Hi, welcome to another Evie Blair But this one comes from an Amp our listener on the Reddit forum and we actually answered this question on today's empower that we recorded this morning. So jumping over to the Amp hour if you want to listen to that and it'll actually be released tomorrow or something like that. but I thought it'd make for an interesting Evie blab discussion here. and it comes from a user called Vikash if I'm pronouncing that correctly and he's got a very interesting question.

Um, hello. I'm genuinely confused. What is the point of learning basic electronics today? Because you can get like really cheap? Arduino is Right Raspberry Pi's processing platforms you can get electric in. Wi-Fi modules Bluetooth modules for three.

You can get Wi-Fi modules for three dollars these days. Yes, they're new. You know the Arduino is a raspberry. PI's aren't that cheap, but there's a like a new chip.

Kickstart of it. Like a nine dollar Linux computer. Basically, hardware is pretty much, you know, almost free these days. and you get plug-in shields and cards and all sorts of things to do create almost any project you can imagine.

Oh So it seems so easy. it's a good question. Why? If you can do all this stuff and with the ecosystems and the communities out there around all these things, you've got source code, libraries, everything else to to do it all for you. Why bother actually learning hobby electronics? What's the point? And well, the difference is, do you want to be just a user of hardware or do you actually want to create something? Basically my definition of an electronics hobbyist is somebody who can actually do electronics plug-in you know, a Wi-Fi module into an Arduino and then writing some code that's not electronics I'm sorry, it just isn't.

But that being said, well, it comes down to the practicality of it. Well, if I can do everything I want with all these boards and everything off the shelf and just write some code, well, why do I need to learn? Well, there's some very good reasons for it. The first one is that you what happens when something goes wrong. What happens when it stops working? Sure, you can go on the forums, some forum and ask my Raspberry Pi doesn't work when I do this and maybe someone will come back with an answer.

But a real electronics hobbyist should be able to troubleshoot something like this. So learning the basics in particular, he mentioned, why bother mucking around with LEDs and triple five timers on a breadboard for example, Well, just flashing an LED What if you want to flush a hundred? LEDs huh? What about your power supply capacity Just being able to calculate things? What if there's not enough decoupling on your power rail, how are you gonna troubleshoot that? You just don't know, right? Sure, you can maybe get some off-the-shelf hardware to to do it and cross your fingers and hope it works, but when it doesn't work, that's when you need hobbyist electronics skills to be able to troubleshoot. You have to understand. You know you're just your basic stuff.

Your Ohm's law. Your Kirchhoff's current law is your basic building block circuits. Your basic concepts like power supply decoupling and all that you know all that sort of stuff is becomes invaluable when you actually want to try and do something serious in electronics. rather than just use electronics.

you just want to. But when you want to actually create something and trust me, it's not hard at all to come up with an idea that simply is not really that possible or really that elegant using just all this off-the-shelf how where stuff? Sure, it's good for concepts and things like that, getting things up and running really quickly. it just got an idea. You wanna, You know you, you know, tweet when you're running out of toilet paper or something.

Sure, okay, that sort of stuff possible. But hey, what happens when you want some sort of specialized interface? some sort of specialized sense is something that hasn't been done before. Something where you might find that off-the-shelf code or whatever. It doesn't work and you have to start doing stuff.

even writing your own code, or more importantly, designing your own electronics. Just changing a few little requirements can easily put you in the realm of well. I've got to do some electronics. I've got to know how basic interfaces and at work.

Maybe how basic protocols work. You know, basic power supplies and can I supply enough power? What a low dropout voltage regulator is. Why does my product fail When it my little gadget fail when it drops below a certain voltage wise ago? Erratic all that sort of stuff. There's just countless things and Vikash specifically mentions that.

Well assume that I'm not building hobbyist boards for explicit sale to consumers. Well, okay, that might be the case. but what about if your your ideas really good to go. Wow! I think I'll make ten of these.

Maybe a hundred, you know, maybe you go on a forum and say oh yeah, I'll make a couple of these and then a hundred people want it. What do you do then? how do you build it? And that's the thing with electronics. It's always comes down to electronics engineers. We talked about this on the Amp hour.

No matter how easy and modular and everything else Electronics gets, electronics Design Engineers still have to make the final product because final products generally have to be specifically tailored in some way. You've got to do all your regular electronics engineering stuff. You've got to lay out a proper PCB You've got to do your building materials. You've got to do your research.

You're going to read data sheets. You got to understand what the specifications are. You've got to do design for testing, design for manufacture. All this sort of stuff and that can be just for a simple product.

Even if you're making like ten of them, it can be a real big deal. So there is every reason to learn all these basic electronics. Taking a stripper, five timer, flashing your LED on the breadboard because you learn stuff. and I've always said the best way to learn stuff is when you fail because if you just take your Raspberry Pi or your Arduino and you hook it up to your little Wi-Fi module here and you write some code and it all works.

And the biggest thing that might happen is your code doesn't work so you change the code. What have you learned? You have a learn electronics. You're not an electronics hobbyist. You're just basically a programmer using some off-the-shelf gadgets I don't even other if there is a word for that sort of.

you know person who does those sort of things. It could be maker I don't know. Well, it's not really making cuz you haven't made anything as such in terms of electronics anyway. So what what good is that? The whole point have been: an electronics hobbyist is actually learning electronics.

This is application stuff. This is not electronics and it won't get you very far away to get up a couple of simple you know, gadgets working or something like that. But beyond that, you're completely screwed. That's why it's vital to learn all your basic electronics.

And hey, it's fun. People do electronics for fun that they like playing around with breadboards and building stuff up. If you just enjoy using your Arduino and hook it up with shield and making something, well, hey, great, more power to you, right? That's fine. But it's not electronics and electronics on its own can be an end unto itself.

It can just be fun. Or you can actually use your electronics design skills that you can gain by playing around with breadboards. And when things fail, that is the way to do it. As I said before, the real learning with electronics comes from actually failing.

and then you have to troubleshoot stuff. Understand how things work, go back to your building blocks or your fundamentals. Okay, what's wrong here? Let's figure it out. this traceless circuit out.

What Am I doing wrong? I Didn't put enough decoupling on there all. My regulator is. drop it out. I've got to use my test gear to measure all this stuff.

And that's electronics. And that's why it's still very important. In fact, vital. if your electronics hobbyist, you've got to learn this sort of stuff.

You gotta learn your building blocks and your basics. Everything stems from that. Even making the simplest change to your thing, you're just. you're a little widget that you've thrown together with a couple of off-the-shelf modules.

The slightest change to that is going to require proper electronics. Hobbyists kills. So yes. Well, in today's world, you can do an incredible amount of fantastic stuff without knowing any basic I'm Le Tranqs building blocks or any basic electronics knowledge at all.

You can't go any further than that and this is nothing new. You can do this. You know, 20 years ago there were sort of like off-the-shelf solutions to put things together. It's like for example, you can design a whole automated tests s amount of all National Instruments are stuff for example, in use LabVIEW with all its things and plugging all your National Instruments cards and hook things up and and just have it all work without knowing much of anything about electronics.

But when you want to do the slightest bit difference, you want a different sort of interface or you might need a custom amplifier on the front end to do something you would. you've got to go back to your fundamental electronics. That's what it's all about. So Nova Cache.

It is not wasting your time to learn electronics fundamentals. It is absolutely vital and it can open so many doors that you don't know need opening yet and you'll only come across those when you come across them. And if you don't have the electronic skills to back it up, you kind of have to eventually learn. So yes, get your breadboard, get your triple V timer, get your lead, stick it on there.

I Hope it doesn't work and you have to troubleshoot it because then you'll learn something. So there you go. I Hope you like this blab. If you've got a different opinion if you agree or disagree comments down below: Go for it.

Catch you next time.