Mostly self taught/lots of research and reading to do what I've done here.
With that said, I was somewhat of an electronics geek as a kid growing up which led me to go off to study electrical/computer engineering ~20 years ago. The ironic part is undergrad elec engineering doesn't really show you much of anything hands on. I spent my days doing complex math and theory like converting from frequency domain to time domain (fun stuff! :cross
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Anyone with a little bit of electronics experience won't have any problems understanding the types of control panels we use here. They're actually deceptively simple as they're mostly just a few very simple switches/controls. There's no actual discrete components like resistors, transistors, capacitors, integrated circuits, etc. That sort of circuit design is far more complex.
I've been told that I have a knack at taking complex subjects and making them easy to understand. If that's true I don't know where that skill came from.
A few years ago I wanted to what's called 'greyscale and colour calibration' for my home theater (stuff that typically costs 100's of dollars to have someone come in and do for you) so I wrote a
complete step-by-step DIY guide on it which has gotten good reviews. I suppose that was practice for a much more complex subject: Documenting my brewery build.
Kal