HN Explorer

Ask HN: Electrical Engineering for Hackers?

1 points by thechut ↗ HN
I have a bachelors degree in IT (Computer Information Systems). While I love computers I am fascinated with really making things. I have read a couple Arduino books, and built quite a few projects with Arduino, some from instructions some of my own doing.

However, in my most recent project I feel like I have started to reach the end of basic electronics knowledge. I know that many people spend their entire academic career studying electrical engineering and that it isn't something I can teach myself overnight.

That being said can any EE's out there recommend a good primer on the basics (beyond just circuits and the other super basic stuff) of electrical engineering? Whether it be books, web resources, online classes, or anything else I would be very interested, and greatly appreciative.

Any other electronics/Arduino hackers out there? How did you teach yourself and bootstrap your projects? I'm interested in any and all information.

4 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 30.9 ms ] thread
ChuckMcM
"The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill. Learn the first 6 or 7 chapters and you'll be fine. If you get the student book and the teachers guide you can do the worked examples and test your knowledge but that is above and beyond. Anyone who wants to do electronics should have that book on their bookshelf.
thechut
Definitely going to trade in some old text books to get my hands on this. Thanks for the tip!
noonespecial
You should now that "Electrical Engineering" is a huge field that encompasses many interrelated disciplines, much like mathematics. Its impossible for any one man to know more than a few niches that are important to him really well. People spend entire careers just figuring out the best ways to wrap coils of wire around metal stuff.

To get a really good foundation on the type of things you might try to make, I think I might start with MIT's opencourseware:

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...

thechut
Thanks! I will look into the opencourseware I was bummed that I had missed out on the 6.0002x course but this looks almost as good.

I know that EE is a huge field, I think that's part of what makes it so daunting to get started if you have no traditional education in it.

Thanks for your reply!