Electronics

Electronics has been a hobby of mine since early teens. Possibly even earlier.
My father taught me basic electrical circuits, and my first home made project was a radio, built on a piece of wood and read from a Ladybird book. I still have the book!

I followed that  with an kit from a local electronics store called ‘101 Electronic projects’.  I still have the book. It had everything in it from weather stations to traffic lights and radios.
I don’t know electronics the complicated way.  I can’t lie and say I know how to calculate the correct transistor, or the current across certain components.
I just know how to put it together from experience. I also know to never just buy one component!

99% of the time, you can find a circuit diagram on the internet that you can adapt for your needs.
If you can’t, then the amount of data available is astounding, You can teach yourself pretty much anything.
Probably the best source of information are the forums. There are dedicated Picaxe and Arduino forums, and numerous general electronics clubs.

Newbie beware however, the Arduino forum is not a nice place.  If you are not a fan of sarcastic, unhelpful comments by nerdy know-it-alls, then Google will probably serve you better.

When you look at the data sheet for a particular component, it can be pretty daunting. However, you can usually break it down into smaller segments and get your head around the device.
They do make the data sheets madly complicated.

Years ago, you could buy all sorts of wonderful pre-programmed chips that did all sorts of stuff.
Maplins was a great source for these. I have a pile of old Maplins catalogues for back reference. They had lots of information in their semiconductor pages.
Sadly, Maplins has become a shadow of its former glory. Selling just a few components and mainly dodgy toys and expensive leads.

I now either use Farnell or Ebay. Beware however, as Ebay is full of dodgy low quality parts.
These days, the dedicated chips seems to have faded, probably due to the new ranges of programmable IC’s. You can simply upload a program to a chip and it becomes what you need.
Take a Picaxe IC for example. The datasheet and starter guide for one of these chips basically gives you nearly all the information you will need to interface with it.

There are a few PDF files that are frequent reference for me when designing circuits. You can’t remember everything.
Ebay has changed the hobby electronics in my opinion. You can get cheap, but well made electronic modules from China for £0.99p delivered.  OK, it takes 3 weeks to get here, but you just cannot make it for that.
I needed a remote switch for my wife’s gaming PC.  I ordered a £0.99p learning IR module for China and it arrived a few weeks later. Work’s perfectly.

Just taught it a spare button on our TV remote, and now she can fire up the gaming rig at the touch of a button.
It can be frustrating.  Touch the wrong component to 5v, accidently short something out, or simply build it wrong can end your project pretty quick.  Nothing like that little puff of smoke to ruin your evening.

I have a large prototyping board on my dining room table. It has the Picaxe prototyping board on it,, which accepts the whole range of Picaxe IC’s.
There are a couple of Arduino’s.  A 2560 and an UNO.  Along with an Arduino mini Pro.
Finally I have a Raspberry Pi (not done much with that yet), an amplifier and a few graphics screens.
This makes prototyping far easier. I have about 8 multi-compartment boxes full of my most used components.