New members of Contextual Electronics and people learning electronics often ask me if they should be buying expensive test gear. I don’t think so.

Instead, I think you should focus on getting started with lower end equipment and using it to its limits before deciding to upgrade to high resolution or speed models. The important thing is to focus on the methods of measurement and troubleshooting, not getting bogged down with the specs of the gear you’re using.

Two of the devices we use for the course that were discussed in the video above:

• EX330 DMM
• Digilent Analog Discovery 2

Those links go to the “skills” modules, showing overviews of how to use the devices. We also use them regularly in course content.

If you’re reading this and not yet a member of Contextual Electronics, we also offer a discount on the Analog Discovery 2, so new members can get it at the “academic” discount when signing up for 3 months of Contextual Electronics.

If you have questions about the above video or the AD2 bundle deal, please ask in the forum below.

I’m excited to announce today that we are working with Digilent to offer a bundle deal that grants new members access to the Contextual Electronics (CE) course materials and student pricing on their popular Analog Discovery 2 (AD2) tool! This is the first time that educational pricing has been offered outside of a university setting and I’m so glad they decided to offer this to us!

When you make a 3 month commitment to Contextual Electronics, you can buy the AD2 Contextual Electronics Bundle at a reduced price; the bundle also includes a BNC breakout board and probes that plug into those BNC connections.

There are two options for future CE members:

• 3 months of Journeyman Access + the AD2 bundle —  $385
• 3 months of Apprentice Access + the AD2 bundle —  $300

I’m quite excited about this offering for a few reasons:

Instant signal visibility

In the world of electronics, nothing is really “visible” to the naked eye. Without visualizing what is going on in a circuit, it can be very difficult to troubleshoot circuits they build. Since CE members are normally beginners, their setup is less equipped than people working in the hobby or industry for a while. Circuits are unlikely to work on the first try and this tool will help diagnose issues.

A range of tool availability

How did CE work without test equipment?

Well, we didn’t. We have a standard list of low cost equipment, including DMMs, power supplies and soldering equipment. But the key missing piece has always been the oscilloscope. The entry level scopes are $400 and above (though these costs continue to drop); add up necessary test equipement, components on hand and having a range of hand tools for building boards and the startup costs can reach past $500 (even without a scope).

With the Analog Discovery 2, we not only get 2 channels of oscilloscopes, but also 2 signal generators, logic analyzer capabilities (including protocol analysis), power supplies, DMMs and more. See the full specifications here.

Portability

Notice I didn’t say a bench tool when talking about the AD2. It’s possible to take this device with you on the road or to your next troubleshooting spot. Anyone who travels and attempts to work on electronics understands the pain of lugging along the required equipment.

Software flexibility

Though some would consider this a drawback, I’m enamored by the idea of an all-software oscilloscope. This makes the navigation of the charts a bit more cumbersome (using scrollwheels on a 3 button mouse will help), but overall it allows a range of flexibility and multiple views on your data. For the extra ambitious, there is a scripting console in Waveforms 2015 where users can use Javascript to control the various devices on board. Other programmatic interfaces are possible via the API; there are examples in the Waveforms 2015 reference manual.

See it in action

Though these were not official course videos, I did some live-streaming of explorations of the AD2. As I mentioned in the video above, we’ll be releasing more official videos in the months ahead.

Questions?

Contextual Electronics has a free and open forum for discussing electronics projects. Use the link below to access the forum thread associated with this post and ask questions about the bundle on offer.

This is the third incarnation of both ContextualElectronics.com and the Contextual Electronics program. The program and the website seem to move in lock-step because of how important the delivery mechanism is for the content. In each version of the site (see the Wayback Machine for how the site has looked in the past), the content has been about delivering project-based instruction around electronics. In this version we are focusing on a few new things:

1. Using a separate skills-based library – Much of electronics is about practicing various skills over and over again. PCB layout, soldering, programming, choosing parts, simulations…all of these things come up again and again while doing project based instruction. We have broken them out in the CE 3.0.
2. Using a separate forum – This and every other version of CE has been built upon WordPress. While the content management system and the available plugins has removed the need for a fully custom site, it also was always very limited on the availability of a proper forum solution. We wanted users to be able to interact with one another, but the software was limiting. For CE 3.0, we have implemented a Discourse forum (the same software that runs the KiCad User Forum). This is still tied to the posts and courses that appear on the main site. Most importantly, we are allowing access for users outside of Contextual Electronics (ie. anyone can register on the forum site). We will write more on this in future posts, but are hoping that the forum will become a resource for all people looking to get started on their electronics journey.
3. Allowing direct tutoring at any level – The past versions of Contextual Electronics tied the tutoring from the CE instructors only to the members at the very highest tier. In retrospect, this seems silly. The users that are just getting started and likely to be signed up for the lower tiers of content are some of the most likely users to need one-on-one instruction. This is now broken out as a separate purchase and any user can sign up for weekly meetings with an electronics instructor.
4. Directly tracking course progress for each user – This was a feature available in CE 1.0 but was removed in CE 2.0 to attempt to drive greater integration of the forum and the course content. We have implemented a learning management system that will show each user which module they have marked complete, allowing them to easily see where they left off. This is also shown on the right column for all course modules to easily show how much content is remaining and to allow users to navigate forward and backward in a particular project module.
5. Focusing more on individual modules – Each incarnation of the site seems to move to smaller and smaller projects. This is not because a small project is “easy” (difficult projects are in the queue!). It’s because members can start and finish the projects without needing months of dedication. The reality is that Contextual Electronics is not like a University program: most users will not be able to dedicate months of their lives towards building a single project with no guarantee of success. We have broken out projects into digestible chunks of content, each still focusing on making a board that functions at the end of the project. This is accentuated by the new CE header, which will enable small projects with quick turnaround times.
6. Better logistics – The back-end processing and access management of the past versions of the site was always a bit cumbersome. The newest version of the site allows switching between various subscription levels with ease, swapping out payment methods easily and many other self-serve options. We are also running on an updated and optimized webserver, meant to deliver content at a much more consistent speed.

There are many things that are staying the same:

1. Using low-cost, accessible tools – Using KiCad and readily available test equipment and hand-tools.
2. Implementing project based instruction – All instruction will still focus on pairing theory and practice simultaneously. For any theory that is not already covered, it will be referenced at the point where it’s needed (Just in time learning)
3. Direct access to instructors -While the forum is the preferred method of communication for all content based questions, users can email support@contextualelectronics.com at any time.
4. Allowing easy payment options – We still use Stripe to implement our subscription payment system.
5. High quality video – We are still using Vimeo to store and deliver the various videos used for course content.

We are excited for this next version of Contextual Electronics. We think it will allow more efficient learning and greater connection between members of the program. Please let us know what you think!

Note: This is the older version of the Getting to Blinky 4.0 post. You can now participate and follow this (free) course here.

 

The KiCad team released a “Stable” version of KiCad late last year, the 4.0 release. As of the publishing of this post, the current version of KiCad is 4.0.6 and this is what is what we use for all contemporary Contextual Electronics work. This had some drastically different methods of library management and workflow from the 2013 release of KiCad, which is the version the original Getting To Blinky was based on.

We decided to re-do the Getting To Blinky series and will be pointing anyone landing on the old videos to these more recent videos. While the GTB series has been viewed 10’s of thousands of times, the software being out of sync has started to affect learners’ ability to really get going with KiCad and building electronics.

Also as part of this series, we included 3 new videos: SPICE Simulation, Ordering Parts and Building Blinky. While the SPICE is quite optional, the other two really should have been done for the previous series. Ordering parts is still a confusing task and critical to building real electronics on your own. And the fact that we never actually showed the blinky last time…well, we apologize for that. That last video also shows a bit of troubleshooting, which is a huge piece of electronics in general and the Contextual Electronics program. Things will not always go right and we want to equip you with the skills to get your hardware blinking reliably (or doing whatever it is meant to do).

If you enjoy this series, please consider sharing this post with the world. If you want to dig into electronics even more, consider signing up for our mailing list at the bottom of this page or signing up for the course. There are a lot of fun problems to solve in electronics and we do just that on a regular basis.

1. Intro
   
2. Creating Schematic Symbols
   
3. Finishing The Schematic
   
4. Library Setup and Part Association
   
5. Creating A New Library And Footprint
   
6. Creating The Layout
   
7. Generating Gerbers and Ordering Boards
   
8. SPICE Simulation
   
9. Ordering Parts
   
10. Building Blinky
    

Let’s start with two facts:

1. Everyone is in a hurry these days.
2. Electronics is not an easy or quick topic to learn.

Diving into the world of electronics and becoming an expert takes time! It’s something that is normally learned over years, not weeks. Why is that? One reason is the number of terms/situations/circuits a person must see before being comfortable with electronics. Sometimes the hardest part is understanding what you need to be researching. Even knowing the correct name for something is a critical step in moving forward with electronics education.

At Contextual Electronics, our solution is the 2 Minute Topics (2MT) video series. This is taking a complicated subject and explaining it in the span of two minutes. This should not only explain the topic, but give some context for why that topic matters. Here’s an intro about the idea:

View this 2 Minute Topic Introduction video on YouTube

We’ve started putting out some 2 minute topics about common things in the field of electronics:

• Vias
• Soldermask
• SPICE

These are just the beginning of the videos we will be making. The idea over time is that each 2 minute topic becomes narrower and narrower (more in depth). As the focus of a video narrows, it will allow greater discussion about that topic in the allotted 2 minutes. These will also build off of one another.

Do you have a topic you’d like to see covered in 2 minutes? Even if you think a topic is too broad, fear not! We can break it down into smaller and smaller pieces for subsequent 2MT videos. Email your suggestions to 2MT@contextualelectronics.com

For this and other videos about making electronics, the easiest way to ensure you hear about the newest 2MT videos is to subscribe to our YouTube channel. See you on YouTube!