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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?

#83

Post by jeffreyrogers »

OnACoffeeBreak wrote: post #59
henrikeh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agree with you. I have a degree in electrical engineering and use that book to quickly remind myself how something that I haven't used in a long time works and get an overview of practical do's and don'ts. If I had tried learning the basics of electrical circuits from it, I think I'd become discouraged very quickly.

It was pretty much my introduction to circuits, and had it not been used in a class with a significant lab component I would have also been discouraged. Great reference, but not good for teaching yourself unless you're very comfortable being confused or have had prior exposure to the material.

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

#85

Post by teh_klev »

soheilpro wrote: post #32

Try ElectroBOOM channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/msadaghd

I'm genuinely amazed he's not been found burned to a crisp in his workspace. The same goes for Photonic Induction, how he's not burned down his street, let alone his house is a miracle:

https://www.youtube.com/user/Photonvids/videos

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

#86

Post by beamatronic »

This is an anecdote but I hope it helps someone. I couldn't understand electronics for the longest time. I read all about the individual components and I understood them individually, but I still couldn't grasp what they did when put together. Digital circuits made perfect sense to me though. Finally I learned about the "LRC" circuit. When you put those 3 components together, you can understand their behavior with some equations. You can dial in some coefficients to get the behavior (the signal/wave) that you desire. I don't know how someone thought to put those components together into a unit originally though.

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

#89

Post by beamatronic »

I wanted to add one more thing. You mentioned volts and amps. Try to think of them as units of measure. This helped me:

1 watt = 1 volt times 1 amp. So a watt is a volt-amp.

Similarly to how 1 joule is a newton-meter per second.

When you work with units of measure symbolically in this way, you don't need to worry about not having an intuitive grasp of a joule or a newton.

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

#90

Post by throw_electric »

mjoin wrote: post #72
mjoin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this looks very good. do you know if there is a PDF version that contains the whole textbook? could not find it on the website

actually found the PDFs

PDFs are here [0]. They are legally free. [0] https://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/
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