new guy in need of help

Hello, my name is Trever. I am not the most knowledgeable on the subject but am interested and wondering if I am in the right forum for what I seek. I was going for a degree in electrical engineering but had some medical complications deter me. I would still like to learn but don't have the money to pay for college to learn as a hobby. I like working on projects and bringing my ideas to life or just seeing what I can do or what makes things do what. I am wondering if I can find help with learning and working on my projects here or if anyone knows of a place if this is not it. I recently tore apart an arc lighter and I am not familiar with a lot of the parts and what there purposes are. where should I post a topic if I wanted someone to explain it to me and if I had manipulation questions. Thanks in advance!

@Avaricious_TaP, have you considered getting involved in Amateur Radio? There's lots of opportunity to learn, design, build, fix, break, re-fix, etc.

http://www.arrl.org/what-is-ham-radio

There may be a local club near you where you can learn from others:

http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club

Lots of reading material:

http://www.arrl.org/shop/What-s-New/

Good luck and welcome to the forum.

actually im interested in it. i use radios for some of my work and wanted to get into it but was worried about cost(in my early twenties and dont have a lot of spending money) and i never have met someone else who would be interested as well let alone someone who knows about the stuff. ill look into those links and see if there are clubs. im a very slow reader thats why i was hoping to get help in forums on my projects instead of reading through a bunch and retaining more then i need.

thanks for the reply!

You can start slow with amateur radio. There are some inexpensive kits to build. Check out http://www.qrpkits.com for some kit ideas. Your first step is to get licensed. Check out the library for the study books. Eham.net has free practice exams. http://www.eham.net/exams/

Good luck.