Awesome Electronics 
A curated list of awesome resources for Electronic Engineers and
hobbyists
Electronic Engineering (EE) is the practice of understanding,
designing and building electronic circuits. It is often differentiated
from electrical engineering in that it mostly deals with low power DC
electronic circuits rather than high power AC systems but there is a lot
of overlap between electronic and electrical engineering.
Experimenting with and building electronic circuits is also a popular
hobby and many professional resources are often equally applicable to
hobbyists and vice versa.
This list is for websites, services, software, tools and more:
everything that you think is awesome in the world of Electronic
Engineering. If you have anything to add please follow the instructions
in contributing.md.
Contents
Learning
Technical Tutorials
Courses
Theory
- Basic
Electronics PPT - Contains conceptual explaination of diode, BJT,
J/MOS-FET, LED, 7 seg display, photo-resistor/diode/transistor
- Electronics
textbook - Text covers design and function of electronic circuits
and components, DC analysis, and AC analysis.
- Student
Handbook - Language used in this book easily understandable covers
evolution, fundamentals, diode, rectifiers, transistors and its
applications, SCR, DIAC and TRIAC.
- Electronics
circuits and systems - Quality free e-book covering all topics under
circuits and systems, highly recommended for conceptual
understanding.
- Lessons
In Electric Circuits - Free high quality textbooks and worksheets
with emphasis on theory, simulation, and the socratic method.
- Ultimate Electronics:
Practical Circuit Design and Analysis - Free online book with
interactive schematics & simulations by CircuitLab (under
development).
University Course Archives
Documentation
- Inkscape
Electric Symbols - Circuit Drawing Symbols for Inkscape
- Tabula - Extract tabular data
from a pdf, very useful for extracting pin tables or part
characteristics from datasheets.
- WebPlotDigitizer -
Extract data from plots, charts, etc., very useful for getting part
performance curves from datasheets.
- WaveDrom - Create waveforms and
timing diagrams from a JSON description file.
Simulators
Analog and Mixed
Signal Circuit Simulators
- LTspice
- The industry standard free SPICE circuit simulator from Linear
Technologies. Also see the unofficial LTwiki and Group.
- ngspice - Open source
SPICE circuit simulator.
- Circuit
JS/Falstad - Free, open source online simulator with electron flow
visualization (rewrite of original Java applet by Paul Falstad).
- EveryCircuit - Free to try
online, visual, interactive circuit simulator for simpler circuits.
- Qucs - Open source,
cross-platform, non-SPICE-based circuit simulator, with with S-parameter
and Harmonic Balance capability.
- Qucs-S - Open source fork of
Qucs using SPICE for simulation.
- QucsStudio - Free,
closed-source, Windows-only fork of Qucs with a similar interface, new
engine, and more features.
- Open Circuit Design
Software - Open Source, full EDA suite chip design suite, focused on
keeping up with commercial tools.
- TINA-TI - Exclusive DesignSoft-TINA build for Texas
Instruments, bundled with Texas Instruments Models.
- CppSim - Free, open source
circuit simulator that leverages the C++ language to achieve very fast
simulation times.
- Scilab with Xcos - Free, open
source numerical computing alternative to MATLAB. Xcos provides
Electrical System modeling capability similar to Simulink.
- iCircuit - Easy to use
electronic circuit simulator, its advanced simulation engine can handle
both analog and digital circuits and features realtime always-on
analysis.
- Micro-Cap
- Professional-grade mixed signal simulator with wide variety of
interactive simulation types.
- GeckoCIRCUITS -
Open Source Power Electronic Circuit Simulator. GitHub
Project. Direct download
link due to broken website.
- Proteus - PCB Design and
Circuit Simulator Software.
Verilog HDL Simulators
- Verilator -
Free, open source Verilog compiler. Test benches are in C++ or SystemC.
Very fast, but limted to 2-state, cycle-based simulation, and
synthesizeable code only.
- Icarus Verilog - Free,
open source verilog interpreter. Test benches are in behavioral verilog.
Simulation is 4-state, and event-based.
Gerber Viewers
Online
- Tracespace Viewer - Gerber
viewer that lets you inspect the individual layers as well as the board
preview.
- Gerblook - Online Gerber
viewer powered by Gerbv.
- Mayhew Labs 3dpcb - 3D
Gerber viewer.
- CircuitPeople - No frills 2D
layer viewer for Gerbers, without the excessive processing.
- Stackrate Viewer - Easy
to use online gerber viewer with trace hovering and measurement
tools.
Installable
- Gerbv - Excellent
Gerber viewer for Linux and BSD.
- KiCAD Gerbview - The KiCAD gerber
viewer.
- GC-Prevue -
Commercial with free version. Can handle some gerbers better than Gerbv
and KiCAD.
- ZofZPCB - FREE 3D Gerber
Viewer.
Free EDA Packages
- KiCad - Open source EDA package
with push and shove router, differential pairs and much more.
- Eagle
- One of the most popular EDA packages due to it’s (board size
restricted) free version.
- DesignSpark
PCB - Gratis EDA package without restrictions, sponserd by RS
Components.
- Altium CircuitMaker - Free
package from the maker of the go to pro software.
- gEDA - Another open source
package, good for people that like scripting and makefiles, Linux and
BSD only.
- DipTrace - Quality Schematic
Capture and PCB Design software with (pin and signal layer restricted)
free version.
- LibrePCB - A new, powerful and
intuitive EDA tool for everyone, cross-platform and GNU GPLv3.
- Horizon EDA - A
free and open source EDA tool with the focus on shortcut operation.
- EasyEDA - Easy to use with both
browser based and cross platform app versions. Integrates LCSC and JLCPCB component catalogs with 3D
models.
Paid EDA Packages
- Altium - PCB Design Software
& Tools.
- Proteus - PCB Design and
Circuit Simulator Software.
CAD Specific
KiCad
Eagle
Altium
PCB Batching Services
- PCBShopper - Comparison
service for quite a lot of different PCB batching and assembly
services.
- OSH Park - Low cost PCB batching
service with high quality boards with a signature purple
silkscreen.
- Aisler - Affordable quality circuit
boards made in and shipped from Europe (Germany).
- Dirty PCBs - Low cost
PCB batching service that prides itself on its “dirty” quality.
- JLCPCB - Low cost PCB batching
service with inhouse low cost SMT service.
- PCBWay - Low cost PCB batching
service with PCBA, CNC and 3D-Printing services.
Part Search Engines
- Kitspace - Project sharing site
that helps you buy parts and re-build projects. Open source and
developed by yours truly.
- Hackaday.io - Social site for
sharing projects from the popular blog.
- Hackster.io - Another social
site for sharing projects. Is well organised by platform, topic and
product.
- InventHub - Git-based project
hosting and collaboration platform for hardware development.
- CADLAB - Another Git-based project
hosting and collaboration platform for hardware development.
- Eyrie - For viewing Eagle and KiCad
designs online.
- WikiFactory - A project
hosting and collaboration platform for product development. Filter for
“electronics” for more electronics related projects.
- Instructables - A
social site for sharing projects. Filter for “circuits” for more
electronics related projects.
Inventory Management and
Purchasing
- 1-click BOM -
Browser extensions that automates purchasing and part searching.
- PartsBox - Web service to manage
your part inventory with a nice user interface and Octopart
integration.
- PartKeepr - Open source web
service for managing your part inventory with parametric search and
automatic datasheet import.
- Part-DB - Another
open source web service for managing part inventory with a permission
system and a good barcode generator.
Miscellaneous Software
Projects
- SnapEDA - Parts library with
free symbols & footprints. (Compatible with Eagle, KiCad, Altium,
OrCad, Allegro, etc.)
- Language PCB -
Syntax highlighting for various PCB formats.
- NinjaCalc - An
embedded engineering calculator toolbox for doing calculations in a
breeze.
- Saturn PCB
Design Toolkit - The Saturn PCB Toolkit is the best freeware
resource for PCB related calculations you can find.
Development Board Retailers
- Sparkfun - Retailer and
designer of open source electronics development boards and other
equipment and materials with excellent accompanying tutorials.
- Adafruit - Another retailer
and designer with excellent selection and tutorials.
- Tindie - Marketplace for
electronics makers to sell low volume batches of their own designs.
Blogs
- Hackaday - Probably the most
popular blog covering electronics and hardware hacking with a whole
staff of writers.
- bunniestudios.com -
Andrew ‘Bunnie’ Huang covers hardware hacking, open hardware,
manufacturing and more.
- Bald Engineer - Project
logs, tutorials and articles about electronics and embedded software by
James Lewis.
- Rheingold Heavy - More
project logs, tutorials and articles about electronics and embedded
software, these ones by Dan Hienzsch.
- Hackster.io - Another
blog covering electronics.
- Dangerous
Prototypes - Blog about open source hardware projects and
interesting app notes.
- N-O-D-E - Blog about DIY
electronics, hardware, and technology.
Forums
Discussion
- EEVBlog forum -
Probably the largest and most active forum to discuss Electronic
Engineering topics.
- /r/electronics
and /r/ECE are the two most
active sub-reddits for EE topics.
Help
- /r/askelectronics -
Sub-reddit dedicated to help on electronics topics.
- Electronics Stack
Exchange - Question and answer site for electronics running on the
popular Stack Overflow service.
- EEVBlog beginners
forum - Good place for beginner questions, other sub-forums on
EEVblog should be suitable for questions on more advanced topics.
Podcasts
- The Amp Hour - Off-the-cuff
chat about electronics with Chris Gammel and Dave Jones (EEVBlog), often
with guests
- Embedded.fm - Christopher and
Elecia White discuss embedded systems development and much more, often
with guests.
- The Spark Gap Podcast - Covers
a specific EE topic each episode, sometimes with guests.
- MacroFab Engineering
Podcast - Weekly podcast where Parker and Stephen from MacroFab
discuss EE topics and industry news.
- The Engineering Commons
Podcast - Covers general engineering topics from mechanical to
electrical.
Videos
- EEVblog - One of
the earliest and most successful YouTube channels where Dave Jones does
teardowns, tutorials and more.
- BigClive - YouTube channel
about teardowns (including dangerous products), circuit
reverse-engineering and tutorials.
- ElectroBOOM -
YouTube channel that debunks and explains EE topics with a lot of comedy
thrown in.
- Micah Scott -
Video logs of reverse engineering and re-purposing consumer electronics
hardware in creative ways.
- Afrotechmods
- Tutorials on electronics projects, often suitable for beginners as
well.
- The Signal
Path - Very in depth teardowns, repairs and reviews of lab equipment
and prototyping products.
- w2aew
- Excellent tutorials about basic and complex analog hardware.
- Mr. Carlson’s
Lab - Teardowns, repairs and restorations with an emphasis on
classic electronics gear.
- GreatScott
- Electronics tutorials, projects and how to’s.
- Julian Ilett -
Buys cheapest electronic modules he can find and tries to do useful
things with them.
- MikesElectricStuff
- Teardowns, large lighting projects, xrays and more.
- Ben
Eater - Series of videos on building an 8-bit computer on
breadboards with excellent explanations of all the sub-circuits.
- Robert Feranec -
100+ Hardware design tips and tricks. Videos about Schematic design and
PCB layout.
- Strange Parts - YouTube
channel about electronics, manufacturing, making, world travel,
living in and making things in China.
Subscription Kit Services
- AdaBox - Curated
Adafruit products, unique collectibles, and exclusive discounts. All
delivered quarterly.
- HackerBoxes - A monthly
surprise box which includes projects, components, modules and
tools.
3D Part Models
- GrabCad -
Community supported database of 3D models with a large number of
electronic component models.
- 3D ContentCentral -
Website dedicated to 3D models of parts (requires login).
Other Lists
Arabic Section