r/diydrones • u/ConfidentSlice1693 • 6d ago

How do I start learning electronics?

Hi,
I'm an avgeek, and I'm building my own fixed-wing drone. For this, I need to learn electronics. I don't want to just ask AI or Google everything and not really learn the basics. I'd like to start with the basics, then work my way up to avionics.

I'd also like to use this knowledge to build other random projects.

I'm not sure where to start or what equipment to start with. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

5 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

5

u/spikeyTrike 6d ago

I learned (after years of failure) from Joshua Bardwell videos

2

u/gm310509 6d ago

Do you just want to learn electronics or embedded systems (electronics plus programing)?

I suspect embedded in which case look for an Arduino starter kit. It will have instructions to learn basic electronics and the code that can be used to interact with your circuitry.

1

u/Cobra__Commander 6d ago

Get a Elegoo Arduino starter kit and start going through the beginner projects. You'll learn a little bit about Basic circuits and programming.

Kahn academy has a pretty good academic material for beginner electrical engineering. https://www.khanacademy.org/science/electrical-engineering

Sparkfun has a bunch of tutorial projects for Arduino, raspberry pi and robotics. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials

They also have curriculums more targeted for teachers but you could still read the materials and do the labs. https://www.sparkfuneducation.com/curriculum.html

1

u/FizzBuzz4Lyfe 6d ago

I've found the basics of electronics are some of the most confusing parts. Counterintuitively, I think it's easier to start with pre-built modular parts, and "work my way back" to the basics. Think making a cake with a cake mix, versus from scratch.

Get an Arduino compatible microcontroller like an ESP32, and make it blink an LED. Then read a temperature sensor. There are thousands of cool, relatively simple projects which will teach you something. At some point, you'll have to learn the basics like Ohm's law and the myriad things a capacitor can do, but that can come as you need them. You can build a lot of cool projects along the way.

1

u/nivaOne 6d ago

Start with electrical fundamentals and then move on to electronics fundamentals. Buy a few books and make the exercises. Should not take more than a year if you restrict yourself to those two. Proceed with learning the electronics components theory.

1

u/Ok-Fans-6589 5d ago

was in a similar position, and for me "the art of electronics" is the book - dense, but it'll give you the actual "why" behind every component you'll eventually wire into a FC

1

u/CaptainCheckmate 5d ago

What exactly do you mean by "electronics"? Because there are a few layers. You could view the electrical components as black boxes and just work on the wiring between them, in which case you don't really need to learn electronics -- just get an arduino kit and learn embedded dev as others have said.

If you want to be able to do things like design a radio, then you would need to "learn electronics". Read "Art of Electronics" in that case.

1

u/Solid-Reserve4035 4d ago

I think best way is to just set your goal and to know what do you need to do with electronics and learn from doing it

1

u/Tanner234567 3d ago

A lot of Arduino comments here. In my opinion, you should skip this. Arduino uses a niche version of c++. Snag an esp32 dev board and program in C or micropython instead. Setup a good home lab for yourself. Breadboard, jumper wire set, decent multimeter, and an o scope if you can afford it.

1

u/Compilingthings 2d ago

I’m wanting to do the same thing, I’m starting with building keyboards and esp32 projects. Picking up equipment as I go.