^^^^^^
hmmm

http://books.google.com/books?id=6usbZnD_ybcC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=electronic+design+with+autocad&source=bl&ots=6l4Ay38E95&sig=4nhkcNKPOPRbFHP3wFiGWHd9y74&hl=en&ei=VE0KSv33I8uP_Qbiv5iPCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9


honestly couldn't say. . .but thanks to the university of google. . .

@goodboybad,

sounds a lot like me back then.
The only places where you'll get good hands-on for electronics is in the fast-dying maufacturing sector. Dunno how many of those are still viable. But they are there.
Microelectronics & DSP is out of it entirely. You go need to go abroad to do those ones.
You can try your hands on IT while you're making up your mind.

@goodboybad
yep Uc's are so veratile that i'm sure there's stuff u cld do wiv them that'd sell in the naija market esp since they're low power, been thinking abt it. . .maybe since i hv a lot of time on my hands i'll go back to my microprocessor days. but since u hv a bit of time on u're hands now u cld mess arnd wiv them now i cld give u some sites where u'd see simple projects(although since oshodi is gone i hv no idea where u can get components)

@er'one
hv u guys seen anywhere where rfid is used extensively in naija and is there any coy. in naija thats into it?it seems like an untapped market

netotse:

@goodboybad
yep Uc's are so veratile that i'm sure there's stuff u cld do wiv them that'd sell in the naija market esp since they're low power, been thinking abt it. . .maybe since i hv a lot of time on my hands i'll go back to my microprocessor days. but since u hv a bit of time on u're hands now u cld mess arnd wiv them now i cld give u some sites where u'd see simple projects(although since oshodi is gone i hv no idea where u can get components)

@er'one
hv u guys seen anywhere where rfid is used extensively in naija and is there any coy. in naija thats into it?it seems like an untapped market

Lots of component shops in Lagos. Oshodi is usually for the very very basic stuff. You have Semi-Con (now at Computer Village) and Numerique at Idi-Araba (my favourite shop). I actually miss those days, well, not really! For electronics people, the best you can do is to be repairing things at board level. No capacity to build these chips in Naija, and the opportunities are not there to design and build systems from scratch. Apart from all the experimental circuits I built in school, nothing much to do again. Though in my first and second jobs, I programmed biometric devices and smart card apps, for payments, security, and time and attendance. Which is why I recommended software to my guy. Lots of frustrated electronics whizzes work in software today.

As per RFID. There are so many untapped markets jare. When it comes to technology, we are either clueless in this country, or we just wan chop moni. The ability to follow through and implement stuff properly is still very much the source of the pain of many of us.
A few companies are offering asset management as bespoke solutions, for internal use of some organizations and also in some shops, you see it everywhere like in Palms, tho it's obviously not properly set up. You still need a security man to inspect your receipt.
I don't think the guys who are doing these things really know how to set it up properly. You know the naija way of one sense man just cornering the contract, then getting some solution from SA or somewhere, deploying, and then disappear with your cheque, while the thing stops working after a few days or weeks. That was what happened in my former company. Our laptops were tagged with RFID in order to detect if someone was removing a laptop from the building. For where. The stuff never worked.


For a couple of years now, I've been working with a couple of companies out of China and HK to design and build some end-user stuff which we sell on request. Some of the stuff we've built include fixed cellular terminals, USB data modems, a wireless PABX with fixed-line, CDMA & GSM support for the external interfaces, a solar-powered community payphone that works both on GSM and CDMA (that kind of NITEL stuff), and an interactive touch-screen device.

We design the look and feel, form factor and the UI, and provide the specs, they build a prototype and ship, we do QA on the device, and once it passes, we place commercial orders based on demand. A lot of prototypes we have built and a lot of design money (not small money) has been spent, which, if I compare to the money we made, doesn't justify the investment at all. But we dey continue to push and hope one day Naija will pick up on these things, or we go just hammer with one sweet deal.

Of late I've been working on a partnership with some guys who are focused on RFID and NFC (near-field comms), as well as really advanced stuff like face-recognition systems. The scope is beyond naija, focused on the whole Africa. If you guys only knew how white man dey remove govts and big businesses on this continent, in the real sense of the word, you no go bother go their country. Bastards (xcuse my french!).

@AjanleKoko

Thanks for your sound advise, I will take it seriously.

Thanks y'all for the advice.
If I understand you guys, pure electronics is not relevant to Nigerian Industry. So I'll have to branch out into some other related field, hmmm, well, its not too surprising, I was already thinking in that direction.
@netotse, I'll be glad if you could list those sites you mentioned. thx.
Peace.

goodboybad:

Thanks y'all for the advice.
If I understand you guys, pure electronics is not relevant to Nigerian Industry. So I'll have to branch out into some other related field, hmmm, well, its not too surprising, I was already thinking in that direction.
@netotse, I'll be glad if you could list those sites you mentioned. thx.
Peace.

At all o. Pure electronics is very relevant. We just don't do it at that level here, i.e. we don't manufacture any components here.
As per designing electronic circuits, DSP, microelectronics and all that stuff, I'm saying you may not get to do much of that in Nigeria.
In those days when we had Philips assembling stuff in Nigeria, it would have been a very good place for engineers with strong bias for microelectronics. Nowadays, unless you go abroad sha, you can't get that kind of exp in naija.

If you're lucky enough to find a good job in top-tier manufacturing (NB Plc, Guiness, NBC, Cadbury,etc), those are good places, for industrial control electronics, which is also an area that is good for electrical engineers. That was what I planned to do earlier, after my masters, and I actually got a job at some point with Delta Glass Ughelli, but I opted for an IT job instead, cos I wanted to stay in Lagos. IT was in the course of doing IT that I got into telecoms.

You'll notice I'm not really talking about oil and gas. Primarily I don't know much about the way they operate in either upstream or downstream, but I doubt engineers get any serious hands-on in those environments. Maybe oyb can enlighten.

Just one thing: From posts I read on nairaland, it seems IT is being disdained as it looks like an all-comers affair. I think IT in itself is relative; it depends on the way you apply IT to your engineering discipline. To a large extent I have practised more as an engineer than a regular IT person, even though I did a lot of the IT certifications in the early days. Look at all the posts on AutoCAD; that's a software application that is used by someone (oyb) to differentiate himself in his field. I'll always recommend, if you don't have anything going for you as an elect engineer, IT is always a good skill to pick up. I myself never went to any formal IT training, everything I know I learned by myself and from other people along the way.
For me, having IT skills as an engineer will always give you the edge.

x

AjanleKoko:

At all o. Pure electronics is very relevant. We just don't do it at that level here, i.e. we don't manufacture any components here.
As per designing electronic circuits, DSP, microelectronics and all that stuff, I'm saying you may not get to do much of that in Nigeria.
In those days when we had Philips assembling stuff in Nigeria, it would have been a very good place for engineers with strong bias for microelectronics. Nowadays, unless you go abroad sha, you can't get that kind of exp in naija.

If you're lucky enough to find a good job in top-tier manufacturing (NB Plc, Guiness, NBC, Cadbury,etc), those are good places, for industrial control electronics, which is also an area that is good for electrical engineers. That was what I planned to do earlier, after my masters, and I actually got a job at some point with Delta Glass Ughelli, but I opted for an IT job instead, cos I wanted to stay in Lagos. IT was in the course of doing IT that I got into telecoms.

You'll notice I'm not really talking about oil and gas. Primarily I don't know much about the way they operate in either upstream or downstream, but I doubt engineers get any serious hands-on in those environments. Maybe oyb can enlighten.

Just one thing: From posts I read on nairaland, it seems IT is being disdained as it looks like an all-comers affair. I think IT in itself is relative; it depends on the way you apply IT to your engineering discipline. To a large extent I have practised more as an engineer than a regular IT person, even though I did a lot of the IT certifications in the early days. Look at all the posts on AutoCAD; that's a software application that is used by someone (oyb) to differentiate himself in his field. I'll always recommend, if you don't have anything going for you as an elect engineer, IT is always a good skill to pick up. I myself never went to any formal IT training, everything I know I learned by myself and from other people along the way.
For me, having IT skills as an engineer will always give you the edge.

God bless you.
You have just spoken about a problem I was having. After missing the first batch of NYSC, I decided to do some studies in I.T. so as not to waste the time I had on my hands . My plan was to take the CCNA test before the next batch starts, and the CCNP test during my service year. However, after going through some of the posts on Nairaland I was discouraged, with most posters creating the impression that I.T. certifications were little more than 'glorified computer appreciation certications'. In fact, I was beginning to wonder whether I was wasting my time, and was slowly beginning to reduce the energy I was pouring into my preparation.
But what you said here makes sense, especially the last sentence. Thanks a lot for that, it was the encouragement I was (uncounsiously) looking for.

As for the pure electronics stuff, I think I'll keep it as a hobby because of my interest in it. I wont look to it as a career option as such, so that I wont get frustrated. But if I get the opportunity to pursue a career in it (in Nigeria, I have no desire to move out of Naija, except to further my education), I'll take it whole heartedly.

For now, it seems the career road is point towards I.T. or Telecoms.

Delta007:

x

What happened to the post?

@goodboybad
its www.electro-tech-online.com they even have a Uc section sef thts where i got help from my project(they tacied me small sha but they helped in the end o!)

@ajanlekoko
yep i know its severely underated o!. . . i want to see if u can use it to make some change on the side o(small scale sturvs)jst need to find out abt costs of readers and printers, the siemens ppl here hv a printer but its the magnetic strip one i want one thats similar to them oyster cards(that u dont need to swipe its called passive rfid not barcode sturvs sha) kinda sidelined it when i started preparing for NYSC but seeing as i hv a lot of time on my hands i jst might start reading it up again. . .any advice?

@all
i'm open to constructive advice o!

@goodboybad
well, i pitied your conditions just as i does for every young and aspiring nigerian child. nigeria is blessed with youths who are creative and intriguing in mind. as a kid, you said you had to destroy a lot of electronics to see their working principles. i aslo did the same. i combine my knowlegde of physics then with little knowlegde of electronics then to make my own radio staion which i used in transmitting and receiving with other radios nearby. this was a remarkable feat for me since it was in my preuniversity days and i had not attended an electronic class for once then and used this little knowledge to sit for the exam at sch cert level and comes out with 3.
you are in a good position since you came out with 2.1. if you are still intesrested designing things from the scrath, go for your masters and enters the lecturing proffesion.you can work more on your concept of Microcontrollers, and how they can make a lot of things simple and elegants. this you can impact to the next coming generations of engineers. as for our industries, many engages foreign companies in the design and installations of their electronics, or some just buys these foreign products and asked their inhouse engineers to install it. there are litttle industries that offers chanlanges to our indeginous engineers. this was what initially prompted me to say engineers are not needed in this country when i joined this thread. the challanges offers to engineers are getting smaller as more components are been transformed from been an analog to a digital one. children of today may learn notting today openning the back of electronics as we did in our own time. since every thing is going digital, this means that they are programmable and learnning software eng. could rally be useful. as with autocad, it is good you learn it. it cuold fetch you some extra cash from time to time. i do make some money trainning and consulting in autocad. so you have a world of oppurtunity b/4 you.

@Ajalekoko,
I just wanted to make an observation
regarding the posts I have read that you
have written. I am impressed by your
vastness and the eloquence with which
you write. It doesn't surprise me that you would have
surpassed the others on this test. You have
proven yourself beyond a reasonable doubt.
To that extent, I nominate you "man of the year
on Nairaland". keep it up.

netotse:

@ajanlekoko
yep i know its severely underated o!. . . i want to see if u can use it to make some change on the side o(small scale sturvs)jst need to find out abt costs of readers and printers, the siemens ppl here hv a printer but its the magnetic strip one i want one thats similar to them oyster cards(that u dont need to swipe its called passive rfid not barcode sturvs sha) kinda sidelined it when i started preparing for NYSC but seeing as i hv a lot of time on my hands i jst might start reading it up again. . .any advice?

Everything na opportunity, bro.
You wan do any PP runs, let's talk na. Drop me a PM.

AjanleKoko:

Everything na opportunity, bro.
You wan do any PP runs, let's talk na. Drop me a PM.

no prob. . .i'll holla with a sketch of what the plans are when i get them together

Well i am an electrical engr std.200 level unn.I do not currently know the different branches of electrical engr.I really want to know it to determine which one i am going to chose.I need to know somethings about the different posts.Pls reply.U can text me with 08064129175.

What do you guys think of the Digital Bridge Institute? Does it provide practical, hands on telecoms training, or is it another institution that dishes out theories. Is it a viable path for someone interested in the field?

Insert Quote
What do you guys think of the Digital Bridge Institute? Does it provide practical, hands on telecoms training, or is it another institution that dishes out theories. Is it a viable path for someone interested in the field?

I haven't attended any courses at DBI. I guess it's okay, but I doubt you can get any practical hands-on training in telecoms, in any case, particularly in Nigeria. Telecoms is more of theory, and you learn most the reality on the job, with real-world scenarios.
You can try http://www.informa.com for various online telecoms trainings, and offshore courses.

@goodboybad

DBI is credible, i dont know much about it having so much hands-on (depends on what you want to study)
But if the Likes of Prof Ibiyemi lecture there, Good place.

another thing is ur passion. . .if u dont have a passion then chances are u'll not get the best outta wherever u pick(with passion u can work miracles) and then there's the internet!

Gaminechic:

@goodboybad

DBI is credible, i dont know much about it having so much hands-on (depends on what you want to study)
But if the Likes of Prof Ibiyemi lecture there, Good place.

Gaminechic, forgive my skepticism. But is Ibiyemi's knowledge up to date?
Many of these profs are living on past glory, frankly speaking.

It seems that electrical eng. is what most NLer do. wow

I guess the Biomedical Eng just became a branch, is anyone on this board studying it?

@all
does anyone know anything about power system planning here also schools that hv M.sc courses in it i think thats what i'm going to do but its not looking encouraging in naija hsa

FL Gators:

It seems that electrical eng. is what most NLer do. wow

I guess the Biomedical Eng just became a branch, is anyone on this board studying it?

you would find many biomedical engineers if this was an american board. i don't think its that popular in Naija.

So you are studying biomedical engineering?

bawomolo:

you would find many biomedical engineers if this was an american board. i don't think its that popular in Naija.

So you are studying biomedical engineering?

Why isn't it so popular in Naija? Lack of resources?

Yea

FL Gators:

Why isn't it so popular in Naija? Lack of resources?

Yea

bio research in Nigeria? dream on.

EEME would have been the most perfect college major ever.

bawomolo:

bio research in Nigeria? dream on.

rotflmao, true that

FL Gators:

rotflmao, true that

when we dont have constant electricity yet u ppl are talking bio research. . .biko u ppl shld let us walk before u start asking why we're not flying now. . .

@Ajanlekoko

Quite True,
but one is regarded highly because of the things they have done
and not what they intend to do.

Even though DBI is GovernmentSucked, like most other institutions in Naija
It has some good hands.

@Netotse, Are you looking to study in naija or someplace else?

@gaminechic
some place else o. . .i hv a teen-weeny bit of experience when it comes to the nigerian power sector and i know there's precious lil to be learnt(even if u did u prolly wont learn it the right way). . .

netotse:

when we dont have constant electricity yet u ppl are talking bio research. . .biko u ppl shld let us walk before u start asking why we're not flying now. . .

LOL, you're not serious.
What about generators?