Learn At Home: SparkFun's Top 15 Concept and How-To Tutorials
Let's take a look at some of our favorite tutorials to help you learn at home!
SparkFun is known for its tutorials - our projects, concept overviews and guides have helped many engineers solve day-to-day problems; inspired at-home electronics enthusiasts; and supported students working toward an engineering degree. Based on a quick look at our website analytics and a survey of a few of our in-house technical folks, the following is a collection of our top concept and how-to tutorials - have fun working your way through these!
How to Solder: Through-Hole Soldering
This tutorial covers everything you need to know about through-hole soldering.
PCB Basics
What exactly IS a PCB? This tutorial will breakdown what makes up a PCB and some of the common terms used in the PCB world.
Voltage, Current, Resistance, and Ohm's Law
Learn about Ohm's Law, one of the most fundamental equations in all electrical engineering.
Voltage Dividers
Turn a large voltage into a smaller one with voltage dividers. This tutorial covers: what a voltage divider circuit looks like and how it is used in the real world.
How to Use a Breadboard
Welcome to the wonderful world of breadboards. Here we will learn what a breadboard is and how to use one to build your very first circuit.
What is an Arduino?
What is this 'Arduino' thing anyway? This tutorials dives into what an Arduino is and along with Arduino projects and widgets.
What is Electricity?
We can see electricity in action on our computers, lighting our houses, as lightning strikes in thunderstorms, but what is it? This is not an easy question, but this tutorial will shed some light on it!
Analog vs. Digital
This tutorial covers the concept of analog and digital signals, as they relate to electronics.
How to Read a Schematic
An overview of component circuit symbols, and tips and tricks for better schematic reading. Click here, and become schematic-literate today!
Alternating Current (AC) vs. Direct Current (DC)
Learn the differences between AC and DC, the history, different ways to generate AC and DC, and examples of applications.
Transistors
A crash course in bi-polar junction transistors. Learn how transistors work and in which circuits we use them.
How to Use an Oscilloscope
How to work the dials and buttons on an oscilloscope, and a glossary of the o-scope lexicon.
Basic LED Animations for Beginners (Arduino)
Let's have some fun with LEDs! We'll explore LEDs once again with the SparkFun RedBoard Qwiic, making cool effects, and putting those effects to work using a sensor.
Basic Servo Control for Beginners
An introductory tutorial demonstrating several ways to use and interact with servo motors!
If you have a favorite concept or how-to tutorial you would like to add to the list, please leave your recommendation in the comments section.
