Anyone into Electronics?

[wossname]

Are any of you coders interested in electronics? By which I mean soldering stuff together, or PCB layout, or schematic design, or Arduino projects or HAM radio or ...or ... or...

I'd be interested to know, since I suspect that there are at least a few of us out there.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I was working steadily on a robot...until I got assigned a fascinating project at work. I really want to get back to the robot, though, and hope to do so over the next couple weeks. From an electronics standpoint, this is somewhat lightweight. After all, most of the sensors are already built, but there is still plenty of mechanical work, soldering, wiring, and the like.

[kregg]

I would love to get into Electronics, but it is something I have no clue where to start.

I have a plan that, after exams, I may buy a book and/or one of those Maplin electronic equipment kits and give it a go to learn Electronics.

[Lord_Rat]

...is tedious.

[kleinma]

Does my new candy dish in the office count?

[baja_yu]

I was working steadily on a robot...until I got assigned a fascinating project at work. I really want to get back to the robot, though, and hope to do so over the next couple weeks. From an electronics standpoint, this is somewhat lightweight. After all, most of the sensors are already built, but there is still plenty of mechanical work, soldering, wiring, and the like.

I have a great suggestion for an AI for your robot. Please PM me for more details. I even have a description how you can make it human like with a hole in the head for the mouth.

[moti barski]

I written an ebook about it (free download)
if you have information, walkthroughs you want to share it would be great

Shaggy Hiker : what b8tri are you gonna use ? , will you fit the robot with a laptop or a chip ?
casing : plastic / metal(if so what kind) ? are you outsourcing the work ?

[abhijit]

I have a great suggestion for an AI for your robot. Please PM me for more details. I even have a description how you can make it human like with a hole in the head for the mouth.

There's a free book available for download, so why would he PM you?

[abhijit]

Are any of you coders interested in electronics? By which I mean soldering stuff together, or PCB layout, or schematic design, or Arduino projects or HAM radio or ...or ... or...

I'd be interested to know, since I suspect that there are at least a few of us out there.

Electronics are something I like to buy and experience. My latest toy is XM satellite radio.

[namrekka]

I was a developper in electronics for many years. Later moved to programming pc's apps.

[akhileshbc]

I would love to get into Electronics, but it is something I have no clue where to start.

Same goes for me too

[moti barski]

I was a developper in electronics for many years. Later moved to programming pc's apps.

namrekka is very professional in electronics

[wossname]

I would love to get into Electronics, but it is something I have no clue where to start.

Yeah this seems to be the #1 problem for people interested in starting. I had (am still having to some extent) that problem. I find it very useful to find lots of electronics blogs and video blogs and take it all in. Often they have links to other great resources.

HackADay (.com) is good for inspiration in this area. I've done a few projects after seeing similar stuff on there.

That's the kind of stuff I look at regularly, over time you'll get lots of ideas and info.

I'd also recommend just buying a cheap multimeter from your local hardware store and just experiment with simple parts like batteries, LEDs, resistors and such. Get a "breadboard" too, very handy. Also get into the habit of downloading the "datasheet" PDFs for any electronic component you want to know more about. Datasheets are basically the user manual for that part and often have example circuits that you can set up. They do tend to be a bit hard to read though, as they are not written with novices in mind. But after a while you get into it.

My current project is converting an old HP document scanner into a 2D graphics plotter! This is mainly metalwork fabrication, but I'll need to create a circuit board to control the thing. I'm about half way through it at the moment.

But my #1 tip is to get an Arduino. I've got 3



Shaggist: what will your robot do when it's finished?

[abhijit]

wossy,
what is your educational background? i believe dabbling in electronics requires some kind of engineering background.

[EntityX]

I used to be into it quite a bit but it's been a few years. I built some projects. I was a copier tech for 10 years when I lived in Los Angeles so my knowledge of electronics came in handy. The electronics on the copier are much more reliable than the rest of the copier but you need to understand them. It seems they are learning how to make electroncs more and more reliable. I've had few hardware issues with things like TVs, computers, etc. Haven't had any hardware/electronics problems with my computer for years. The last thing I had go out was a hardware modem and that was years ago.

Years ago I remember studying microprocessors and I thought that was fascinating. That's digital electronics which is quite a bit easier to understand than analog electronics and things like amplifier biasing etc. I never built anything too fancy myself.

The miniaturization of electronics will never cease. It'll be interesting to see what computers will be like 5, 10 and 20 years from now and what marvels in the area of electronics will take place.

I used to read some of those Radio Shack books on electronics and enjoyed that book Getting Started in Electronics by Forest M. Mims III. I never read it cover to cover but it's a good reference to have if you're learning electronics. Anyone who is learning electronics I would recommend that. There are a lot of basic circuits illustrated and cool projects in there that you can set up with a power supply or a battery and a breadboard and some basic components.

I would also recommend to anyone interested in learning electronics the HeathKit Educational Systems. They sell kits that have trainers for the various courses along with text and a work book. I was just looking at their website and most of the electronics courses are around $ 112 which isn't too bad because it includes the trainer for that course.

Here's a link that lists the electronics courses they sell.

http://www.heathkit.com/index.php?op...per&Itemid=225

That link doesn't go straight to the electronics courses so click on Core Technology(11) and that shows the electronics courses.

I'd also recommend just buying a cheap multimeter from your local hardware store and just experiment with simple parts like batteries, LEDs, resistors and such. Get a "breadboard" too, very handy.

Good advice if you're learning electronics. Don't buy too cheap of a multimeter but don't over do it. The fancy multimeter I had from when I was a copier tech finally went out on me I think around 2005 and I bought one at Radio Shack that is either this model or very much like it and it suits me just fine. I would recommend going with a digital multimeter like this one. I would spend at least $ 20 on it. This one is $ 35.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2103176

Was just catching some of the reviews on that meter and some didn't look so good but I haven't had a problem with mine but then I don't use it that much since I'm no longer into electronics like I used to be. You could get another meter but I'd get a digital multimeter that is something like that that is around that cost or not too much less. If you really want to get into electronics serious then I would spend more.

In the poll I voted electronics is a hobby of mine because that was the closest thing to the truth but it isn't really anymore. I don't spend time with it now. I enjoy coding in Visual Basic now more but electronics is an interesting field.

[moti barski]

came in handy.

[dsheller]

So the post a couple above is long and looks like it probably covers the same things I'm going to say... but like a good member of chit-chat I am going to disregard it because it's long =)

Getting into electronics isn't too bad if you can come up with a project you WANT to do. Otherwise you'll end up going down the lane of doing tutorial projects to teach yourself the basic rules, and either get frustrated or bored and write them off as trivial pursuits <-- lol c wut i did thar guys?

For me, I have always had interest in it since I was a kid. I'd make potato batteries and measure them with my dad's multimeter and things like that, and ended up going to college for an EE degree. Now, what is hard about electronics is the amount of cash you have to outlay up front to get a good lab going. I admit, that at first you can get by with a 10 dollar firestarter soldering iron from radioshack, and a cheap-o multimeter, but to do anything serious you'll ned a decent amount of gear.

I would suggest you to take a look at this entry from a video blog about electronics to see what kind of gear you'll need (eventually, like I said you don't need a lot to start).
http://www.eevblog.com/2011/04/30/ee...ectronics-lab/

The above blog is really good, he gives a lot of product reviews and goes over some basic concepts from time to time, just poke around at the old posts and you'll find something useful to you.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Shaggy Hiker : what b8tri are you gonna use ? , will you fit the robot with a laptop or a chip ?
casing : plastic / metal(if so what kind) ? are you outsourcing the work ?

I have no idea what "b8tri" means. The robot hardware is pretty trivial. The brain is distributed across a few computers, with the actual robot carrying nothing more than a board that reads sensors and communicates via wireless.

[akhileshbc]

I have no idea what "b8tri" means. The robot hardware is pretty trivial. The brain is distributed across a few computers, with the actual robot carrying nothing more than a board that reads sensors and communicates via wireless.

Maybe Battery

[baja_yu]

lnk cr b82rez 2g4

[moti barski]

B8Triz

[baja_yu]

Beatrice? Bea Arthur?? Chester A. Arthur???

[wossname]

I would suggest you to take a look at this entry from a video blog about electronics to see what kind of gear you'll need (eventually, like I said you don't need a lot to start).
http://www.eevblog.com/2011/04/30/ee...ectronics-lab/

The above blog is really good, he gives a lot of product reviews and goes over some basic concepts from time to time, just poke around at the old posts and you'll find something useful to you.

Yeah, Dave Jones is a hero of mine. Been following his stuff for several weeks now. He also does www.theamphour.com radio show with Chris Gammell, which I'd highly recommend also.

Dave's relentless enthusiasm is infectious!

[kevininstructor]

Years ago, I was into building electronic effects for electronic guitars, which I thought was fun but stopped after ruining a component which had cost me an arm and a leg.

[moti barski]

Beatrice? Bea Arthur?? Chester A. Arthur???

batteries i was trying to save time

[baja_yu]

[Shaggy Hiker]

Shaggist: what will your robot do when it's finished?

Boggle the mind.

Seriously, if what it does isn't amazing enough, the fact that I actually finished it should be sufficient to shock a corpse back to life.

All it will do is wander around learning things. Kind of a mapping bot. However, considering the fact that the brain is not on the bot itself, it has occured to me that the general rule of a brain to body ratio of 1 need not apply in robotics. Why wouldn't the bots be the ants, while the brain is actually the hill? Wouldn't it be more economical, and couldn't more be accomplished, with a swarm of low cost modules driven coherently by a single guiding brain?

And just to make a reference to great literature, I should call such a thing: Aunt Hillary.

[Shaggy Hiker]

batteries i was trying to save time

Ok, now that that has been defined, I guess I can answer the question, though I'm not quite sure why it was asked. The batteries are dependent on the space to house them. They have to produce about 10V, and they have to fit into a certain space, though they should have the largest amount of power possible, and they have to be rechargeable. Therefore, I'm using some NiMH batteries sized to fit.

[moti barski]

shaggy : R U gonna use a bluetooth ?

[baja_yu]

Yes, will you use a bluetooth, or more of them (blueteeth)?

[moti barski]

I have been looking for the elusive rare vb.net bluetooth walkthrough for years

[baja_yu]

After 10 seconds on Google it doesn't look so elusive to me:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/for...-8c98bd96577b/
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/For...-7d543ed61e3e/

[moti barski]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
baja THANK YOU

[CVMichael]

Are any of you coders interested in electronics?

ME !! ME !! ME !! ME !! I love electronics !!!

I especially love microcontrollers (PICs). I like it because it is not all electronics, it is programming too, and there are an infinite things you can do with them... I do programming in mikroC PRO.

Probably you remember about my CNCs:
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=565474
and the second one:
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=610022

Other things I've done since then:
Wireless communication between computer and microcontroller or between 2 microcontrollers, using ER900TRS transceiver. It's not fast, but it's easy to use...
Ethernet shield using ENC28J60. This allows the microcontroller to be on the network, and have a mini web-server (or client) on the microcontroller. So for example anywhere from the internet you can connect to the microcontroller and turn on/off stuff in your home, or check status of something, etc...
And since I have an iPhone, I can connect to the microcontroller using my iPhone`s browser through the Ethernet shield cool stuff

The most recent thing that I got is this: PCI8255 It has 72 I/O bits, you can connect it to a (or multiple) microcontroller(s), and transfer data back and forth. This can be used for many things...

I also got this 34 CHANNEL LA1034 LOGICPORT LOGIC ANALYZER to debug my applications. AND... even though the logicport is all digital, I use an AD9059 analog to digital converter to measure analog signals up to 60MHz.

Recently I also got the chance to work with Arduino. A friend needed help with his school project.
I found it too simple. The Arduino IDE interface is ridiculous (basically notepad). I checked in the settings "Use external editor", and I used Programmer`s Notepad to write the code for it.
The only advantage I see for it, is that you get the hardware made for you, and you just plug it in, and start coding...

[moti barski]

CVMichael, I remember your cnc project was in vb6 do your microcontrollers work in vb.net 2010 ?
if so, walkthrough please

[honeybee]

Years ago, I was into building electronic effects for electronic guitars, which I thought was fun but stopped after ruining a component which had cost me an arm and a leg.

It's interesting you teach self defence sans an arm and a leg.





Shaggy, Ant Hillary would fit better IMO. Also your idea of separating the brain and the functions is quite interesting. Though I am not an electronics fan myself, that idea sure appealed me.

.

[CVMichael]

CVMichael, I remember your cnc project was in vb6 do your microcontrollers work in vb.net 2010 ?
if so, walkthrough please

Not quite...

The microcontroller is programmed in C, using mikroC PRO compiler.
The compiler creates an ASM file, then from ASM it creates a HEX file, that HEX file is then converted to binary and finally "burned" on the microcontroller. (this conversion thing is done in the background by the compiler)

The communication between the micro and the computer is done through an RS232 connection that is accessed through a COMM port.

For my first CNC, I made a VB6 application that opened the COMM port 1, and it was reading & writing to that port, therefore sending & receiving data to/from microcontroller. Of course the program on the microcontroller has to understand what the VB6 program says, and vice versa.

For my second CNC, I wrote the computer application in VB.NET, same idea as before. Connected through the comm port to send and receive data to/from microcontroller.

So there are 2 programs involved, one for the micro and another for the PC, and both of them have to understand each other.

The program on the PC can be written in any language (that can "talk" through the comm port). For the microcontroller, you can write in ASM or C or Basic or Pascal.

[moti barski]

I don't think laptops are made with comm ports at present

[CVMichael]

You can get a USB to RS232 adapter, it should not be too expensive...

[namrekka]

I don't think laptops are made with comm ports at present

Look at FT232 chip family:
http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Docu.../DS_FT232R.pdf