Hello! What would be a good way to learn about electronics in terms of creating them? I’m particularly interested in building my own keyboards and other PC peripherals, but I’m not sure what tools I would need, or what’s a good knowledge base if I run into any issues. Any tips and or suggestions?
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You want to get into microcontroller programming somehow. The Raspberry Pi Pico may be a good target to start with. The documentation is well made and you have the choice to either use C++ or Python for programming.
Thanks for the suggestion! I do know a bit of Python, so it should be easier on that front at least.
Arduino and esp32 are both good places to start. On YouTube look up ralph s bacon I think he is - He does lots of microcontroller stuff, and of course the likes of big clive will teach you all about basic electronic circuits.
If you’re a complete newbie, get a kit and work through the tutorials.
Stuff you’ll need at first is a microcontroller, prototyping breadboard and a few components (should all come in the kit of you go that route). When you have something that works that you want to keep, you can think about a cheap (ish) soldering station and either veroboard, or look into getting your own boards made.
A multimeter will help a lot (cheapish will do) and depending on how deep you get, a bench power supply and an oscilloscope, but you can live without those for a while.
Get good quality solder, and using extra food quality flux changed the game for me. If you are an older person, magnification really helps too!
Get components in 10’s or more as you’ll save a little and it doesn’t matter much if you let out the magic smoke. For hobby stuff, Alix is your friend.
Have fun.
Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for!