The Shop > Electronics & IC Programing
getting started with electronics
Rob.Wilson:
Hi John
Those are the coils in old radios that go around ferrite rods ..................... I Google'd denco radio coils :D ,, you making an old style radio ?
A camera is a must we like pickeys :thumbup:
Rob
AdeV:
The way into electronics which worked for me, was through old Electronics magazines (Everyday Electronics, Practical Elecronics, EPE after they merged). Stuff from the late '70s through to probably the late '80s is best, because it's all discrete components; by the time the '90s came around, microprocessors were getting cheap & most projects seem to be either mega amplifiers, or microprocessor based.
Not that there's anything wrong with microprocessor electronics mind! It's just a different type of electronics, is all. And you need to write software, of course...
Biggest problem with electronics projects, in my experience, is having the right components on hand. Faced with a 1000 page Farnell (or RS, or Rapid) catalogue, just what _do_ you buy & what do you ignore?
John Swift:
Hi Rob ,
I have made a medium wave transistor radio with denco coils in the past
later adding a shortwave converter to the mw radio tuned to 1.6MHz
I would like to have a go with a valve (tube) TRF radio when I have the time
to make the coil former :- drilling a 3/8" dia blind hole in a 1/2" dia 1" long plastic rod ,
then drilling and tapping the last part 6BA , for the adjuster , made from a short ferrite rod or bead glued to a brass 6 BA screw
the basic former then fastend to a diy 8 pin plug - 8 x 0.1" dia pins spaced around 0.7" circle to fit octal valve base
(being long in the tooth I think in feet and inches but can measure in metric
I'll use what ever measuring stick is to hand)
I hope it makes sence , I need to find out how to upload jpegs of sketches without photobucket
madjackghengis:
--- Quote from: Rob.Wilson on July 16, 2010, 01:50:43 PM ---Hi and Welcome John :wave:
i hope to have my fist flux capacitor and photon torpedo up and running next week :lol: :lol: :lol: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Its coming along slowly at the moment i am still playing with resistors and capacitors , Ohms law ,, the basics ,,,,,,,, I hope to do allot more this coming winter ,, i have a few projects in mined
:lol: :lol: :lol: i thought it was my eyes when looking at the colours :bang: ,, so i have been checking them with the meter just to make sure ,,, the problem is they are so small and i have to chase them about trying to get hold of them with my sausage fingers ,, then when i drop the dam things i cant fined it, as they are the same colour as the carpet :doh:
Thanks for the link and the tips :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:,,,,,,,,, i have so much to learn :D
Regards Rob Hi Rob, your best bet is to get new carpet that is a single bland color that isn't the same as any of the components, white is good, but don't walk on it, or it'll get dirty. All jabs aside, we used to drop components on a painted concrete floor when I worked in an electronics burglar alarm company, and we still had a hard time finding the damned parts. Just buy parts in bags of ten and plan on finding the ones you drop when you're not looking for them. :lol: mad jack
Do you have any projects on the go at the moment ?
--- End quote ---
madjackghengis:
Hi Rob, I've long had a decent stepper motor I picked up on ebay, and I've got an eight inch rotary table which I want to "digitize", as the crude scratches for marks are hard to be accurate with, and I'm waiting on a cutter to mill the cams of the radial engine I'm building, so I thought I'd find a motor drive kit somewhere, and see about making this stepper motor a permanent part of the rotary table. I worked in electronics for about thirty years too long, never liked it much except the first couple of years when it was all new, and I was building ham radio receivers and transmitters that used tubes, but I got shoved into electronics when I was in the Marines, because I already knew it, and finding a good technician is like finding a good mechanic for your odd and unusual car or tractor. You don't let go, once found. I still know my electronics, but most of my knowledge is geared around antique equipment, as my knowledge of tubes was taken advantage of, as tube theory was no longer taught by the time I went into the field, and all our C-130s we used for refueling, were still using electronics from the thirties and forties. I do know transister theory, and worked with modern electonics, even teaching it while in the Corps, but it's been fifteen years or so since I retired, and I never did really work much with modern electronics, so I'm learning as I go. Eventually, I will convert my Enco bridgeport clone to CNC, and probably a lathe or two, but I've got some learning to do first.
I'm focussing on motor drives to start with, I've also got a nice little atlas shaper I use quite a bit, but down feed while cutting is a bit of a pain, and hard to keep an accurate control of depth, and I think a stepper motor would be an easier "fix" than devising a ratchet drive that works with the down feed in all positions and has feed choices. I've been looking on the web for motor drive kits, and the bug right now is selecting the right one for the motor I already have, but I will be happy to chime in on any other project with any help I can, since I do have a solid understanding of the field of electronics, I'm just not up to date on all the new parts and pieces - the principles and rules haven't changed though, ohm's law still rules, and the new parts are generally easier to understand as a whole, than were the box of parts necessary to do the same job using discrete components. Most of your use of resistors and the like are for control of input current or volts, or for shunting feedback to ground, with all the "work" being done by the integrated circuit, which was once made up out of individual parts and thus finiky demanding components that were complementary. Working on digital equipment is more about logic than electronics theory, and except for power supplies and the like, it's mostly either on or off, which makes digital electronics easier to get into without getting in over your head.
My intent with the rotary table is a stand alone device with the expectation of getting into more advanced work ending up with converting my mill and lathe at some time, and having to learn how to interface with a computer between now and then, and deal with the programing when it comes up. I've built a few Vellman kits including a couple of chopper type motor drives and used them, but it makes more sense going with stepper motors and digital electronics today, than just variable speed, which is all I got from the chopper type motor drives. They are good if all you want is power feed, or movement and are content with a knob to vary the speed, and a switch to start and stop. I did the kits mostly to get my hands back in and get comfortable with the work again, having left it behind for lots of years. I will do a build log on the rotary table, and everything else I do until someone says I'm taking up too much space. Ta ta for now, :nrocks: mad jack
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version