TheNewbie said:
P.S. Reason I asked is it possible to learn PCB design without university is because a friend from university who studied electronics told to me that it's impossible to learn it without university, he told to me that it has a lot of advanced mathematical formulas and physical problems. So I have to learn math and physics so deeply and I cannot learn them without university. This is why I ask that even if it's possible
Believe me this is not the case. Electrical and electromagnetic rules are involved that's for sure. Electricity belongs to physics and physics is based on mathematical laws, but "advanced mathematical formulas and physical problems" is far beyond reality on the beginner's level. We are still talking about simple boards for a beginner right? I hope you design a motherboard or an avionics tranceiver someday, but let's start from simple things first. :smile:
TheNewbie said:
Yes, I'm really interested in electronics and learning it, just I want to know good software, good books and good resources to be explained to me.
As you realize, good software doesn't come for free! Secondly, someone can speak only for tools that he has used. You will defenitely need a layout design tool. I use Pulsonix. It has allmost all capabilities of the "famous" software in this category like Protel and Cadence, but its price is much more friendly. Then you could use a simulation software. Proteus is a good tool (just started to learning that myself also). Finally you will need a compiler. First decide which MCU you will use and then choose a compiler. You said you have used AVR. I use AVR also. Atmel offers AVRStudio, a free programming enviroment for AVR, using GCC compiler. Personally I use IAR EW. It is not free, but it is maybe the best compiler for low level and offers support for many many architectures. Besides those you will need other software also (like gerber editors, graphistic software, some serious hyperterminal software etc). Beeing an electronics engineer means to be a bit of everything!
About resources: I think that you may want to study some basic electricity first, like Ohm's and Kirchhoff's laws, basic power equations, resistors, capacitors etc. Then you will move on to electronic components like diodes and transistors. I will not suggest any books, I leave this on someone who has read many books and can compare them. I have read some books as a student, but from my graduation and then, I fill my gaps from the web. Just to give you a starting point, I googled with "electrical basics" as keywords and I found this reference:
Basic Electrical Engineering Lessons
If you read all of it, you will get a basic idea what you are dealing with, and then you can move on and study each section in separate. What I do when I study something new, is go to wikipedia and read the general description. Then I search again for more references on the same topic, but this time technical and not general. Internet cannot replace books, but if you know what you are searching for, then you will defenitely find answers in the web also.
TheNewbie said:
But I want to know why board designer put X ohm resistor on Y location, why that's needed, I want to know low level details, not just montage.
Circuit design comes after basic stuff understanding! But just to give you a basic idea, imagine you have a 5V supply and you need 10mA current for some reason. What resistor will you need? You will implement Ohm's law and find out. When you discover the ohmic value then you will wonder: what kind of resistor would that be? 10W or 0.125W? Or something else? You wll apply power equations to find that out. Even this simple task is considered to be circuit design. Finally, learn to read datasheets. It is difficult for someone who has not read a datasheet in his life to read one for the first time and understand it. When you study components (like diodes for example), download some diode datasheets from different manufacturers and read them, it will help you improve.
You got work to do, good luck for one more time!