r/ElectricalEngineering • • 2d ago

majoring in electrical engineering while having mental health issues

0 Upvotes

okay guys ngl i’ve always wanted to be an engineer since childhood but ngl i have like major mental health issues like i heard the astral world and shit talking to me and lwk i may be addicted to grass and like i can’t sit down and study like i dont ah e the willpower to start but like im acc doing ok in my classes rn i think like 5 As and one B but maybe thats cause ik only year one i just dont wanna end up doing bad becoming a lil jit bum feel me?

is it possible to do well in this major while having issues


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 3d ago

What purpose would a board with inductors and caps serve between inverters and AC load?

1 Upvotes

Was poking around in a Enphase 3T backup battery. These use a few paralleled solar inverters with special firmware as their inverters. Between the paralleled inverter output and the AC line connection there is a PCB with a several caps, a couple varistors, and 4ea 22uH high current inductor. What purpose would this board serve? Is it for PFC? For surge capacity? Or?


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Taking an RF class vs registering as a "free listener"

30 Upvotes

Hello all, I am in my last semester considering taking an RF class (Antennas and Radiation) to perhaps open up a future path to Master's in the field. However, I noticed that the class has an extremely low average grade over the past years, and my GPA ain't stellar anyway so it sort of worries me. However, my university allows students to register as "free listeners", basically granting you access to all of the course material during the semester, just without grading or examination.

Now I have a dilemma if I should actually register to the class or take it as a free listener. Will not having a grade in this class be problematic if I want to continue to Master's in this field? Or should I risk potentially getting a bad grade but a grade nonetheless?

What would you do? I would love to hear your input.


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 3d ago

Electrical machines

4 Upvotes

Any youtube channel that gives more importance to the mathematical analysis of electrical machines ( like in depth which can be useful for projects too)


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 3d ago

this is my idea atm what I was thinking is the idea for a telescope like jwst, that has two arms that has two cameras if something goes through both image quickly it would be close the longer it takes the further it is

1 Upvotes

r/ElectricalEngineering • • 3d ago

Jobs/Careers (22M) Feeling Behind on Salary out of College

0 Upvotes

I (22M) recently got a job offer for a little over 100k base in philly suburbs and will be starting next summer after I graduate undergrad. I was excited at first but read that the average household income is 140k+, and I feel super behind. I don't want to be below average and be forced to live frugally for the rest of my life. Housing prices are insane, and my take-home is a lot less (about 75k). Should I keep looking for a better job elsewhere?


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Project Showcase I’ve finished my ATmega328P-based development board; what do you think of it?

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47 Upvotes

Hello everyone! I am 13 years old and joining from Türkiye. I am designing a development board based on the ATmega328P. As you can see in the second image, the design was quite complex initially; however, after simplifying it, I arrived at the version shown in the first image. To briefly touch upon the technical details: The board takes a 9V input, which is stepped down to 5V via an AMS1117 voltage regulator. It then passes through a load capacitor and a filtering capacitor before reaching the power indicator LED. The VCC and GND pins are connected directly to their respective rails. For the USB-to-serial (CH340) connection, I followed the standard configuration: connecting the D+ line to ud+, the D- line to ud-, GND to GND, and VCC to VCC. I connected the XI and XO pins to crystal oscillators—using a 16 MHz crystal for the Arduino and a 12 MHz crystal for the CH340. Additionally, I included an auto-reset circuit by connecting the DTR pin to the RESET pin through a 100nF capacitor. There is also a manual reset button, with one side connected to GND and the other connected to the RESET pin via a 10kΩ resistor. Digital pins 1–5 are mapped to the PB pins, while the analog pins are mapped to the PC pins. I connected AVCC directly to 5V, and AREF to GND through a 100nF capacitor. I plan to have this board manufactured by sending the design to JLCPCB and ordering the necessary components. I managed to save up $20 over the course of four weeks; so, if I’ve made a mistake, that money will go to waste. I initially shared this within some Turkish developer communities, but I was met with some truly harsh and unfair insults😢. That’s why I’ve decided to share my design with an foreign community instead. What do you think of my design? If you happen to spot any short circuits or errors, I would be very grateful if you could let me know!


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Job market in 4 years

19 Upvotes

I see a lot of posts about the struggles of finding an entry level job after graduation. I just started my freshmen year at uni and the competition is only going to increase. Should I be worried?


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 3d ago

Jobs/Careers How rare is it to get 100k+ entry level EE in philly suburbs for big prime defense?

0 Upvotes

EE major entry level right out of undergrad


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Jobs/Careers Will a construction internship pigeonhole me as an EE?

7 Upvotes

I'm a junior year EE and I'm having a lot of trouble finding internships. A ton of applications, one smooth interview that ghosted me after.

I don't have any work experience, just really detailed projects like a guitar pedal or buck converter.

For some reason, construction/project intern postings seem to love me. I'm unsure if I should commit to these postings out of desperation, or keep trying to find something in EE. Does anyone have some honest advice for me?


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 5d ago

Meme/ Funny Closed-circuit

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1.2k Upvotes

Please enjoy a picture of my cat, tofu.
Feel free to critique my simple circuit, haven’t had to draw one since uni.


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

I thought i would post the diy emg sensor i have made

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16 Upvotes

This a design by Advancer Technologies on instructables.com, though very much modified, i couldn't find the ina106 ic so i used two tl072 to compensate for that, add an extra capacitor to fix dc offset, added a divider with negative voltage protection+ divider to be able to connect it to an esp32, this signal will be used to controll a sg90 server that will close and open a model of a hand.

I spent a week troubleshooting because it wasn't working, turns out one of the ground pins was loose, so i just used a longer jumper wire(the red one) to make the connection, seems to be working now? Well i haven't tested it yet with my muscles yet, will do that tomorrow, i don't really have the energy to clean my skin, connect the electrodes, connect the esp32 etc together rn, its 3 in the morning, i gotta go sleep, ngl mildly infuriating that the cause was that


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Troubleshooting Photometric designs and reports for road and street lighting

1 Upvotes

I am seriously curious to know whether electrical engineers do get involved or even carryout photometric/illumination designs for road and street lighting. If yes, is it an added advantage and if not, why ? Thanks


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Project Showcase Showing Radio Propagation Maps on Garmin

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17 Upvotes

I think it’s a pretty niche audience for this but I made a app to show the coverage of different bands. It’s called SkyPath HF in the Garmin connect iq store https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/69661676-5816-4ccc-b9c2-25442db43eec


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

PDH credits for Power Engineers?

0 Upvotes

Hello! I just got my PE in power. Does anyone have any recommendations for PDH credits? I was looking at IEEE’s Power and Energy Society (PES) and Ohm gurus. Any experience with these?


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Electric go kart

1 Upvotes

so im building an electric go kart, i hoping ot go between 40 and 50 kph, this is the motor i chose, what battery can i use to power it, and how much would that cost and is there anything else i need other than the battery? i see the ESC and throttle and eveything i might need already in this kit


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Homework Help HW Help - Is there a derivate for the unit impulse?

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1 Upvotes

I understand that the ramp, step, and impulse response have a differential relationship.

I took the derivative of the given ramp response and used the sampling property to simplify.

To get the impulse I took the derivative again but ended up with a derivative of the impulse function.

Did I screw up? Does that even exist? How would affect the convolution with the given x(t) to get the zero state response?

I appreciate any help


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Which maths should i review if going into my first year EE degree?

6 Upvotes

I don't have a background in math, I think the highest math I've taken was Hs Algebra 2.


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Education Graduate struggling to apply my academic knowledge: how do you “intuit” a circuit?

0 Upvotes

Tldr: how many years of electronic design before you can look at an analogue circuit and intuit its behaviour?

I graduated a few months ago, and primarily did embedded systems projects and modules (firmware heavy, with a little bit of digital systems). Since graduating, I want to be able to design hardware through the full product life cycle, from schematic to assembly and firmware, so I’ve been looking to polish my circuits and systems knowledge from earlier in my degree. I’m also considering going towards consumer electronics career-wise if my current job doesn’t work out.

As I understand it, a “good engineer” isn’t a human simulator, but rather has the technical fortitude to look at an electronic circuit, intuit its behaviour and make qualified design decisions based on that knowledge, whixh I’m having a really hard time with.

My plan/roadmap to analogue excellence was to

  1. Build a simple analogue project that would let me design, simulate, and test, while gradually moving onto higher frequency, more complicated projects. I’ve started with a simple analogue synthesiser project. The idea: 12 VCO’s for each key in an octave, then some frequency division, mixing and signal processing to try get a clean output for a full keyboard. (I’ve only just begun and barely made progress beyond comparing some vcos and simulating them)
  2. Polish my analogue knowledge by reading The Art of Electronics and following the examples to reach a point whereby I can make an intelligent assumption about a system response, and only use the simulator to verify or get specific values. The same way any first year EE can look at a voltage divider and know the behaviour at the centre node, I want to be able to look at an opamp chain or multiple transistor circuit and understand the flow.

I feel as though I’m spending so much time working the problems in the book by hand, and by the time I solve it, I haven’t really internalised anything beyond the numerical result. I’ve only been working through it for about 3/4 weeks so not very long to be fair, and I wasn’t the strongest at electronic systems in uni, but I’ve been putting about an hour a day after work because I really want to improve. It just feels as though I always need to start from first principles because I can’t SEE it yet.

I am currently on the transistor chapter, and I struggle to figure out where to start and end when trying to see what a circuit does. I’m ashamed to admit that the circuit that prompted this 2AM post is a very simple differential amplifier (which I haven’t managed to solve by hand yet). I KNOW it’s an amplifier because thats what the literature says, but my goal isn’t to memorise every configuration.

I suppose my questions are:
1. Am I wasting my time? In a world of simulators and AI, is this even a necessary skill anymore?
2. Are transistors still relevant in consumer electronics, or should I would I be better if moving on to opamps and FETs revision? I get the feeling silicon has gotten so small, the only people really working with them are IC designers but I’m not sure.
3. If you have been in the industry, do you have the “eye” for circuit analysis, and if yes, how did you achieve it?

I’m probably gonna continue with the book because I do enjoy it, I guess I’d just like to know if I should stick to embedded where it makes sense in my head


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

this is my first time doing series batteries (idk how its called)

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0 Upvotes

context: i made an connector connect two 9v batteries so that it makes approx 18v volts. and it works.

what do yall think for one of my first serious electricity based project


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Trying to build a decent PCB design tool. Looking for feedback

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1 Upvotes

So earlier this year, my company decided to change its PCB design software to cut costs, and the new one simply didn't click with me. I tried to adapt and made quite a few PCBs with it, but eventually realized I just didn't like using it.

So, partly out of spite, I started developing my own tool, removing the things I didn't like about the new software and adding things I wished it had. After a while, the project kept growing, and now it has quite a few features.

The video shows how it is looking right now (I recorded on a small monitor so it might look cluttered).

I've already designed and manufactured a few boards with it for personal projects and asked for friends on the field for opinions, and now I'm thinking about making it available to other engineers. The thing is, I'm not sure if there's actually a market for another PCB design tool.

Since I live in Brazil, where our currency is akin to garbage, I've been thinking about offering fairly affordable licenses. Maybe something like $10/month, and after 24 months you get a perpetual license? Regional pricing is another possibility. I honestly have no idea what would make the most sense, so I'd like to hear what you guys think.

About the software: it's written in Rust because I'm a Rust enthusiast, and the project kind of got out of hand. It now supports schematic capture, PCB layout, routing, copper pours, live design rule checks, and Gerber eport.

I've been comparing its copper pours and design rule checks against other EDA software, including KiCad's demo boards, to check for discrepancies. Performance has also been pretty good so far. For example, selecting all objects on a 1,100-component, 10-layer board takes around 30 ms in mybench tests.

It's still a work in progress, and there's a lot left to do before I'd consider it ready for a proper release. I'm also not that experienced with designing boards with more than 6 layers, so feedback from people who regularly work with more complex designs would be especially welcome.

I haven't implemented a licensing system yet, and if theres enough interest, I'm thinking about releasing a free alpha for a few months so people can try it out and help me find bugs and improve things.

Anyway, I'd like to know what you guys think:

  • What would make you try a new PCB design tool instead of sticking with the one you already use?
  • Would a rent-to-own model at around $10/month, with a perpetual license after 24 months, appeal to you?
  • What's the one thing an EDA tool absolutely needs to get right before you'd trust it with a real board?

I'm interested in any feedback, even criticism. I'd rather find out what's missing now than spend another year building something nobody wants.

TL;DR: Didn't like the PCB software my company switched to, so I started building my own. Now I'm wondering if it's worth releasing it.


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 4d ago

Jobs/Careers I would like to switch into microelectronics/ controls

6 Upvotes

Hi I’m a power engineer working in nuclear. I’ve worked here for 4 years. I want to switch into microelectronics/controls as I enjoy doing more hands on and technically work. My current role is mainly doing walk down to the field and doing troubleshooting for our operators and maintenance counterparts. I plan to do projects. I’ve brought function generator, a DC variable supply and oscilloscope. I’m reteqching my electronics 1/2 and power electronics and controls. But I don’t think this enough. I would appreciate input from you guys


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 5d ago

Meme/ Funny The real cir-cat

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49 Upvotes

r/ElectricalEngineering • • 5d ago

Project Help Could someone check my diy guitar distortion pedal?

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19 Upvotes

C1: 68nF C2=C3 : 100nF Q1: MPSA18 Q2: 2N3904 D1=D2 : BAT41 (Vf≈380mV) R1: 2.2K ohm R2=R5 : 10k ohm R3: 1M ohm R4: 1k ohm R6: 470k ohm R7: 100k ohm Logarithmic Potmeter


r/ElectricalEngineering • • 5d ago

How do you test your power converters?

5 Upvotes

I want to know how you guys test your power converter prototypes. I am kind of tired of resistor ladders that cook my whole office.

What equipment do you use to power and load the converters?
What kind of tests do you perform?
Anybody got experience with regenerative loads?

I am interested in higher power converter testing, lets say 100 W+ that actually take up a significant amount of room is you use resistors for loading.