Intro to Electronics

[jabberwocky]

Does anyone know of any good resources for learning electronics?  I know the names of most components, and can follow a schematic.  I know ohms, volts and the basic laws therein, but thats the limit of my knowledge so far.

What i'd really like is the next step, how do i create a circuit from an idea?

If anyone has any good links to websites that would be awesome.  I'll also consider books, although i'm on a pretty tight budget.

Mucho love and thanks to all who can help this poor unknowing soul!

The Jabberwocky

EDIT: Are the "... for the evil genius" line of books as good as they sound?

[Steve Joblin]

There are tons of great websites... this one is not bad... http://www.vias.org/feee/wrapnt_feee1.html

[airman00]

Search google and you'll find a ton of info!

The evil genius books have instructions to build cool science projects. It does not teach you much and it is extremely dangerous. I have read those books , but wouldn't recommend it because you can't really add on or modify a project without the added risk of death. Also, most of the stuff there , are not related to robotics at all!
For micro controllers the book i recommend is PIC Robotics by John Iovine.  I use it as a reference book for all of my PIC microcontroller projects. ( it assumes you bought the PIC basic compiler). There are a ton of electronics books out there, and you should probably head to a used book store or something and buy books for cheap ( ebay has  a few)

there are plenty of ebooks online for download ( although some may be slightly illegal to download for free)

Also, if you tell us what your circuit is , we can help you better and explain to you more terms .

,Eric

[Admin]

You should just start making a circuit that does something that you want. For example, if you want to make a motor driver, do research on motor driver circuits. Then copy what you see and try to build it.

You will learn by doing . . . start small and work your way up.

All my 'advanced' circuits originated from very basic circuits I attempted years before. And before the basic circuits, I was clueless until I researched and tried.

[jabberwocky]

Great advice all!  thank you to all.

I will probably go about building my robot first mechanically, and then design the electronics around that.  For starters i am going to design a simple three wheel rover robot with some bump detection.  Then work up to line detection etc etc.

Hey, speaking of following lines, how tricky would it be to have a robot follow a laser pointer?  Has anyone tried this?

[Admin]

how tricky would it be to have a robot follow a laser pointer?  Has anyone tried this?

http://www.societyofrobots.com/robotforum/index.php?topic=955.0

always search the forum first

[Tsukubadaisei]

This is the book I use: Art of Elecrtonics, 2nd edition. $99. (in my case. had to import though)
but you should study elctronics only if:

it is for fun(lol)
or
you are a pro(myself)
or
you want to do something someone hasnt done yet(myself, sometimes)
or
you want to optimize/modify someone's else work(myself, most of the times)

[promsan]

I quite like this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0070580782

...it's good for getting your head round the simple stuff, but also has some breadth and depth in it; plus lots of nice diagrammes ...some of the more academic books can be a bit too wordy and skip through things a bit too cavalier-ly.

...it also depends very much on whether you prefer the American or the British style of book ...what your level of familiarity with EE-theory is (no offence, but there's a lot more to it); and what kind of things you want to design.

 I would imagine the best approach is to start with a very general block diagramme of your entire intended system, and then produce block diagrammes of each block, being more specific about what your inputs and outputs are in human language (this becomes your requirements capture); then researching available components (for your specifications capture); before you even begin thumbing through schematics that may not necessarily be suitable for your system.

 You might be best off designing your system as though it were made only of off-the-shelf modules; and then look at what you might be able to substitute with your own electronics. You may well find lots of schematics and instructions for the various bits you want to DIY, but you may have trouble making it all work as well if you haven't spent at least a couple of years learning EE theory.

 In other words, I don't think "learning electronics" is as cheap an option as it might seem... it'll cost time; and if you rush it, it might cost you money if you make a mistake. A good book or two might cost as much as a decent kit!
 I've got one of those "spy books", and they're rubbish really ...trying to take short cuts might lead to short circuits.