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I'm a recently graduated electrical engineer, but my curriculum never focused on electronics, besides the standard introductory level courses. I specialized in telecommunications and I mostly work on the software side of things, with some FPGA design thrown into the mix.

I'd like to learn to design circuits compliant with the "good practices" found in industrial designs. For example, a simple circuit could work without adding bypass capacitors to stabilize voltages, but this surely would be frowned upon by an experienced designer. Another example would be properly protecting a circuit.

I believe this is the kind of stuff that you can "pick up on the job" when your work is reviewed by an experienced designer. Eventually this becomes second nature and you end up learning all of these good practices. Is there any hope for a hobbyist like me to learn this stuff?

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    \$\begingroup\$ Read application notes, and analyze well designed circuits (preferably those in successful commercial products or application notes written by folks such as Robert Pease, Jim Williams etc.) Try to figure out why every part is there and why it has the value it does. There's a lot of really bad circuits on the Internet, so take those with a large grain of NaCl. \$\endgroup\$ Oct 31, 2014 at 20:01
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    \$\begingroup\$ Yes pick something that interests you and go build a circuit :) Bread board it if you have to, look into a free schematic and or layout too if you are ambitious. Post what you've come up with here and people will give you feed back and guide you along the way. If you are serious about learning, and you do this and build any kind of your own board I will give you my email and help you directly. Nothing will teach you this like trying and failing for yourself. Says the old engineer :) \$\endgroup\$ Oct 31, 2014 at 20:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ +1 for go build something. (I hardly remember my successes, I never forget all my mistakes.) And get a copy of "Art of Electronics" if you don't already own it. \$\endgroup\$ Oct 31, 2014 at 20:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks for the suggestions! As for the "go build something" comments, I already designed some PCBs for school projects and a few small personal projects as well. There's a lot you can do with patience, google-fu and some basic electronics knowledge! However, even if my boards worked when I was done soldering them I know an experienced designer would probably facepalm at some of the "design" decisions I made. I was hoping some books would cover such design rules, as opposed to providing simple building blocks such as 10 different variations of non-inverting amplifiers. \$\endgroup\$
    – Andrew Mpy
    Oct 31, 2014 at 20:20
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    \$\begingroup\$ The Art of Electronics, third edition due out Real Soon Now (TM). \$\endgroup\$
    – Dave Tweed
    Oct 31, 2014 at 20:20

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