http://compatt.com/Tutorials/NEETS/NEETS.html
Content updated in 2011.
Thank you so much! I've been looking for this for at least fifteen years!
And there are even links to previous HTML versions (this one is PDF)... amazing!
I want to say that’s cool, avoid common pitfalls in explanations, but I want to to point out that all analogies fall short, otherwise they would be the same thing, and not an analogy.
That is, if the hydraulic analogy were perfect, then that would mean that electronics would just behave as a fluid and we could teach it an a part of fluid dynamics.
But instead it is an analogy, electronics is not a part of fluid dynamics, there’s just a few similarities that can be used for teaching.
It’s not unusual to teach an imperfect simplistic model at first that you intend to supplement later with more details that break the analogy.
We can use water to explain why capacitors in series have less capacitance!
I'm now thinking whether we could build a water pressure multiplier using the cascade voltage multiplier topology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage_multiplier
Use some rubber dams or flexible pipes for the capacitors, one-way backstop valves for the diodes, and then some back-and-forth pumping mechanism to generate water AC. It should work.
> Today, I’d like to close this gap with a couple of crisp definitions that stay clear of flawed hydraulic analogies, but also don’t get bogged down by differential equations or complex number algebra.
Related: many, many years ago, when Facebook didn't exist yet, Google still passed as a "good" company, and hobbyist electronic geeks had almost only PICs to choose from, I found online a very long and complete electronic course that went from 0 to basic R/C concepts, to transistors, up to pretty advanced topics like magnets/transformers and IIRC radio too.
It was made of pretty raw HTML pages and images, and what was most peculiar about it was that it managed to explain a lot of concepts up to an applicable level (as in, actually designing analog circuits) without (any?) calculus at all.
Some of those may be false memories, but if I remember correctly:
* Its HTML style had a yellowy background * It was taken from an old-ish (US?) navy electric engineer-focused applied electronics course for training naval engineers. * It was more focused on analog circuits
I remember I downloaded it all but after all those years who knows where it could be. Maybe in some 1GB disk of my first Pentium PC, so it's basically lost.
Does anyone in HN knows what I'm talking about? I was never able to find it again.
[1] https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/primer-core-concepts-in-elect...