Secret to learning electronics, fail and fail often - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2017, 03:10:52 am
content: This is so good.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2017, 08:28:11 am
content: Personally I prefer "let's makenewmistakes".

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2017, 09:15:29 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 13, 2017, 08:28:11 amMy understanding is that while a person is learning a new subject and/or improving their Electronics knowledge. Making mistakes, whether new or old ones, is an important part of the learning process.On the other hand, one needs to be careful that any mistakes do not cause injury or worse. So that safety precautions must still be adhered to.By the way I like her videos a lot and have seen a significant number of them, including the exciting walking and messing about on a red hot volcano adventures one.Do NOT do this, it is both highly dangerous and way, way too much fun:

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2017, 12:14:45 pm
content: I prefer to learn from other people's mistakes---we're not all as smart as Jeri!I made plenty of mistakes in my early attempt at Electronics,but what I learnt was "Don't try this again till you know a lot more about it!"That is my main gripe with many beginners:- They want to do things which they don't have the most basic understanding of.And it isn't only "beginners":-Over the years,I've run into people who spend huge amounts of time on some project which is doomed to failure.The "naysayers" will tell them that,only to be put down as "negative" by their supporters.When the idea is proven to be unworkable,strangely enough,the proponents of this stupid project will still "come out smelling like roses",whereas the poor old "naysayer" is still saddled with the "negative" tag!

author: Seekonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2017, 01:08:08 pm
content: Often I see here a perfectly workable design with wrong component values is radically changed by the suggestion of others before the poster understands why the first one failed. Nothing learned.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2017, 03:45:35 pm
content: Quote from: Seekonk on January 13, 2017, 01:08:08 pmI would expect many people to make such a mistake. There's only "nothing learned" if they make the same mistake again!

author: SingedFingers
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2017, 07:02:55 pm
content: Sometimes I make a mistake twice on purpose because the first time the results were interestingDisclaimer: only applies if smoke or fire comes out of something on the first attempt.Today I killed two 2n2219's when attempting to build a crystal oven heater with them. I didn't get to see where the smoke comes out of in a canned transistor so I did it again. From its bottom for ref.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 13, 2017, 11:43:02 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 13, 2017, 03:45:35 pmThey often do!!We have all seen posters on this forum who have gotten off on a tangent following other's suggestions reposting their original question sometime later.