Microelectronics - psto motivations

Disclaimer

I like to do microelectronics. And I am not even sure that I correctly use the word “microelectronics” - maybe I’m not doing it at all. Maybe I'm doing circuitry. Or programming. Or microcontroller programming. Or assembly of electronic devices. Or God knows what. But for myself, what I do, I call microelectronics - I’m too lazy to go reading the definition and compare it with what I’m doing - may those who are well-informed and possibly offended forgive me.
Despite the fact that I have been involved in microelectronics and have been devoting a lot of time to this activity for almost three years, I am still a beginner with a lot of big gaps in knowledge. But something happens to me and I try to sort out issues that I still don’t understand.
I decided to write this post because, on the one hand, I see great interest in “Arduino-posts,” awe at the sight of a blinking LED, and on the other hand, I’m afraid to understand and do something incomprehensible to me. Guys, we have to get rid of fears.

How I started

I started it ridiculously sad - I found an inkjet printer in the trash, broke it, pulled the screen out of it (text LCD 2x16) and decided to connect it to my asus wl500gp router. I had no idea how this is done. He began to read, found some kind of scheme, made a list of parts, went to the mitino and began to buy. Ofigel of the cost of the "chip" pic16f628a - 500 rubles in "Chip and Dip" (about prices later), but still decided to buy. Bought. He came home, soldered everything, filed food and, of course, earned nothing. I began to read more carefully, and I realized that the “microchip” is a microcontroller that needs to be programmed.
')

What do you need

That somehow came to what you need.

1. Programmer . Guys, in 2011, it steers the microcontroller. Transistors, comparators, OU - everything is needed, but you can do very interesting things just with a microcontroller. But the microcontroller must be programmed. Therefore, I write number one - not even a soldering iron! - programmer. Since I started with a clean microcontroller pic16f628a, I also chose a microchip programmer - (clone) PicKit 2. Together with him I bought a debug board on a 40-pin (!!!) MK pic16f887 - and many times later I was glad that it did. On this debug board you can learn how to work with oscillators, timers, LEDs, ADCs, buttons, interrupts, etc. etc.
2. Debug board - believe me, the debug board is very, very cool. Choose for yourself any MK and buy a debug payment on it. Although if you lose the will of the word “Arduino”, then buy yourself any duino with shields to taste. This is also awesome.
   
3. Buy yourself a stringboard and a mess . Bradboard is a shawl where you can just stick in output resistors, wires, etc.
   
4. Buy two packages of output resistors . One 4.7 kΩ, the second 470 ohms. The former are used very often with the MK as a “lift” - for example, lifting the leg to the ground or feeding, so that the leg does not “dangle in the air.” The second ones - universal current limiters - are used to connect LEDs and simply as jumpers in a blind-box (5V supply, 470 Ohm resistor rating, the maximum possible current through the resistor is 5V / 470 Ohm = count yourself). Even if a short circuit occurs, the controller / arduine leg will remain alive.
5. Buy a “grab bag”. In many stores, especially foreign ones, bags of crumbling are sold (male food 10kg, aha). There is all good - capacitors, resistors, buttons, LEDs, etc. - milliards. Enough for a long time.
   
6. Multimeter If you are indulging in picking out the scattering from the boards, then it is necessary with the L and C measuring mode - inductance and capacitance. It is also very useful L-mode, if you work with power and wind independently coil for a given current (in the markets do not sell chokes for a current of more than 1A, so).
7. Awesome thing - an oscilloscope . I somehow manage with single-channel from seeedstudio.com, but often, too often you need more than one channel. Pleasure is not cheap, but worth it.
8. Soldering iron . I will not write much - read the guru, the same DIHALT (easyelectronics.ru - deliberately do not give a link to the post while you search, you will learn a lot of new and useful things for yourself)
9. Preferably with a hairdryer . But how else the chips and doroguschy transistors from mothers pick out?
10. Where a soldering iron, there is a power supply . Everything is limited by your abilities. I took a single channel 0-20V 3A myself - it really helps. Not enough, of course, 3A, but if you just mess around with the MK and don't get into the feed, etc. - that is enough for an eye to burn a hole in any MK.

You can buy forever. Millien necessary things. But you can start without anything at all - having set up Proteus for yourself - I don’t even know how to call it a simulator or something. There are a lot of elements that can be assembled into schemes and check them in work without having the actual MK at hand. By the way, I debugged that first screen from the printer in the security - it really helped.
You can also just start with the programmer and debug board. Everything is possible, the main thing is desire.

As i continued

Probably I don’t have a liking if I say that the occupation of microelectronics didn’t give me a chance to quit the post. Derailed The hard drive is dead - now it works like a clock . I had a goal and I made the same clock (a little more) for a year. I did it by stepping on a countless number of rakes, burning innumerable elements, burning three different BLDC drivers from the screw. But did.

Got more than lost - knowledge, confidence, pleasure. The main thing is the goal. If not, think why. Think and think and look for the cause. Everything always burns and explodes in me, my hands are often lowered. Decisions come in a dream, for food - and I continue to dig. Until I get to the bottom. Read datasheets - again and again. There is always an answer, you just need to understand that you are looking at it at the moment, you just don’t realize it. Datashit is the best friend. Better datasheet - only appnout.

Links

Now I will give the most important link. I guarantee you that if you study the materials on this link and complete the lessons, it will be the quickest and most painless start. Yes, the material is presented in an unusual way - in different colored fonts. But every word is golden. Believe it. Tutorial from avr123: proavr.narod.ru .

Datasheets and appnotes

Datashit is the only comprehensive source of correct information about any component. If you are working, for example, with the pic16f628a microcontroller, then the datasheet for this MK should become your reference book. There can be 1000 pages in a datasheet. But after you understand the logic of the datasheet and learn how to use it, you will find the necessary information in a few seconds. Datasheet should always be up to date, i.e. the easiest way is to always go to the manufacturer’s website and download the current datasheet
Appnout are application guidelines. A lot, if not all, of what you want to do has already been implemented by specially trained people. They rarely write blogs, but often write appnotes. Appnout is a very good way to learn how to do something right. It happens that for individual components the appnout is part of the datasheet. But if we are talking about a complex system (for example, wireless signaling with channel encryption), then surely the MK manufacturers already have a solid appnout on this topic. As a rule, it is not particularly important, whose appnauts to read - a microchip or, for example, atmel - the main thing in these documents is the essence of the phenomena, the principles of operation and the algorithms for the implementation of the solution. Love appnouta as you will love datasheets.

Forums

Look for forums on MK you are interested in and on topics that interest you. There are lots of forums, very smart people always hang out at them. Highly.
by peaks - microchip.su
on avrkam - avrfreaks.net
on arduino - arduino.cc (playground)
robots - roboforum.ru (there are a lot of very smart and good guys - I am often amazed at their kindness and patience)

Blogs

easyelectronics.ru - DIHALT . Read from and to.
we.easyelectronics.ru - electronic Habr
bsvi.ru is a very cool blog of a very talented guy
mk90.blogspot.com - a cool blog with analysis of news on Arduine

Video courses

In iTunesU there are a lot of interesting video and audio courses that American universities distribute for free. There you can see the MITA course “Inside digital circuits”, or the Stanford course “Programming Methodology”. This is an awesome free source of perfectly structured knowledge in a variety of subjects. On the one who came up with it is necessary to pray.

Books

Super book on circuit engineering - The Art of Circuitry (The Art of Electronics). Authors: P. Horowitz, W. Hill (http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/4446097). I will not recommend the rest of the books, because a) there are many of them and b) I haven’t read anything else.

How not to ask questions

The main thing in any occupation - do not give up. Shoot like a tank in the selected direction. And it is very desirable that thoughts be ahead of their hands. If something does not work - think, think and think again. It is not a shame to ask for help - but it is a shame to pour out every thought that has arisen in your head in writing. Ask a question, the answer to which will be the first number in the issuance of Google - shameful. Wanting someone to read datasheet and appnoot for you is embarrassing. But if the words “shameful” you are not afraid - at least fear the words “ineffectively”. So you will not get anywhere, you will not even get off the ground. The author of the online textbook, to which I gave the link above - avr123, the signature on the forum is very simple: “Read!”. I will subscribe to this word and add from myself - “Read! Think! ”

The main thing is the idea

Many people start with what they want to do. Without thinking at all about WHY they want to do something about it. The standard letter is “Hi, I want to build a robot on tracks so that it has a high permeability. I'll take Arduino as brains, mikriki sensors with a mustache. Over time, I will translate it into radio control. Help where to start. ” You always want to help a person and convey to him a simple idea - what to start with an idea. Why this robot is needed - why it needs a cross, why does it need sensors, etc. etc. Developing something without an end goal is a Brownian motion, i.e. the movement is chaotic. And if the goal is not, then you can not get closer to it. Think and ask yourself a question many times - WHY? This is the most wonderful question after WHY?

Ad unit

Well, the prices promised. In short, Chip and Dip is a robbery in broad daylight (I have a feeling that they have a very simple pricing policy - “take the average price of the device and multiply by 10”). There are a lot of shops where you can buy everything you need electronics, circuitry, robot builders and modellers for reasonable money. This is primarily online stores, such as elitan.ru, seeedstudio.com, chip-nn.ru, etc. There are wonderful offline stores like terraelectronica.ru (subscribe to their newsletter!), Voltmaster.ru. There is, with extortionate prices, the Mitin market, after all. Chip and dip will come to the rescue if there is a land at all, and something urgently needs to be bought, and there is no one else in the area besides them. In general, sooner or later you will understand.

Asked to write about the entrance threshold. Well, we can. Entry threshold - from 0 rub. 0 kopecks in order to start gaining knowledge - video courses, lessons. The link to the book gave - 500 rubles. ORduino nano - 500 rub. PicKit2 programmer with a debugging board - $ 50 "there". Excellent micron pic16f1827 with a bunch of peripherals on board - 43 rubles. TI's EZ Chronos Developer Kit - $ 100 . Oscilloscope - $ 100 DSO Nano 1-channel and $ 200 DSO Quad 4-channel (two analog channels, two digital). Multimeter - 1000 rubles, but for starters, you can buy for 120. Etc.

Instead of conclusion

Forgive that messy - I wanted to say a lot, but somehow I didn’t have time to write. I hope someone post will help start. Because it is very interesting. Good luck and, I hope, we will soon see new wonderful projects - on anything :-) hee-hee
PS There will be questions / comments / clarifications / comments (well, all of a sudden someone has a uniquely negative reaction to the word “psto”) - write in a personal.

PPS Amendment from Ocelot : You are still confused in terms. Microelectronics begins when we climb into the “inside” of the microcircuits and, instead of a circuit on the board, we “assemble” a circuit on a chip. Instead of parts, then we will have pieces of integrated circuits (IP blocks), instead of ferric chloride - photolithography, and instead of a special software for 100,500 money.
What is described in the post - this is circuitry. Or just electronics, without micro prefix.

PPPS Another very important thing forgotten. They say (I have not tried it myself) that arduino is simply transformed into a programmer. Those. for 500 rubles you can get hold of both arduin and programmer. How - do not ask. In google