Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Great Education Online, If You Know Where to Look

Henry Ford once said, "Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80."

Like many musings by Ford, there's quite a bit of truth to this one. And if you're designing, manufacturing or assembling PCBs, you simply can't afford to stop learning and training. You may find your company in bankruptcy (not always the end of the world, I have learned), or just wind up out of a job.

But you're in luck. More educational opportunities exist than ever before. Many classes are available at conferences and trade shows such as IPC APEX Expo, DesignCon and the PCB Design Conferences. And "gurus" like Eric Bogatin and Lee Ritchey offer workshops at locations around the world.

But with travel budgets still in recovery mode, it may be tough to get your manager to let you fly to a conference in the name of continued education. Plus, you're probably too overloaded with work to take time off, because half of your department was laid off in 2008 and your manager doesn't want to make any new hires until we're out of the economic woods.  

Fortunately, many sources on the Internet provide education and training in our respective fields. You just have to know where to look. It's not quite like attending a live training event. But you can improve your skill set through the Internet, and you can often do so free of charge.  

One big trend I've noticed in the past year is the spread of Webinars. It started years ago with EDA tool companies dipping their toes in the Webinar waters. Now, it seems as if everyone is holding Webinars--fabricators, assembly providers, OEMs and consulting firms.  

These "Web seminars" are usually built around a tool or proprietary process, but if you're a customer, the content should be of some value. And they're usually free--in exchange for your e-mail address, that is. Even the simplest Webinars have come a long way in a decade, with greatly improved GUI. But the Q&A capability, drawing from IM technology, may be the best feature of all. It's almost like being there. View as many Webinars as you can. You can keep working while they play, and if you miss something, so what? They're usually free. If you learn anything, it's a good day.

Often, you don't even need to attend a Webinar (Does one really attend a Webinar?) to learn a thing or two. In the PCB design and design engineering community, some of our leading minds post amazing content on their Web sites.

Some of the leading designers and design engineers don't mind giving away great content. Whenever I can, I visit the sites of Eric Bogatin, Istvan Novak, Colin Warwick, Jack Olson, Doug Smith, Henry Ott, Howard Johnson and Yuriy Shlepnev. They post papers, quizzes, app notes, resource links, technical tips and even humor.

If you're a designer, the User Group for your software tool can be a solid source of training information, and even breaking news. Years ago, the PADS User Group broke the story of a Mentor Graphics merger before it was announced. The User Groups are home to some serious "true believers."  

Then there is the ever-changing PCB blogosphere. Go to Google Blogs, search on printed circuit board or PCB, and you'll find design, fab and assembly blogs galore, hosted by all sorts of interesting folks. Some are experts in their fields, but others are just broadcasting.

I found blogs by authors who try to sound as if they're based down the street, instead of in Asia. A few blogs focus on helping North American OEMs outsource their PCB design and manufacturing to Asia, as if they needed any help. It's all there in the blogs: The good, bad and ugly.

Among the good blogs, Happy Holden and Tom Hausherr both post fairly regularly on the Mentor Graphics blog site. And one of the best I've read is Ron Lasky's on the Indium blog site. Indium really embraces the idea of using a blog as a homegrown publishing tool, and the company posts scads of documents on lead-free and halogen-free processes. I almost understand the halogen-free issue, thanks to Indium.

Once upon a time, I started out in print publishing, and I still like to read a good book. I get a kick out of reading my 1994 copy of UltraCAD Design's customer handbook--some of the design issues haven't changed at all. (Check around on the UltraCAD site - company President Doug Brooks has populated the site with links to articles, papers, calculators and more.) 

But most of the technical and business textbooks related to circuit boards and the electronics industry cost quite a few dollars. Sure, they're worth it, but I-Connect007 has developed another model for publishing such books. We've published a series of e-books online in PDF format, available to the reader at no charge.  

Joe Fjelstad's Flexible Circuit Technology was our first effort in this arena, and he's up to 29,000 downloads now. Next came Steve Williams of Plexus, who penned his lean manufacturing manifesto Survival is Not Mandatory: 10 Things Every CEO Should Know About Lean. "Survival" has been downloaded more than 7,000 times. Happy Holden's HDI Handbook took off like a rocket, with 3,000 downloads in the first three weeks, and he's up over 11,000 downloads now. Our latest book is Lee Ritchey's Right the First Time: A Practical Handbook on High-Speed PCB and System Design. Lee's book just came out, but he's had almost 2,500 downloads already.

These e-books have been downloaded around the world, in 52 countries. No wonder they're moving so well--they're free.

The Internet is chock-full of free training and educational opportunities--you just have to know where to look. Whether you're 20 or 80, you just can't afford to stop learning.