Even the best electrical engineers have questions and need resources to stay successful. Today, the internet abounds with electrical engineering communities where users can ask and have answered their toughest technical questions. These communities help current and future engineers of all skill levels get the knowledge and resources they need to stay competitive, advance their careers, and start learning new areas of design.
Engineering professionals seek to connect with their colleagues at all stages of their careers. This is especially true for those seeking help with a challenging project. Online forums are also leveraged to extol the virtues of specific electronic components, especially parts new to the market. And these sites are also used to vent frustration and/or warn engineers about substandard products.
if you’re looking to find out how engineers think or what they need to solve their design issues, online communities are one of the best places to connect. Not only will these help you understand pain points, but they place you in the conversation, which opens the opportunity for suggesting viable solutions. Once established as a trusted and reliable source, your posts and company will be sought out in electrical engineering communities. First, however, you need to know which are the most important to be a member of based on the engineers you want to engage with.
Popular Electrical Engineering Community Sites
Many forums and community sites are found online, ranging from user forums on CAD vendor websites to engineering-specific community forums and blogs. We’ve outlined some of the best forums that provide content across multiple topic areas and experience levels. If you haven’t tried out some of these community sites for yourself, take a look to see what they have to offer.
StackExchange
Software engineers are probably most familiar with StackExchange as a community where developers can ask questions and get help solving coding problems. Over the past several years, StackExchange has nurtured a vibrant engineering community in all disciplines, most notably in electrical and electronics engineering. Users who want answers to tough technical questions can get answers from experienced engineers or answer questions from other users and earn reputation points.
StackExchange comes with some important rules designed to ensure content quality. For example, users who post questions must articulate their explanation or what they believe the answer to be for the question to be considered high quality. Users are also encouraged to cite sources that justify their current understanding to help other users develop an appropriate answer. This question-answer style interaction created on StackExchange has been replicated on another site that has exploded in popularity over several years.
SI-List
This community is not a website, but rather a long-standing community of signal integrity experts that corresponds via a Listserv. SI-List focuses on PCB layout and routing, signal integrity, power integrity, and EMI/EMC topics. The community is essentially a Q&A mailing list that is free to join, and all discussions are conducted via email. The community has been in existence for 20 years, boasting membership by some of the best-known experts in the field.
EEVBlog Forum
This site was founded by Australian electronic design engineer David Jones, who may be best known for his video blogs on Youtube, including device teardowns, tutorials, and a bit of myth-busting. The EEVBlog Forum boasts a huge community of new and experienced engineers. Over 2 million posts have been added to the forum by over 52,000 members. Content topics span basic PCB layout to MCU/FPGA design, open-source hardware, and manufacturing.
David Jones, founder of EEVBlog
FEDEVEL Forum
Founded by Robert Feranec, FEDEVEL forum is the primary user community for learning and support as part of FEDEVEL Academy. Robert Feranec is another well-known PCB design and layout instructor, and this forum provides one outlet where students can gain knowledge on design topics. In addition to PCB design and layout concepts, the site contains sub-forums on specific CAD packages, FPGA design, and project discussions. This electrical engineering community is also a place where professional engineers participate and share their knowledge.
All About Circuits Forum
This is one of the largest electrical engineering communities globally, with over 700,000 members. All About Circuits is best-known for its expansive content focused on all areas of electronics, ranging from fundamental circuit analysis to PCBs and manufacturing. The site also has sub-forums dedicated to embedded design topics, IC design, and software development. The wide range of topics makes the community ideal for users with broad experience and a range of interests.
Electro-Tech-Online
This is another large electrical engineering community that hosts sub-forums on a range of topics beyond PCB design. Topics are focused more on embedded, component selection, circuit analysis, and a dedicated sub-forum on IoT. In addition, sub-forums focused on specific application areas like automotive, renewable energy, and robotics. Users can also find product reviews, electronics repair advice, homework help, and even a job board.
Reddit, whose offices are in the heart of Silicon Valley, is not an engineering-specific platform. Instead of being a liability, the generality of communities that can be created there, makes it appealing. From novices to experienced engineers, the platform boasts many communities comprised of techies with similar interests. In addition to joining an existing group, starting a subreddit or new community is easy to do. No topic relevant to electronic design, manufacturing, or testing is out of bounds. At Reddit, posts are rated according to a voting scheme. The more thumbs up, the higher the ranking. And conversations can be questions, assertions, or any other reasonable format.
Why Engineering Communities Matter
Knowing where today’s engineers and the next generation, who are on the front lines of PCBA and electronic product development for OEMs and ODMs, go to get advice and information about the best ICs and manufacturers is invaluable in getting your products in front of them. These communities are where engineers give each other honest opinions about what components they use and why. This includes the best online resources for component CAD data and PCB design information to optimize component implementation.
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