OpenCircuits - User contributions [en]

Tutorials

2010-09-27T03:06:32Z

75.55.220.142: /* External References */

How to understand and plan what you are doing.

== [[Hardware tool | Good equipment to buy when getting started]] ==

Discussion of some of the equipment to buy when getting started with embedded systems.

== [[Programming Languages]] ==

Discussion of the most popular programming languages used in embedded systems.

== External References ==

These links are for general theory, more specific information is linked to its specific topic on this site ( op amp tutorials may be found in the section components.... op amps.
These links may be useful but we have hope to better organize and categorize them in the future. This is Just A Start, help us build up this section.

{| class="wikitable"
|-valign="top"
|What
|Site
|Comment


|-valign="top"
|*Electronics
|[http://doctord.dyndns.org:8000/courses/Topics/Electronics/Alex_Pounds/Index.htm Electronics Tutorial]
|Review it here.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics
|[http://www.mitedu.freeserve.co.uk/adt.htm Circuit Analysis, Design & Theory]
|Various articles, some onsite some off. Review it here.


|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics
|[http://www1.jaycar.com.au/primers.asp Primers - Exclusive to Jaycar Electronics]
|From the site: Here you will find extensive primers and valuable application notes on many subjects.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics
|[http://www.play-hookey.com/ Welcome to the Play-Hookey Website]
|Digital and analog circuits

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics
|[http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-002Spring-2007/VideoLectures/index.htm MIT OpenCourseWare EECS]
|Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OCW Electrical Engineering Course Video Lectures (note: You need RealPlayer or RealAlternative to play them)

|-valign="top"
|
*Microcontroller
*RS232
|[[MC RS232 Comm]]
|Some notes on how to implement RS232 communications on a Microcontroller

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics
|[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Circuit_Idea Circuit Idea]
|Circuit Idea From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection Revealing the Ideas behind Circuits -- A somewhat different perspective on circuits.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics
|[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Practical_Electronics Practical Electronics From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection]
|Could use some review.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics
|[http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/ Lessons In Electric Circuits]
|A free series of textbooks on the subjects of electricity and electronics. Not complete yet, but there is a lot of content here, and the stuff you are interested in may be done, or you may want to help finish it.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics
|[http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/ All About Circuits]
|Seems to have much the same content as Lessons In Electric Circuits, perhaps more up to date or not. Attached to an active forum.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics(Book)
|[http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206719497&sr=1-1 The Art of Electronics]
|Considered one of the best books on electronics ever written. This is not free, plan to pay about 100 dollars.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics(Books)
|[http://www.forrestmims.com/engineers_mini_notebook.html Engineer's Mini-Notebooks]
|Little notebooks on Timers, Op-Amps, etc with very simple introductory circuits from Forrest Mims. These used to be in Radio Shacks back in the day, are now found in various stores and sites, incl. Amazon.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics/Programming(Book)
|[http://www.amazon.com/USB-Complete-Everything-Develop-Peripherals/dp/1931448027/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206925487&sr=8-1 USB Complete]
|Introduction to USB. Covers both the hardware as well as some of the software issues like drivers and classes.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics/Programming
|[http://www.usb.org/developers/docs/ USB 2.0 Specification]
|Free reference documents that cover the hardware and core software of USB

|-valign="top"
|
*Programming
|[http://www.usb.org/developers/devclass_docs USB Classes]
|Free reference documentation for standard USB device classes.

|-valign="top"
|
*Programming(Book)
|[http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Language-Prentice-Hall-Software/dp/0131103628/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206718864&sr=8-1 The C Programming Language]
|Considered the bible of C from the orignal designers. The book is short and concise, but considered to be very accessible.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics
*Programming
|[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Embedded_Systems Wikibooks: Embedded Systems]
|A wikibook about microcontrollers, embedded systems, RTOS, etc.

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics(book)
|[http://bookboon.com/us/textbooks/electro/concepts-in-electric-circuits Concepts in Electric Circuits]
|Free Textbook, review it?

|-valign="top"
|
*Electronics
*
|[http://www.pyroelectro.com/category/tutorials/ PyroElectro Tutorials]
|A lot of individual tutorials somewhat microcontroller related.


|}

Hardware tool

2010-09-27T02:50:26Z

75.55.220.142: /* Capacitor kit */

== Good equipment to buy when getting started ==

Getting started with electronics design takes buying some equipment, but it can be confusing what to buy. I'm going to list here some of the items that I thought were helpful getting started. For all equipment and especially components salvage can be a nice cheap way to acquire stuff see: [[Salvage Topics]].

== Breadboard with Power Supply ==

Most people start with electronics by connecting up circuits on a breadboard. A breadboard is great for trying out circuits before moving to more permanent construction techniques such as perfboard or custom PCBs. A battery can be a simple power supply, but to avoid replacing then you can probably find a wall transformer of a reasonable voltage and current capacity. The specs are almost always on the unit. They are pretty safe, unless something really goes wrong you are kept from the mains voltage, and most are ul labeled.

== Soldering Iron ==

The pencil type are probably the way to go. For most electronics a tip about as fine as a blunt pencil is useful. They can be very cheap, but the more expensive ones are better, particularity if they have a thermostat and/or power control. Guns types can be used, but waiting for them to warm up quickly becomes a pain ( 30 seconds over and over ) and many are too big for electronics work. You can start cheap and work up later. An important tip is keep the tip clean.

The [[basic soldering]] article has tips on using a soldering iron.

== Spools of wire ==

Wire is available as stranded or solid. Solid works best with breadboards and perfboards. Stranded works best when creating cables for inter board connections. Stranded is nice an flexible and does not break quickly when bent back and forth, solid is easy to press into perf board, breadboard and stays bent the way you bend it. Lots of bending will break solid wire.

Try to get many different colors of wire.
Tracing a single wire through a big circuit is almost impossible if all the wires are the same color.

== Multimeter ==

Radio Shack is a good source of cheap multimeters.
I would also add that harbor freight has THE cheapest meters (sub $10).

== Oscilloscope ==

An oscilloscope is critical for debugging analog circuits or communication protocols. I prefer PC based oscilloscopes since they are cheaper than dedicated equipment and are more automated than a traditional phosphor oscilloscope.

''See [[oscilloscope]]''

== Storage compartments ==

As more components are bought, it becomes necessary to store all the components in an organized way and storage compartments are very helpful. These can be bought at the local home improvement or hardware store.

== Resistor kit ==

It's important to have a lot of different resistor values around as it's almost impossible to buy the correct values in advance. Digikey sells resistors in kits that have a small number of all the standard resistor values. If you are a cheapskate in need of some practice reading the color codes, you can get a grab bag from Jameco and sort them yourself.

== Capacitor kit ==

Capacitors are like resistors. You need a large number of values. Digikey also sells capacitor kits in addition to the resistor kits. Assortments and grab bags are available for electrolytics, ceramics, and Mylar caps from Jameco as well.

== Microcontroller Programmer/ICD ==

Microcontrollers are a great way to get started in digital electronics. They are essentially a little computer on a single chip. Unlike large computers these processors usually don't run a full blown operating system so dedicated hardware is used for programming an debugging. In Circuit Debugging are the preferred way to go for development since it's a huge time saver to be able to program and debug software without needing to pull the chip from the circuit.
Spend the extra money -- it is worth it.

== Development Boards ==
{{main|demo board}}

If you are willing to spend some money development boards are a quick way to get started. They typically have a microcontroller, voltage regulator, some LEDs, and some sensors all on one board. The downside is that if you break anything on the board you have to buy a whole new board. With discrete components only the broken part needs to be replaced. On the other hand, more and more components are only available in surface mount packages which almost require a custom PCB to use at all. ARM processors are relatively powerful microcontroller but at present are not available in through hole versions.

== Links ==

There is a lot of information on the web, until we update Google to find it.

[[Category:Test Equipment]][[Category:Components]]

Hardware tool

2010-09-27T02:46:29Z

75.55.220.142: /* Resistor kit */

== Good equipment to buy when getting started ==

Getting started with electronics design takes buying some equipment, but it can be confusing what to buy. I'm going to list here some of the items that I thought were helpful getting started. For all equipment and especially components salvage can be a nice cheap way to acquire stuff see: [[Salvage Topics]].

== Breadboard with Power Supply ==

Most people start with electronics by connecting up circuits on a breadboard. A breadboard is great for trying out circuits before moving to more permanent construction techniques such as perfboard or custom PCBs. A battery can be a simple power supply, but to avoid replacing then you can probably find a wall transformer of a reasonable voltage and current capacity. The specs are almost always on the unit. They are pretty safe, unless something really goes wrong you are kept from the mains voltage, and most are ul labeled.

== Soldering Iron ==

The pencil type are probably the way to go. For most electronics a tip about as fine as a blunt pencil is useful. They can be very cheap, but the more expensive ones are better, particularity if they have a thermostat and/or power control. Guns types can be used, but waiting for them to warm up quickly becomes a pain ( 30 seconds over and over ) and many are too big for electronics work. You can start cheap and work up later. An important tip is keep the tip clean.

The [[basic soldering]] article has tips on using a soldering iron.

== Spools of wire ==

Wire is available as stranded or solid. Solid works best with breadboards and perfboards. Stranded works best when creating cables for inter board connections. Stranded is nice an flexible and does not break quickly when bent back and forth, solid is easy to press into perf board, breadboard and stays bent the way you bend it. Lots of bending will break solid wire.

Try to get many different colors of wire.
Tracing a single wire through a big circuit is almost impossible if all the wires are the same color.

== Multimeter ==

Radio Shack is a good source of cheap multimeters.
I would also add that harbor freight has THE cheapest meters (sub $10).

== Oscilloscope ==

An oscilloscope is critical for debugging analog circuits or communication protocols. I prefer PC based oscilloscopes since they are cheaper than dedicated equipment and are more automated than a traditional phosphor oscilloscope.

''See [[oscilloscope]]''

== Storage compartments ==

As more components are bought, it becomes necessary to store all the components in an organized way and storage compartments are very helpful. These can be bought at the local home improvement or hardware store.

== Resistor kit ==

It's important to have a lot of different resistor values around as it's almost impossible to buy the correct values in advance. Digikey sells resistors in kits that have a small number of all the standard resistor values. If you are a cheapskate in need of some practice reading the color codes, you can get a grab bag from Jameco and sort them yourself.

== Capacitor kit ==

Capacitors are like resistors. You need a large number of values. Digikey also sells capacitor kits in addition to the resistor kits.

== Microcontroller Programmer/ICD ==

Microcontrollers are a great way to get started in digital electronics. They are essentially a little computer on a single chip. Unlike large computers these processors usually don't run a full blown operating system so dedicated hardware is used for programming an debugging. In Circuit Debugging are the preferred way to go for development since it's a huge time saver to be able to program and debug software without needing to pull the chip from the circuit.
Spend the extra money -- it is worth it.

== Development Boards ==
{{main|demo board}}

If you are willing to spend some money development boards are a quick way to get started. They typically have a microcontroller, voltage regulator, some LEDs, and some sensors all on one board. The downside is that if you break anything on the board you have to buy a whole new board. With discrete components only the broken part needs to be replaced. On the other hand, more and more components are only available in surface mount packages which almost require a custom PCB to use at all. ARM processors are relatively powerful microcontroller but at present are not available in through hole versions.

== Links ==

There is a lot of information on the web, until we update Google to find it.

[[Category:Test Equipment]][[Category:Components]]