A Few Embedded Systems Tips for Beginners

hey what's up everybody today i want to talk a little bit more about getting started in embedded systems back in 2019 i made a video about this topic basically i touched on a bunch of different platforms and gave you some advice on getting started in embedded systems if you haven't seen it maybe check that video out but today i wanted to provide a few more tips that i think will make your journey through embedded systems a little bit easier this video is particularly focused on all those software people out there who are feeling a little intimidated by all of the hardware stuff that you get into with embedded systems for a lot of us that's the fun of embedded systems but it can be a little overwhelming and so i wanted to talk about it to see if i could make your journey a little more pleasant so this video is sponsored by nexpcb.com discount codes in the description please show them some love and we'll talk more about that later and also before i get too far into it i've been thinking that it would be really fun to do more project oriented videos basically do an embedded systems project maybe two on this channel where we actually work start to finish through a project i'm playing around with a few ideas of my own but this is your opportunity to give me some feedback if you have project ideas that you'd like to work through together please comment down below let me know what you think would be cool obviously some projects may be too involved or too expensive or whatever but i definitely want to hear what you have to say so now back to the tips so a big challenge in embedded systems is that we don't get a lot of people who are trained in embedded systems what we more often have are people who are either software people who are trying to get into embedded systems and basically build up some of the hardware chops that they need or we get people who are coming from an electrical engineering background and they're trying to build up their software skills and i actually think that's one thing that makes this area really cool is you get this crossover you get people from both sides trying to learn each other's skills and i think it's a really fun place to be now my channel has a lot of content for the double e want to become programmer people there's a lot of software stuff on this channel today i want to talk specifically to the software folks that are trying to get into hardware and might be feeling a little bit intimidated so you programmers out there those that want to quickly become electrical engineers or at least become capable enough to get something done whether you want to get a job at this or whether you just want to get that hobby project done and do something useful without hurting yourself and burning the house down so my first tip is actually a book recommendation this is not a paid recommendation i get no money for saying this this is just the book that i use most often in my lab and in my own work i've read a lot of embedded systems books i continue to read a lot of embedded systems book but the one that i recommend to all my students when they enter my lab and that i keep in the lab i make sure there's always a copy is practical electronics for inventors what i really like about it is basically what the title states that it's a practical guide to electronics so there's a lot of theory in electronics a lot of courses go into a lot of math a lot of physics while there's nothing wrong with theory all the math and physics can be a little bit overwhelming early on especially when all you wanted to do was to smooth out a power supply or get some data from a sensor now naturally if you do this long enough you will come across projects where you need all that physics and theory where you really need to understand what that op amp is doing and at that point you can dive into other resources like the art of electronics which is another fantastic resource but is not light reading but the point is if i could only have one book in my lab as a resource for my students it would be practical electronics for inventors that's the one we go to most often and if you're just getting started and want to get your brain into this electronic space in a way that's not really overwhelming and is pretty accessible i would check it out now of course reading isn't going to be enough and i hope one message that you have gotten i hope you've gotten from watching this channel over the years is that you really if you want to get good at this stuff you got to get your hands dirty you got to do something and that leads me to my second tip which is make stuff just start making stuff build boards build prototypes breadboard stuff if you want to get good electronics and embedded systems you need to build embedded systems and as i mentioned before this video is sponsored by nextpcb.com and they will give you a great discount links below in the description for the details but they're going to give you a really good price on your first pcbs so that's a really great opportunity and i appreciate their support but this is advice that i've been giving to members of my lab and new students that joined my lab for years long before next pcb was a twinkle in the internet's eye when a new student enters my lab yeah we start them with breadboards we start them with launch pads we get we get them blinking lights we get them doing really basic stuff but shortly afterward i start getting them making boards any boards it almost doesn't matter if they even need a board just make some boards because as i get them making stuff fabricating hardware first of all they get more comfortable reading schematics understanding layouts and most importantly they start getting over the intimidation factor that we all run into when we're software people coming into this hardware space and yes i know it's easier when you have an advisor somebody in your lab telling you you need to do this and i know it's intimidating sometimes you feel like i'm just not ready i don't my skills aren't ready enough to actually make a board or actually make a device i'm just going to stick with my breadboard and that's fine but don't wait too long maybe your first boards won't work maybe they will but the great thing is it's never been more affordable to just try stuff to just make a board you know it doesn't cost that much back when i started doing this stuff back in 2005 making any board was really really scary anytime we made a board even if they were just little tiny nothing boards with a button a little led that board was going to cost me almost a thousand dollars and so any mistake was gonna be really expensive and it just made you really nervous so we would test and be really really super careful and everything and we would sometimes wait a long time before we actually made a board back then it made sense that we were nervous about every board run but today i can make boards for about what it cost me to buy lunch so as costs have changed my attitude towards making boards has changed a lot and now i'm just like telling my students make boards just do something make something don't wait for the perfect idea just you get an idea make it make something you're going to learn so much you're going to learn so much more than you will from reading and from watching youtube videos even my youtube videos getting your hands on something and actually doing it is going to make an enormous difference in your skill level so again next pcb discount links down in the description no excuses just start making stuff now while you're making stuff my next tip has to do with safety please be safe i know my previous tip the whole point was to get your hands dirty get out there and start something but please as you're getting yourself started as you're first diving into projects please don't dive into working with high voltage mains power 110 volts 220 volts these voltages can kill you they can burn your house down and you don't need that kind of stress in your life so don't pick a starter project that's like building a homemade microwave oven start with a 3 volt or a 5 volt project low voltage projects are just so much more forgiving you're probably not going to hurt yourself you're probably not going to light stuff on fire at least you're really gonna have to work at it to get yourself into trouble with a three-volt project most of the time the worst thing that's gonna happen is you fry apart you get the polarity wrong you damage something you cost yourself a couple bucks not a big deal but the main thing is you will still be alive in one piece and you won't have burned your house down or hurt somebody that you love you'll still be here to watch next week's video and keeping you all safe is my number one priority so learn on low voltages voltages that are going to keep you safe and make sure that you don't hurt the people you love so tip number four is learn hardware design patterns now one thing that you're going to notice just like with software is that hardware follows certain patterns every project is going to be different one project's power supply may differ from another project's power supply but the point is is just like in software there's a lot of repetition projects don't repeat themselves but they do rhyme so whether you're looking at filter circuits voltage dividers voltage followers or other op-amp circuits you're going to notice a lot of patterns so as you learn more and more i recommend that you try to cluster these things together try to look at different power supplies different filters different different op-amp circuits and look at how they vary try to understand for each cluster what the different variations are and the different options that you have available and how to tune things in a particular way to get the outcome that you want and as you focus on learning these clusters learning different categories of circuits you're going to find that the hardware side of embedded systems isn't quite as intimidating as maybe you thought it would be at first yeah it's still going to be a little bit intimidating but then that brings me to my last tip which is the main point is to have fun explore something useful make something cool hopefully maybe you might even make something useful and cool do let me know down in the comments what you end up building like this video if it was helpful subscribe to the channel so you don't miss future videos especially those project videos that i was talking about earlier on and until next time i'll see you later

Channel: Jacob Sorber

Views: 9,616

Rating: 4.92555 out of 5

Keywords: embedded systems tips for beginners, embedded systems tips for begginers, embedded systems, embedded, embedded systems for beginners, getting started with embedded systems, tips for learning circuits, how to get into embedded systems, printed circuit boards, make pcbs, embedded projects, embedded printed circuit boards, book recommendation, embedded systems safety, Hardware design patterns

Id: j3SwYvuR8oc

Length: 8min 18sec (498 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021