This student wants to know how to progress in electronics

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Why hide it in PM? Share it with the world out here.

Many times over the years, someone was laboriously explaining a circuit to someone, and I followed along. Partly to consider the approach, but also to better understand teh circuit. And then find out the assumptions I had made about it ages ago had been wrong, and now I knew better.

And nothing teaches one a subject better than having to teach it to someone else.
 
Let me just warn you all, this is a long and detailed response, and its probably going to fill its own page. Oh man, I just made it a couple lines longer with this preface. Sorry.

That's quite a generalisation. Maybe I'm the odd one out here, but I'd never heard of Adcom before you mentioned them. Perhaps it is a geographical thing.

Thats why I said "nearly everyone here". (Perhaps I should have said Perreaux 2150B for your sake, but then only a few people here would know what I was talking about :))
Adcom hit the ground running in the early 1980s here in the States, and came out with some of the most amazing pieces of gear ever made. The designer of some of their amps is basically down the hall and to the right for everyone on this forum. I own five of their amps and two preamps and understanding them is on my list of goals.

If it is not simple for you to understand, then start on something simpler that you can understand and work your way up.

Thats been my point during this whole thread.

There lies part of the problem. You want to breeze through the basics and get straight into understanding full circuits.

No... you questioned whether I knew how a basic transistor functions. There is nothing more to it than what I said. Its a switch, and it takes at least 0.7v at the base to turn it on and pass current from the collector to the emitter. As far as the chemistry and physics behind it, there's a whole lot more. What does that do in a circuit? A lot more than just switching, a whole lot more. What if its not a basic transistor? Then there's more to learn there too. But I know exactly what a "basic transistor" does.

Do you understand the why of the transistor? What the depletion zone is? What a p-n junction is? Mathematically what is going on? That will help you understand why a transistor behaves the way it does.

Sort of, no, no, no, and... I'm sure you're right about that.

Once you do, then move into transistor configurations. Do you understand what common base, common emitter and common collector all do and why?

Really? No, no, no, and no.

Do you understand then, voltage follower and emitter follower circuits? Complementary pairs? Differential pairs?

We're still doing this? No, no, no, and damn differentials pairs they give me a headache. But I need to know them.

A lot of amplifiers have similar topologies. You have a power supply section with filtering, transconductance using maybe a long tailed pair with a current source, transimpedance, output, feedback.

Half of that means something to me. None of it applies to my questions.

Please don't take this as an insult, but you've asked me over a dozen questions about things you should already realize I don't understand if you'd read my posts. Are you trying to help or just showing off by reciting the chapter titles of everything you've learned? Because I'm impressed. Its not helping me, but I'm impressed.

A circuit - any circuit - is just a collection of smaller circuits, each manipulating the voltage or current to get a desired outcome. By learning each of these little blocks, you'll be able to break a circuit down into functions.

Finally, some direction! See, what I'm trying to do is find out exactly why I've reached a block in my learning. Why was I able to learn passive components but I'm stalling at the active stuff? More to the point: why can't I trace my way through a differential pair?

If you really want to help - and you may not, since I have that effect on some people - you could do me a favor: re-read my posts. Note the parts where I said I understand DC passives, and I know the basic function of a transistor, and that I can follow along with a push-pull and a Darlington pair. Then if you have time, do me a favor and take a look at the input section on an Adcom GFA-555 schematic. Then explain that pair to me. Say "your signal goes in here, this happens to it, it gets sent here, this happens to it" etc.

Again, I am not familiar with Adcom products but I can only imagine you are describing where the output signal comes from. You are thinking in DC, whereas the output section there is AC. You need to understand the basics of AC - magnetism, sine waves, phase, etc. How do resistors and capacitors behave in AC versus DC? Why?

Magnetism actually figures into whats going on in this amplifier? Aside from the transformer there isn't a single magnet or even a coil anywhere in that box. Sine waves and phase, that I can believe. I know caps block DC when they're wired one way, and they store power when used another way. I think they can block AC too, but I can't remember. Resistors? Do those work differently in AC than they do with DC?

Really, all you had to do was say, "are you forgetting about AC? By the time you get to the speaker terminal you're at AC and there should be less than half a volt of DC there. A lot less. AC alternates, remember?"

But if it means anything, you did mention AC, and that got me thinking about the whole offset issue and how you can't have DC coming out of a terminal so that must mean its AC, and suddenly things got easier to understand.

Thats how my brain works.

No, you are trying to run before you can walk.

Perhaps. But simply looking ahead has nothing to do with not being able to follow a simple circuit.

If I show a differential pair to a tech, they don't sit down with a calculator to follow it. They know what the circuit is doing and there is no math involved with following a schematic. Read Satn Gibilsco's work explaining schematics and he did a great job explaining without the math, and then showing where you can use math to go further. If I want to follow the signal I should be able to. If I want to identify the voltages at any given point thats a different story.

I can find my way around town with a paper map and I don't need to figure out average and peak mph, my gas mileage, and my vehicle cost per mile to do it. I'm sure it would be great mental exercise and it would give me another piece of the puzzle of life, but its not necessary for getting from one place to another. I can do the math later when I want to know more but initially, I just want to get there.

Like I said, I can look at a Darlington or push-pull and follow things. There is no calculation - none at all - involved in following a circuit. Explaining it and noting values is a different story. I'm not discounting the basics but.... there are no physics involved in being able to point to the positive and negative rails and following the current, or starting at the inputs, and following the current and signal through those circuits to the speaker terminals. No physics either.

Does that make sense to you? I hope so. I wonder about myself sometimes. Ok, most of the time.

If it was completely unnecessary, I don't think it would be covered as a foundation of so many courses for so many years. By all means pass through the physics once you understand it, but don't assume you 'know it all' already. Just learn with an open mind and it makes it so much easier.

Hang on now brother, don't assume that about me. I'll be the first to admit I know nothing at all about anything. Take a look at my signature down below if you want proof. Because I recognize this about myself I'm always trying to learn. I have a basic grasp of physics, chemistry, and math, but I have no illusions about knowing everything in those disciplines. I fully intend to spend some serious effort attempting all three subjects during this latter half of the year, just as I'm going to double down on my electronics study.

I don't know what physiology course you studied but when I studied Human Biology, we started with basic chemical reactions, then basic cell structure, then cell groups. And once all the 'building blocks' were in place, the bigger picture became clear by itself. Knowing the basic chemical reactions that take place in the body made it easier to understand how the Mitochondria functioned, for example. How semi-permeable membranes functioned allowed understanding of how cell walls functioned, which helped understand how the digestive system functioned.

Thats one way to do it.

I began with the skeletal and muscular systems, then circulation. I got into the chemistry then, when I actually had a frame of reference to understand things. I needed to know how nerves worked, which led into muscle chemistry and finally the gray matter. When I studied performance and optimization, the chemistry behind growth hormone release and acetylcholine levels meant a lot more to me than if I'd just learned that before I got into muscle structure.

For you, it seems the perfect way to learn is to start with the basics in everything. I can't learn your way, and I haven't since I was about 8 years old. It works for you, not for me. I can't tell you how many times I started classes in various disciplines and they began with "this is a proton, this is a neutron, this is an electron. These are the building blocks of life", and my brain would just shut off. First, because I had learned that when I was 8, and I didn't need to hear it again, cubed. Second, because I need to see the complete product and then dissect it.

An example:

I was first exposed to base 2 math when I was around 10. I couldn't understand it. No matter how the teacher explained it, I was in the dark. Me, with my brain that read at a 8-9th grade level at age 6. I simply couldn't understand it, because the only number system I knew was base 10, and this thing she was saying made no sense at all. Meanwhile, all the other kids around me had relatively little trouble picking it up.

But then, put a computer in front of me when I was 13 or so, and tell me base 2 (and hexadecimal) are how this thing thinks, and guess how quickly I picked up base 2?

If you want a more historical example:

Heinrich Schliemann was an adventurer. His dream was to find the lost city of Troy. He traveled all over Europe to raise money and prepare for his dream. He learned the language in every country he stayed in. How did he do it? He bought newspapers and novels in each country, and thats what he read. He had no idea what he was looking at. But eventually he noticed the patterns in the language, and then he started picking up words and then concepts. He became fluent.

Thats how I learn. If I have to sit in a French grammar class I'm not going to make it past the first day. Instead, I like to go forward and learn the patterns and then fill in the blanks. My learning style is obviously not compatible with yours, so you may not want to stick around the thread. I would appreciate it if you do, however, because eventually I'm going to learn this stuff and we can talk about Perreaux amps as peers, which would be a good thing.

Schliemann found Troy, by the way.

You are missing too many pieces of the puzzle to understand the whole picture.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Well actually, yes I did say it better, and there were lots of anecdotes and life experience, but you said it a lot shorter. I have to work on that.
 
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Wow everyone seems to want to start from the middle. Funny thing I am try to learn to play music and there is an overwhelming amount of information to be absorbed and everyone has their opinion where to start. The way the brain learns is still not fully understood but the method used to teach has unfortunately not changed much in the last 100 years. I know this is not helping but one source online that’s looks pretty good is a course offer by Paul Carlson I enjoy watching his repair videos and find his explanations quite understandable. If I were to jump start my electronics training I would start here
Mr. Carlson's Lab : New Electronics Course [Patreon] | QRZ Forums
 
This page has helped me so much it's crazy. Great one to begin with - Full-Wave Rectifier

Index - Electronics Demonstrations

I was wondering when you'd stop in. Thanks for the link amigo!

I have tutored a few people on that issue. Happy to talk you though a few problems by way of PM, usually it becomes clear pretty quickly.

That is a very helpful and selfless offer, and I'm not embarrassed to say I will take you up on it. I'm going to run through all the links and info everyone has provided here and get my foundation built up stronger first.

Why hide it in PM? Share it with the world out here.

Many times over the years, someone was laboriously explaining a circuit to someone, and I followed along. Partly to consider the approach, but also to better understand teh circuit. And then find out the assumptions I had made about it ages ago had been wrong, and now I knew better.

And nothing teaches one a subject better than having to teach it to someone else.

TRUTH! Thats how I became proficient in Algebra in the first place. I was at "intermediate math" level when I took my placement exams. I helped someone through Algebra and teaching put the concepts into my head better than reading or practice did.

i started to teach GCSE maths part time.
i quickly got asked questions i wasnt sure about.
so i learned very quickly what i was weak on and learned it quickly.
i always carried a revision book and some notes on anything that had very involved answers.
eventually i got to a level where i was competent.

Always be learning. Nigel gets it.
 
I get a sense that your conscious wants it, but your sub-conscious maybe not so much. It's like electronics is a nice to have skill, versus being head over heels in love with it. I've always been "in love" with electronics, without a doubt that was what I was going to do career wise, but even so the degree of which I'm in love with it pales compared to many people here. And of course, elsewhere.

If you insist on force-jamming the square peg on through, start on a bench would be my advice. Get a regulated power supply for it. Get a DMM - one with an oscilloscope function if you can. Get some components to experiment with - pile up on the discrete parts and junk. Get some solderless breadboards. Dissect some of it, hook things up and see what they do. Some colleagues used to ask "How do you know what parts to pick out / put together to make it do that?" "Just from fooling around with the stuff for so long, I guess..."

The entertainment factor is going to be pretty low - compared to what they got going on the internet! There probably has to be truly nothing better to do - as a feeling inside - for you to start getting some traction and making real progress. That was easy back in my day - there actually was nothing better to do - these days it must feel like weight training.

Another OP was about a transistor curve tracer, which would be an excellent project to learn the basics of how they work and there's really not much to constructing it. You can do a similar one for triode tubes, albeit at higher B+ voltages like "100" would still show the operational basics.

I think the electronic modelling software is OK - as long as you pay attention to all those numbers they generate. One guy's circuit blew up on the bench; "but it worked in SPICE!?!" Looking back at the simulation, one of those numbers was really big. So some bench experience can help bridge the simulation with the real.
 
I get a sense that your conscious wants it, but your sub-conscious maybe not so much. It's like electronics is a nice to have skill, versus being head over heels in love with it. I've always been "in love" with electronics, without a doubt that was what I was going to do career wise, but even so the degree of which I'm in love with it pales compared to many people here. And of course, elsewhere.

If you insist on force-jamming the square peg on through, start on a bench would be my advice. Get a regulated power supply for it. Get a DMM - one with an oscilloscope function if you can. Get some components to experiment with - pile up on the discrete parts and junk. Get some solderless breadboards. Dissect some of it, hook things up and see what they do. Some colleagues used to ask "How do you know what parts to pick out / put together to make it do that?" "Just from fooling around with the stuff for so long, I guess..."

I'm certain you're right. Some of it seems obvious - someone will know what resistor to put in a certain place, and I'm sure at least half of that is prior experience. The folks I'm in awe of are the ones who know a whole range of semiconductors off the top of their head. Plenty of them here...

Me: "I need to get a 2SA1016 for this circuit. I'm having trouble finding any. Do you guys have any sources?
DIYCircuit God:(responding 20 seconds later, not enough time to run comps at the big three parts houses) "Why would you use that? Its obsolete. You should be looking at the 2SA2133, or maybe the 9LT1919A. I'd say get a 2SC3140 but we all know that wouldn't be a good idea for obvious reasons! lol"
Me: "Ha ha. Um. Ha. Yeah those darn 2SC3140s! Wow you must have years in this business. Are you a tech? A teacher?"
DIYCircuitGod: "No, I'm a retired truck driver. I got into ham radio years ago and I figured I'd learn how it all works now that I'm retired. Best 6 months I've had in decades!"
Me (choking):"Ok, thanks!"

The entertainment factor is going to be pretty low - compared to what they got going on the internet! There probably has to be truly nothing better to do - as a feeling inside - for you to start getting some traction and making real progress. That was easy back in my day - there actually was nothing better to do - these days it must feel like weight training.

To me learning something I didn't know just a few minutes ago - really understanding it - is something that gets me out of my chair hollering, more so than any random time wasting on the internet.

Another OP was about a transistor curve tracer, which would be an excellent project to learn the basics of how they work and there's really not much to constructing it. You can do a similar one for triode tubes, albeit at higher B+ voltages like "100" would still show the operational basics.

I'll add that to the list. You say I can build it, rather than buy it?

BTW: I also have a Fluke DMM with the TrueRMS function, a 100mhz dual trace oscilloscope, a B&K 815 multi-function magic thingy, and some other random stuff like an ancient VOM, some B&K CRT testing device that I'll probably never find a use for, and an enormous pile of scavenged parts and also working stuff from the past 50 years. Believe it or not, I also have a tv repairman's caddy from RCA filled with NOS vintage tubes, courtesy of Dad. None of them are probably good for audio, but perhaps I could use them for projects?

I think the electronic modelling software is OK - as long as you pay attention to all those numbers they generate. One guy's circuit blew up on the bench; "but it worked in SPICE!?!" Looking back at the simulation, one of those numbers was really big. So some bench experience can help bridge the simulation with the real.

I think it'll be a good tool but I'm not going to live on it. I also have KiCad here, and actually started transcribing a schematic into it (another one of my learning tricks) but the interface is practical yet cumbersome. I think it would work a lot better with an iPad with a stylus. I'll have to see if they offer a version for that.

I'd say a mix of practical with theoretical with rote learning is the way to go for this, but done in the order and emphasis I work best with. When I learn my way around a circuit all I want to know is how things are flowing. After I get that picture in my head I start to wonder about test values. After that I get curious about the numbers behind the design. Thats where the math would come in for me.

Talon,
A transistor can be a switch or not. It depends on how you use it. It can also be a linear amplifier. You missed something when learning what transistors do.

You could be right. But the way it was explained to me, the basic transistor is a switch. That switch can turn on a light, or it can apply a bunch of current to your signal and give it a healthy bump. Is that what you mean by linear amplifier?
 
Wow everyone seems to want to start from the middle. Funny thing I am try to learn to play music and there is an overwhelming amount of information to be absorbed and everyone has their opinion where to start. The way the brain learns is still not fully understood but the method used to teach has unfortunately not changed much in the last 100 years. I know this is not helping but one source online that’s looks pretty good is a course offer by Paul Carlson I enjoy watching his repair videos and find his explanations quite understandable. If I were to jump start my electronics training I would start here
Mr. Carlson's Lab : New Electronics Course [Patreon] | QRZ Forums

Yes! I did get a lot out of watching Paul Carlson when I started months ago. I lost the link and forgot his name, so thank you for posting that!
 
Too many cooks spoils the broth.

You can have one teacher and a dozen students.

You can NOT have one student and a dozen teachers all talking at once.

Which seems to be what we have here. A lot of us should bite our lip and stay silent.
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Well that is the other side of the coin. Not so much here, but at a couple other forums, I get PMs all the time - often from postes with a zero post count - and they start out "Hey, you seem to know a lot about Peavey 5150s," or about Yamaha somethings, whatever, and proceed to ask me for a private consultation. I always tell them to post in the forum, with the following: If I did my consulting in PM, you would not know I exist. When I write, it is not just for the OP but also for the countless others who only sit back and read. And in PM all you get is my personal perspective. In the forum I also get perspectives from people like yourself and others who have knowledge and their own unique manner of sharing it.
 
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Too many cooks spoils the broth.

You can have one teacher and a dozen students.

You can NOT have one student and a dozen teachers all talking at once.

Which seems to be what we have here. A lot of us should bite our lip and stay silent.

I have to agree with this to a large extent.

The advice I would give to Talon is that if you really want to learn and understand then you have to put the hours in yourself and work and work away at problems until you do understand.

There is a huge amount of help available both here and elsewhere but ultimately you have to go and wire some simple circuits up and see how they behave, burn a few transistors (and fingers ;)) and figure the basics out yourself.

Get a transistor to switch on and light a torch bulb up (no LED's here :D) and figure out how and why that works as it does... or doesn't as the case maybe.

It has to be pretty much an all consuming passion to reach a good standard of understanding that will allow you to see how pretty much any circuit hangs together and functions.

Did someone (maybe you) ask what was one of the first stumbling blocks you came across.

For me it was diodes and why they were drawn (in the magazines of the day) with + sign on the cathode. Cathode, that's normally negative right, so why put a + sign on there.
 
...the way it was explained to me, the basic transistor is a switch. That switch can turn on a light, or it can apply a bunch of current to your signal and give it a healthy bump. Is that what you mean by linear amplifier?

No. I meant what I said. The switch idea as it was explained to you applies to how transistors are used in digital logic circuits -- not how they are used in linear amplifiers.
 
Tolan said:
the basic transistor is a switch
This is a misleading oversimplification. Transistors are not switches but quite complicated to represent accurately and reliably. One such oversimplication is imagining a transistor's output/amplified/controlled current to be independent of the collector-base or source-drain voltage.

Real circuits work with real transistors which do not care about themselves being complex to understand and represent.
 
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I default to the GFA-535 because they're cheap and can be found in every town on the used market.

That's a very strange priority setting. I would think you would want something you can actually learn from on your own pace.
What use is something, even if free, if you can't master it for the next several years??

Nelson's ACA's are expressly designed to help learning. You can't learn a complex trade for free.

Jan
 
>Me: "I need to get a 2SA1016 for this circuit. I'm having trouble finding any. Do you guys have any sources?
>DIYCircuit God:(responding 20 seconds later, not enough time to run comps at the big three parts houses) "Why would you use that? Its obsolete. You should be looking at the 2SA2133, or maybe the 9LT1919A. I'd say get a 2SC3140 but we all know that wouldn't be a good idea for obvious reasons! lol"
>Me: "Ha ha. Um. Ha. Yeah those darn 2SC3140s! Wow you must have years in this business. Are you a tech? A teacher?"
>DIYCircuitGod: "No, I'm a retired truck driver. I got into ham radio years ago and I figured I'd learn how it all works now that I'm retired. Best 6 months I've had in decades!"
>Me (choking):"Ok, thanks!"

Well, I see there's certainly no lack of creativity on your part. I guess it's like playing music, you need to master a bunch of stupid and lame s*** first, before you can just hit the first note - and it all takes off on its own like Holdsworth said.

I'm sure with practice your circuit design capability will one day match your english language sentence and paragraph constructions. Who knows, maybe you'll end up the master at translating some schematic into the "How It Works" feature of the old Popular Electronics articles. I always read the "How It Works" feature back in the 70's when I enthusiastically subscribed. Lil Tiger amplifier - Schematic / "How It Works" - on a side bar, same page opening.

"They dont write like that any more".
 
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