Electronics

[spitfire]

Seems quite a few members of the board toy with electronics. I'd like to hear what youve made and what you are making.

I'm also keen on starting but I'm a real beginner.
I was wondering what you guys think is the best way to go about learning it.
I do have a friend with alot of experience who said he will help me build a power supply. So I could take the manual route and just study stuff off the net and buy components at a shop and bug him if I get stuck. Hes got me studying opamps and 555 timers and so on at the moment.

Or I could get some kind of kit. People have already mentioned arduno
http://wiring.org.co/learning/index.html

and then theres
http://www.xgamestation.com/
Ive been keen on ordering the micro kit for a few years but I've never had the time or money.

And then there are those expensive parallax kits and so on, but I will avoid them.

So what do you think is the best way to get up to speed fast? Or am I comparing apples to oranges?

[Yaloopy]

After reading the thread in Useful Links (I think?) I'm very interested in getting into working with some electronics. Thinking about ordering an Arduino kit this week and having a go. I like the fact that you can use Processing with it, gives me a few ideas. Absolutely no experience, though, so I'm not expecting much!

[Moroboshisan]

I do have a friend with alot of experience who said he will help me build a power supply. So I could take the manual route and just study stuff off the net and buy components at a shop and bug him if I get stuck. Hes got me studying opamps and 555 timers and so on at the moment.

this is the very best way to learn electronics, from the very ground up (you need to learn some electrotechnics too I think...) Obviously this is a little tricky in present era... (I found very difficut to be able to get discrete electronic components near home... actually most of the old shops I was used to buy from only sell complete kits and little extra components... this is really a shame! I need to buy from the net most of the stuff I need... really boring!!!)

http://www.xgamestation.com/

nice kit if you're like to start game console dev... maybe you can tink about
http://www.parallax.com/Store/Microcontrollers/PropellerDevelopmentBoards/tabid/514/CategoryID/73/List/0/Level/a/ProductID/340/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName%2cProductName
or
(http://www.antratek.com/Parallax_Propeller.html)

XGamestation is a full featured (and specialized) board, official PropellerDevBoard seems really nice while the PropRPM is the simplest (it leave free most of I/O lines for you to experiment)

Or am I comparing apples to oranges?

sort of... Arduino and Parallax are totally different boards... I have both (just wanted to see a couple of Wild Demos released in the past 2 years)

this one http://www.linusakesson.net/scene/craft/index.php

and this one http://www.linusakesson.net/scene/turbulence/index.php

[Moroboshisan]

I like the fact that you can use Processing with it, gives me a few ideas. Absolutely no experience, though, so I'm not expecting much!

I liked it too!!!

If you know a little about electronics and spend some time learning Processing you'll be ready to go in just a few minutes! (for the blinking led... at least! )

[Clyde]

I can turn a light on with a switch in parallel and series; if that counts.

[Moroboshisan]

I can turn a light on with a switch in parallel and series; if that counts.

[Moroboshisan]

http://www.parallax.com/tabid/708/Default.aspx

this should be a good starting point for all of you C64 lovers out there!... Wouldn't be nice to have an hardware monitor lake that as debugger?

[spitfire]

So what have you made so far?

I did a gate swtich and an oscillator with a 555 timer. And recently did a night/day switch with a opamp.

[hellfire]

Quite a bit different but here's my passive 3-way-crossover in debugging phase


Splits an amplified signal for bass (blue), midrange (green) and tweeter (red) and makes the 3 signals sum (black) perfectly:


Or for those who're not much into hifi:
It makes my neighbors angry

[Shockwave]

How the hell do you know how to work that out Hellfire?

[Moroboshisan]

Or for those who're not much into hifi:
It makes my neighbors angry

do you plan to have it floating-built around the room?

I think i've seen similar setups realized by an "electronic artist" (if you have some better word to describe it , please, let me know...) while surfing the net... The artist builds floating electronic circuits bending pins connecting them toghther and then he incorporates the resulting circuit into some transparent resin....

BTW, hope you'll never need to repair it!

[hellfire]

How the hell do you know how to work that out Hellfire?

Well, I read books:

and I attended some lectures about signal-processing.
You rarely need to know such stuff in real life, though

do you plan to have it floating-built around the room?

Hehe, no The terminal-strips just make it easier to try different values - by now everything is properly soldered.
And I'm pretty sure my girl-friend wouldn't like such an installation in the living room

[Rbz]

Nice debug assembly Hellfire  

Well it's a filter for different speakers, it's really useful for better quality sound, providing correct frequencies for each kind of speaker,  ie tweeter, mid and Woofer speaker. You can find a better explanation and it's circuit here -> http://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/FAQ/XOver/


For me, my hobby used to be constructing/assembling those circuits but now I only make something if I really need to, coding is my new hobby

[Yaloopy]

I got a Nintendo DS for free today. These are looking very interesting:

GameIO
DSerial

[combatking0]

I have the ability to make keypad controllers for the Atari 2600, but there isn't the demand to justify me making one at the moment.

I can also make bulky LED patterns in the style of a Star Trek tri-corder using 555 timers, logic gates and 3-colour LEDs.

I'm also quite good with logic systems, but I lack the tools to make SMD based devices - I'm stuck with a soldering iron and veroboard for the time being.

Currently I'm attempting to create a working NOAC (Nintendo-On-A-Chip) device which uses a SNES as a power source, and parts from an expired NES for controller ports.

[spitfire]

Cool Combat, I had to look up tricoder (star trek gizmo with blinking bits) and smd (surface mount device, just a normal circuit board?)

[combatking0]

Sort of, but a board made for SMD only has no holes, making it tricky to use a hand-held soldering iron.

SMD boards are "baked" in a sort of soldering oven for a short time and the solder on the terminals of the SMD components (they're manufactured with it on) melts onto the board. We had a machine that placed the components on at university.

It makes the circuit board smaller than using a soldering iron, but more difficult to repair by hand.

I'm useless with RF though.

[spitfire]

Oh cool, doesnt that heat damage teh components?

Yesterday my friend helped me make a 5 volt and a 9 volt power supply. Now its my job to make another one and properly understand everything

[combatking0]

The baking only lasts a few seconds, so the damage is minimal.

Just so our non-electronically minded readers know, you must be VERY careful with mains electricity. Always make sure you know what the circuit is supposed to be doing before you wire the plug to the circuit board. If in doubt, contact a professional.

Are your power supplies DC or AC output?

I'm not confident enough to make my own mains appliances, such as power supplies, etc, but I do have some experience with industrial 3-phase wiring for motors and arc-furnaces. I also wired my own house before the laws regarding domestic wiring were changed, but it was checked by a professional and certified safe.