Learn electricity and electronics fundamentals without taking a formal course

When I was a teen, I applied to be an ATT lineman. At that time at least, they sent you a giant study guide that has everything one might want to know about electricity. I was actually blown away by the material.<p>I&#x27;ve since lost it, but wonder if it exists on the Internet somewhere. My cursory search didn&#x27;t return anything.

I found Moritz Klein&#x27;s videos very interesting to help me understand practical aspects of circuit design as related to analog synthesizers:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;@MoritzKlein0&#x2F;playlists" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;@MoritzKlein0&#x2F;playlists</a>

I can also highly recommend &quot;The Art of Electronics&quot; by Horowitz and Hill.

I really liked Practical Electronics for Inventors, Fourth Edition, by Paul Scherz and Simon Monk.<p>I’m definitely interested in more electronics books for self study though.

The best suggestion to get a core review of the basic concepts as starter, and that Dave from the EEVblog [1] recommended several times, is the section Fundamentals of Radio Electronics from [2] - &quot;The Arrl Handbook for Radio Communications&quot; . Plus you get all the other stuff around Radio.<p>It will cover all the basics. Old ones can be found on the intertubes. It is now a classical. Even used 2015 versions go for $300 dollars or more.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;@EEVblog&#x2F;playlists" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;@EEVblog&#x2F;playlists</a><p>{2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.arrl.org&#x2F;arrl-handbook-2023" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.arrl.org&#x2F;arrl-handbook-2023</a>

Is the top link just an advertisement for a book to be bought or is it something I&#x27;m missing with the link? There are countless of books and website with that kind of content, but Google is good enough to find them...

I don&#x27;t know, it&#x27;s hard for me to know what the author means by &quot;fundamentals&quot;. I looked at the table of contents from the amazon website, and somethings that I consider pretty fundamental like Thevenin&#x27;s Theorem didn&#x27;t seem to be listed there. By comparison it&#x27;s in Chapter 1, page 9 on my copy of &quot;The Art of Electronics&quot;. I&#x27;m not trying to knock the book, it could be very handy, but I would use the term &quot;basics&quot; as opposed to &quot;fundamentals&quot; to describe the content as I understand it.

Back when I was about 12 (so 60 years ago, or so) you could get Phillips kits with a couple of transistors which allowed you to breadboard things like an amplifier, a radio, or a moisture detector. Had fun with them, but didn&#x27;t really learn so much theory, and never have. Though I do know quite a bit about software.

I&#x27;ve got &quot;Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series&quot; as a PDF from a gopher hole:<p>gopher:&#x2F;&#x2F;tilde.pink&#x2F;1&#x2F;~bencollver&#x2F;ia&#x2F;details&#x2F;neetsmodules_202003<p>The whole directory it&#x27;s amazing too: gopher:&#x2F;&#x2F;tilde.pink&#x2F;1&#x2F;~bencollver&#x2F;links&#x2F;<p>Also, there&#x27;s Usenet. Subscribe to to sci.electronics.repair and sci.electronics. Outdated? Delayed answers? ok, but you will get correct ones and if you set your learning at a slower but dedicated pace, with no distractions (turn the notifications off), with either PDF or Physical books and a electronic simulator like TkGate, you will get the theory at really fast speeds.

Are advertisements like this allowed on HN?

Reminds me of those old RadioShack hobby electronic boards with all the different components to try and work with.

Slightly baffled why this is on HN and especially as the no.1 link. For this to be upvoted so high I expected to find a spectacular interactive learning experience someone has made for fun, or at least a substantial free book.<p>But it&#x27;s just another book on Amazon like a dozen other books on the same subject.

I keep putting off looking for something along his topic. Mostly becasue I want to learn to repair electronics. I have audio equipment that doesn&#x27;t work right that I&#x27;m pretty sure just needs a small repair, but I&#x27;m stuck thinking about throwing it away becasue idk how to fix it. Pro repairs cost almost as much as what I have for some of them.

I wish someone would write an electronics book for hobbyists solely using simulators like Falstad and PCB design using KiCad.

The best way to learn this stuff is hands on, build kits, those 200 in one things RadioShack used to sell, etc

What&#x27;s wrong with taking formal courses? I think that is a perfectly legitimate way of learning stuff.

Will I finally understand transistors?

This looks cool! I’ve been looking for a good valve amp to build from a kit, ideally I want it to be integrated, EL34 tubes and at least 25 watts, anyone know of anything? Bonus points for designed&#x2F;supplied in the UK.

Any recommendation for open source software or website where one can learn about electricity in an interactive or gamified way?

Probably needs (2022) in the title. The book is available on libgen for anyone who wants to take a look.

I have been wanting a tutorial like this. Thanks

So, is this book any good?

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Knowledge structuring is key for self-taught learning. I&#x27;ve found that organizing resources using MECE principles (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) significantly improves the learning curve, especially for complex technical topics.

&quot;Don&#x27;t bother learning anything. AI will do all of this grunt work soon. You will be free to do what you really want&quot;<p>It kind of misses the point that many people actually want to know how things work and how to design and build things. This isn&#x27;t going to go away.