Need to draw a circuit that looks good, quickly? Circuit Canvas is a free, web-based tool for drawing schematics and planning how to connect the circuit in real life. It was designed to make it fast and easy to draw good-looking schematics and connection diagrams for electronics. It was made by Øyvind Nydal Dahl, the
A breadboard is a simple and useful tool for connecting a circuit. It’s really useful for beginners as you can easily experiment and test out circuits without soldering. But it’s also useful for more experienced people since you can prototype an idea, or parts of a circuit, quickly.
I often use breadboards in my work.
Want a quick introduction to the breadboard? Check out my short video below (2:30) or continue reading.
A multimeter is a tool you’ll be using a lot when building electronics. For troubleshooting, testing batteries, and a variety of other tasks.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use a multimeter to measure current, voltage, and resistance.
Knowing how to use an oscilloscope is very useful when building electronic circuits. When your circuit is not working, it will help you figure out what is going on.
I learned how to use an oscilloscope pretty much on my own. The first time I tried one, I only got some simple instructions, then I was left to myself to figure things out.
But I found that it wasn’t really that hard…
The oscilloscope can be a bit overwhelming with all its functions. But you don’t need to know every detail of it. You can actually come a long way by knowing just a few simple things.
So I want to pass those simple things on to you so that you can start using an oscilloscope on your own.
There’s some confusion going on when it comes to how to choose a power supply.
So, I thought I’d clear up some doubts, and give you a simple, beginner-friendly way of choosing a power supply.
Let’s start with the basics. A power supply has a voltage and a current specification:
Do you have an idea for an electronics project that you want to build? Are you stuck because you don’t know how to start?
Well, then this is for you…
Whenever I take on a new project that is very different from anything I’ve ever done before, this happens:
Let’s say I want to build an RC model airplane (which is something I’ve never done before). The first automatic reaction in my brain is “But I don’t even know where to start!!!”.
When I was more inexperienced I often gave in to this first reaction. So, I postponed the project.
“Maybe next month” I told myself.
One of the most important steps of building electronic projects is not soldering. It is not drawing a schematic. And it is not debugging you circuit…
The most important step is the step that comes before all those steps. And it’s a step that is easy to skip, because you want to start building. At least I have on several occasions.
But you can drastically reduce the time you need to build electronic projects, if you invest a little bit of time in planning. It will also drastically increase your chances of finishing the circuit.
A stripboard is a circuit board with holes and printed strips of metal.
These boards are a good way of connecting simple to medium complicated circuits. I highly recommend using stripboards in the beginning. They give you a lot of control of your connections and it’s relatively easy to fix errors.
Though when your circuit gets too many connections, it can be a real hassle keeping control of all the connections.
If you want to make electronics you need to build circuits. But how to build circuits?
Here are three methods you can use to build any kind of circuit, ranging from super simple to advanced.
Building circuits using a breadboard is super easy and quick.
A breadboard is a board for prototyping. It has holes where you can stick component leads or wires into. Some of the holes are connected horizontally and some are connected vertically.