruined many hours of my childhood, when I was in high school. I read it. I didn't understand it. I reread it. I still didn't understand it. At the time, I didn't realize I needed to know basic differential equations, and I just felt dumb.
Then I went to college.
When I looked at it as a more mature engineer, I found it imprecise, sloppy, and also not very helpful. It doesn't embody good design practice, give a proper theoretical basis, and the choice of topics is random.
Many people love it, but I hate it.
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?
#158http://amasci.com/ele-edu.html
Great resource, which dispels a lot of myths and misused terminology in many other traditional explanations. Fun read!
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?
#159Big fan of the No-Nonsense Technician-Class License Study Guide. In addition to vocabulary and terms, there's also sections about units and conversions and basic maths involved to understand the flow of electrical current as it passes through a system
Re: Ask HN: What are some good resources to learn how electricity works?
#160I found the book "Practical Electronics for Investors" by Paul Scherz [0] to be one of the better ones.
My problem with learning electronics, and, to a lesser extent, electricity, was that most of the guides gave an 'ad-hoc' approach, giving "rules of thumb", recipes, etc. without really going into the reasons for it. They would start off with an (imo) overly technical explanation of quantum effects, then jump the more fundamental Ohm's law, etc., then jump into all the tips-n-tricks of circuit design.
For me, the two major factors to learning electronics were getting enough math sophistication that I could do calculus and linear algebra and being able to program (microcontrollers). The calculus and linear algebra gives tools for the 'passive' analysis and once you realize that most 'practical' electronics nowadays are basically routing power and signal, being able to program is the "meat" of it.
After understanding how to do passive steady-state circuit analysis, I briefly looked at how to do non-passive simulation (transistors, etc.) just to see how it was done (aka, learned how SPICE et. all do it).
Anyway, I found the "Practical Electronics for Inventors" book to be one of the few books that was practical from the outset and actually went into the theory, even if only briefly, without assuming I would get frightened by complex numbers.
There's obviously a path that doesn't involve calculus, linear algebra and programming, because people do it and have been doing it for many years, but these were the tools that helped me understand.
I would also recommend not doing this in the abstract. Arduino's [1] are, in my opinion, one of the better places to start. You can get an LED blinking within 5 minutes of onboxing. Adafruit [2] has many tutorial but they're more focused on using pre-built modules and I guess programming, to a lesser extent, than underlying theory.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourt...