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Øyvind Nydal Dahl

Øyvind Nydal Dahl is an author, maker, and electronics enthusiast from Norway. He holds a master's degree in electronics from the University of Oslo and have been teaching electronics since 2012 through books, workshops, courses and articles. He's the founder of the online electronics academy Ohmify. And he's the author of Electronics For Kids and A Beginner's Guide To Circuits.

How to Use an Oscilloscope – The Beginner’s Guide

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How to use an oscilloscope

Knowing how to use an oscilloscope is very useful when building electronic circuits. When your circuit is not working, it will help you figure out what is going on.

I learned how to use an oscilloscope pretty much on my own. The first time I tried one, I only got some simple instructions, then I was left to myself to figure things out.

But I found that it wasn’t really that hard…

The oscilloscope can be a bit overwhelming with all its functions. But you don’t need to know every detail of it. You can actually come a long way by knowing just a few simple things.

So I want to pass those simple things on to you so that you can start using an oscilloscope on your own.

Learn Electronics With These 10 Simple Steps

Man building electronics illustration

Do you want to learn electronics, so that you can build your own gadgets? There is a ton of resources on learning electronics – so where do you start?

And what do you actually need?

And in which order?

Components on a stripboard

If you don’t know what you need to learn, you can easily waste a lot of time learning unnecessary things.

And if you skip some of the simple but crucial first steps, you’ll struggle with even the basic circuits for a long time.

How to Create Gerber Files in KiCad

Gerber files viewn in KiCad's gerbview

Gerber files are actually images of the different layers of your Printed Circuit Board (PCB). And it’s a universal way of sending your design to a PCB manufacturer. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create these files in KiCad.

Gerber files viewed in KiCad's gerbview
Example of two gerber file layers viewed in KiCad

PCB Design: How to Create a Printed Circuit Board From Scratch

To design a Printed Circuit Board (PCB), you need to draw holes, pads, and wires for your circuit.

Illustration of PCB design

When you’re done drawing the board, you can either send the design to a manufacturer that will make it for you (it’s actually pretty cheap) – or you can etch it yourself at home.

This skill is called PCB design and it’s easier than many think.

In this guide, I’ll lay out all the steps for you. And once you’ve gone through these steps one time, the second time everything is much easier.

The Soldering Tools That Make Your Life Easier

The most important of the soldering tools is the soldering iron

The only soldering tools you really need to get started with soldering are a soldering iron and some solder. If you just want to get started, that’s what I recommend you get.

Even though you can do a lot with just a soldering iron, getting a few extra tools could make things easier.

In this article, I’ll show you what the basic soldering tools are.

The Sunrise Wake-Up Alarm

Sunrise wakeup alarm on a breadboard

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to build an sunrise wake-up alarm. It’s a light-sensitive circuit that will activate a buzzer when you have light shining directly on it. Place it in your window at night and the alarm will activate in the morning when the sun rises.

Tips: This trick will help you understand circuits

Understanding ciruits using loops is difficult

Are you struggling to understand circuits and see how currents flow?

I wrote this based on an interaction I had with Gary.

And maybe it can help you.

I was developing some new material for a course.

And I used Gary as my test subject. He’s an adult British gentleman with no electronics background whatsoever.

He told me that if he could understand this, then anyone could.

Where To Buy Electronic Components?

Buy electronic components online

There are a bunch of places to buy electronic components.

Myself, I love to go to a brick-and-mortar store to buy components, because then I can get them without waiting. Unfortunately, many cities don’t have these anymore. So what do you do?

Tips: How to combine components?

“How to combine components to get a specific function?”

Many people ask me this.

But that’s like if you want to learn the piano and ask:

“How to combine notes to play a specific song?”

What you need to do to learn to play the piano is to practice playing the piano.

What Is an Inductor? A Practial Guide for Hobbyists

A simple homemade inductor

The inductor is a simple component, and how it works is also pretty simple. The only problem is that most explanations do not explain it in a simple way.

So, what is an inductor? Well, it’s kind of a strange component. At the most basic level, it is just a coil of wire. And it’s easy to make one — just make some loops with a wire.

But wires actually create magnetic fields. And that means the inductor behaves in an interesting way and can do interesting stuff.

A simple homemade inductor

How To Solder – A Simple Guide For Beginners and Hobbyists

Cartoon man soldering
Man soldering (illustration)

Everyone can learn how to solder. And it’s an important skill to know want to build electronics.

Basic soldering is easy. All you need is a soldering iron and some solder. When my dad taught me as a teenager, I remember picking it up quite fast.

In this soldering guide, you’ll learn first learn to solder two wires. Then you’ll learn to solder components on a circuit board. If you’re already familiar with this, consider jumping over to my guide on SMD soldering or reflow soldering.

Also, check out my article on the soldering tools you need to get started.

Electronic Schematics – What You Need To Know

Electronic schematics are like recipes for electronics. They tell you what ingredients to use and how to mix the ingredients. But instead of using text to explain the recipe, a drawing is used.

They are also called circuit diagrams. Learn how to read schematics here.

Circuit Ideas And Where To Find Them

Getting an idea

Circuit ideas are everywhere! There are many places to find cool circuits.

The greatest sources for my inspiration are hacker/maker/electronics blogs, schematic webpages, hobby project pages, and open-source hardware companies.

Or you can also check out some electronic kits for inspiration.

Sometimes I just want to try to replicate an electronic circuit I’ve found on the web. Either because it is something I need or just to prove to myself that I can do it. Like this amplifier circuit diagram.

Sometimes I find something cool that I want to modify and improve on. And other times I get completely new circuit ideas out of the blue that I want to build.

How To Build An Automatic Night Light Circuit

Blue light from the Automatic Night-light Circuit

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to build an automatic night light circuit that turns on when it gets dark. It’s a simple circuit that you can build on a breadboard.

This circuit shows you how to do it with an LED. But you can use the same principle to turn on bigger and brighter lights too.

Find the breadboard diagram and parts list below the video.

Cap Half Full #5 – Let’s build a buck converter!

DIY buck converter with Arduino

In this episode, we start out with the idea of building a buck converter with a microcontroller. We realize that we’ve never built a buck converter before, so we go through our thought process live to figure out what we need to do. We built one buck converter each. Elias used a Bluepill and Oyvind