things change, right.
So at first when you design something, you have an idea of what the behavior is gonna
be and you think you know what the components will be.
And then you start doing it, you get into the design and
often you have to back off track.
You might implement something and realize,
oh you know what I need a different component this doesn't work for me.
So that can happen, there's always that risk.
But at the beginning to start building your system you're going to have to have
some idea of the type of components that you're gonna need.
So that's always a trial right, to figure out which components you're gonna buy.
Now, you start with a micro controller, but you need other components around that.
And each one of these components has different parameters.
Different sizes for instance, different, and you might care about that.
You might need this whole design to fit into a certain space, right?
So you're worried about the size.
Different voltage, different electrical parameters right,
how much current can this component take, right?
Maybe this LED can only take 20 milli amps, which is sort of common.
So if you drive it with more than that, you'll blow up the LED, things like this.
So everyone of these components has these features that you have to consider before
you order them.
Now back in the old days when I was a kid,
when you wanted to do one of these projects, you'd go to a store,
Radio Shack which is gone now, you go to RadioShack and you could buy the parts.
And the people in the store could help you with the parts.
So they were knowledgeable about these little parts.
So they would say, oh that chip, it will do this, but this component,
this resistor is no good for that purpose or something, right?
They'd give you, they have knowledge about the different components and
what they did, but those components don't cost a lot, right?
Switches and things like that, they're pretty cheap, so stores like Radio Shack,
things like that,
they don't particularly care about selling those things anymore, frankly.
I mean they sell them, But they don't make a lot of money off of them,
I get the feeling.
They make money off of selling cellphone deals, or
something like this, something else.
So you go into these stores and generally,
the people are not knowledgeable about their components, which means that it is
on is on you to understand these components of what they do.
So you can't rely, most of the time, unless you go to a good store and
there are stores like that where you can get somebody who really knows what he or
she's talking about, but often, you are on your own.
And another thing too is that these type of hobbiest electrical stores,
they're rare, they are few and far between these days.
You can't find stores that have these parts.
I mean I go to Fry's, things like this, also other local places, but
it's hard to find these parts.
So often you're buying these components online.
You go online, you look at websites.
Now these websites, there are a lot of different websites and
they're very complete, they have tons of components.
But in some ways, it's sort of data overload, there are too many components,
too many slight variations.
So you see 100 components that look similar and
you have to figure out exactly the one that you want.
And I can't tell you how many times I thought I wanted a component, I ordered
the component, it comes a week later and then tada, it is not what I needed.
It is somehow slightly wrong and now I have to go and order new parts and
cycle through that.
And it is inevitable that will happen to some extent, so just be ready for that.
But you really wanna minimize that, you wanna to be able to know before you go and
order these parts, you want to be able to know that they match your needs,
as well as you can know that.
So that is what data sheets are for.
So, data sheets are basically information sheets about hardware components and
every component has a data sheet.
The simplest components, maybe you don't have a data sheet.
For instance, a resistor, actually even resistors you can probably find data
sheets, but a resistor is so simple you don't need a datasheet for that, okay?
They have very few parameters, but any kind of complicated
component will have a datasheet that tells you all kinds of information about it.
The size, the shape, the inputs, the outputs, the voltage, all the electrical
parameters, things like this all the data that you need in order to use it.
So reading these datasheets is really important.
You can always find data sheets online, you find the part number, you type
it into Google, the part number, type data sheet and you will find data sheets.
And they can be very complicated to read, but
it is important that you be able to minimally read them.
At least find the important information, just so you can order the parts you're
gonna need to make these devices that you will be making.
Thank you.
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