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1. Learn Electronics for Beginners

Created on: 25 March 2021

How to learn electronics by building circuits for beginners. Easy and simple electronics course with step-by-step lessons. This article gives a quick overview of the electronics course for beginners.

The best way to learn electronics, or to start electronics as a hobby, is to start building circuits. You do not need to know how the circuits work or what the parts do at first. By building circuits, you will learn about different electronic parts and components, how to read circuit diagrams, as well as about basic tools and electronic principles.

How Electronics is Taught in this Course

This basic electronics course consists of a series of tutorials and articles that teach electronics to beginners. A device called a solderless electronic breadboard is used, as shown in the following image. A breadboard allows easy assembly and disassembly of electronic circuits.

Learn Electronics by using an Electronic Breadboard
Learn Electronics by using an Electronic Breadboard

In this course, a solderless electronic breadboard is referred to as an electronic breadboard, or simply as a breadboard.

Using an Electronic Breadboard

Electronic parts are used and reused to build different circuits on a breadboard. In this course circuits are built by plugging parts into a breadboard and joining them using connecting wires.

The following image shows a simple breadboard circuit. The circuit consists of a battery for power, resistor, LED and jumper wires.

A Simple Electronic Breadboard Circuit Powered by a Battery
A Simple Electronic Breadboard Circuit Powered by a Battery

Learn Electronics with Arduino

This course teaches how to build basic electronic circuits powered from a battery or other low voltage DC power supply. In addition to basic circuits, the Arduino microcontroller platform is also covered. No modern electronics course is complete without teaching the basics of microcontrollers, and the Arduino Uno microcontroller board is a good device to start learning on. This is explained further in the articles that follow.

The following image shows an Arduino Uno microcontroller board connected to a circuit built on an electronic breadboard. After connecting the circuit to the Arduino Uno, a software program is written to control the circuit. The program is then uploaded to the Arduino Uno board. Once loaded to the board, the program runs and controls the circuit.

In this example of two LEDs connected to an Arduino Uno board, a software program can be written to flash the LEDs on an off, or in a certain sequence. All that is needed to write a program and load it to the board is a free software package and a USB cable. The free software package runs on Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

A Breadboard Circuit Connected to an Arduino Uno Board
A Breadboard Circuit Connected to an Arduino Uno Board

Get Ready to Learn Electronics

This article is a very basic introduction on how this course teaches electronics. To learn more, follow each part of the course in order.

Some tools and electronic components are needed to follow this course. The next few articles explain which tools and parts you need, and how to use them. After teaching some basics of building electronic circuits, several tutorials follow that show how to build various different circuits.

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