Electrician
Install and maintain the wiring, controls and equipment in homes, businesses and industrial plants.
What it is day to day
- Residential: run cable, wire outlets, switches, lights and panels in new homes and remodels, and find faults in old wiring.
- Commercial and industrial: install conduit, motors, motor controls, lighting and distribution equipment, and work from blueprints.
- Troubleshoot with a meter: a dead circuit, a tripping breaker or a motor that will not start.
- Work to the electrical code and pass inspections, with safety procedures such as lockout and tagout every day.
- Industrial electricians also maintain controls: relays, sensors, motor starters and programmable logic controllers.
The courses, in order
Each course builds on the one before. Every lesson runs in your browser, free, with nothing to install.
- Step 1
Electronics basics
A breadboard and a few parts, with one Uno blink at the start and no processor after it. What current, voltage, time and logic really do.
- Step 2
Power and batteries
Where the volts come from and how to keep them: Ohm's law on a real meter, cells in series and parallel, a regulator, a LiPo on a TP4056, a boost converter, a battery gauge, and a power bank you build yourself.
- Step 3
Relays, contactors and motor control
Intermediate, the electrician's course: relay coils and flyback diodes, latching start/stop circuits, interlocks, three-way switching, timers and ladder logic, all at low voltage, finished with a start/stop station and an emergency stop you wire yourself.
- Step 4
Digital logic and memory
Build logic from individual gates, then make a bit persist, count and move through a register.
- Step 5
Sensors and measurement
Intermediate: thermistors and RTDs, strain gauges in a Wheatstone bridge, light and IR, current on a shunt and an INA219, ADC resolution and noise, and calibration, finished with a power instrument you check against Ohm's law.
- Step 6
AC, signals and filters
Advanced, after Transistors and op-amps for real: sine, peak and RMS, reading a scope, RC and RL filters, frequency response, RLC resonance and active filters.
- Step 7
Read datasheets and schematics
The skill every hardware job asks for: schematic symbols, a first page, absolute maximum ratings, timing diagrams, register maps and pinouts, each checked on real parts. Ends with a sensor brought up from its datasheet alone.
- Step 8
Power electronics
Advanced: switches, inductors and heat: buck and boost converters from loose parts, PWM, MOSFET drivers, H bridges, efficiency, and a regulated supply you set from its formula.
- Step 9
Portfolio and interviews
Turn finished projects into a job search: choose and document portfolio pieces, share links that run, read job posts and answer technical questions out loud.
Your skills checklist
- Voltage, current, resistance, series and parallel circuitsElectronics basics
- Safe measurement with a multimeterElectronics basics
- Power, loads and why wires and fuses are sizedPower and batteries
- Relays, contactors, starters and stop circuitsRelays, contactors and motor control
- Logic behind ladder diagrams and controlsDigital logic and memory
- Sensors and switches in control circuitsSensors and measurement
- AC, frequency and what a transformer doesAC, signals and filters
- Reading drawings and symbolsRead datasheets and schematics
- Drives and converters in modern equipmentPower electronics
Projects to build and show
Open one, run it, change it, then share your version as a link that runs. The last course in this guide shows how to write each one up.
Motor starter circuit
The classic three-wire start and stop circuit with a seal-in contact.
Generator transfer switch
Transfer logic that never connects two sources at once, on low-voltage stand-ins.
Panel load monitor
Current on four circuits measured and flagged, on low-voltage stand-ins.
After Mokxi, in the real world
Mokxi teaches the skills; employers, schools and licensing boards set their own rules. These are the common routes, and they vary by place.
Training and education
- Simulation is for learning the ideas. Real electrical work is dangerous and is learned under supervision; never work on live mains wiring without training.
- In the US, most electricians train through an apprenticeship that combines paid work under a licensed electrician with classroom hours, often over four to five years. Programs run through unions, contractor associations and employers.
- Some people start with a pre-apprenticeship or a trade school program, which can help them get accepted into an apprenticeship.
- Residential and industrial work overlap but differ: industrial roles lean more on motors, controls and PLCs.
Certifications
- Workplace safety training (for example an OSHA 10 or 30 hour card in the US) and electrical safety training are commonly asked for.
- Industrial electricians often add PLC and motor control courses.
Licensing
- Licensing varies by state, city and country. Some US states license electricians statewide, others leave it to cities or counties.
- A common US path is apprentice, then journeyman after enough supervised hours and an exam (often based on the National Electrical Code), then master or contractor licenses later.
- Other countries have their own systems; Canada, the UK and Australia each differ. Check your state or national licensing board for the exact rules.
Entry-level titles to search
- Electrical apprentice
- Pre-apprentice electrician
- Electrician helper
- Industrial maintenance apprentice
- Electrical trainee
- Controls technician trainee
Questions you may be asked
Short answers drawn from the courses. Say each one out loud, then check it on a circuit.
Why do you want to be an electrician?
Be honest and specific: you like working with your hands, solving problems and seeing a finished job. Mention what you have already learned and built, and that you take safety seriously.
What is the difference between voltage, current and resistance?
Voltage is the push, current is the flow, resistance is what limits the flow. V = I x R ties them together.
What is the difference between series and parallel?
In series the same current flows through each part and the voltages add. In parallel each part gets the same voltage and the currents add. House outlets are wired in parallel.
What does a breaker or fuse protect?
The wire. It opens when current goes above what the wire can safely carry, before the wire overheats.
What is lockout and tagout?
A procedure to make sure equipment is de-energized and cannot be turned on while someone works on it: switch off, lock the disconnect, tag it, and test that it is dead before touching it.
How does a three-way switch circuit work?
Two SPDT switches joined by two traveler wires. Flipping either switch changes which traveler carries power, so either one can turn the light on or off.
What is a seal-in contact in a motor starter?
An auxiliary contact on the contactor wired across the start button. Once the contactor pulls in, it keeps its own coil powered after you let go of start, until stop breaks the circuit.
What is the ground wire for?
It gives fault current a safe low-resistance path back to the source so the breaker trips, instead of making a metal case live.
How do you check a circuit is dead before working on it?
Test your meter on a known live source, test the circuit, then test the meter again. Only then treat it as de-energized.
Step 1 is Electronics basics
A breadboard and a few parts, with one Uno blink at the start and no processor after it. What current, voltage, time and logic really do.