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Best Electronics Kits For Adults?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm an adult looking to learn how electronics work and have some fun building projects. But all the kits I've found online are for kids 8-10 years old, and they don't really explain the principles — they just color-code where to place components on boards. Are there any kits aimed at adults? I know if anyone has got the answer, it's this community."
Electronics Learning Lab Designed by Forrest Mims and sold by radio shack.
You could also do with picking up his Getting Started in Electronics book. It is like a field journal for electrical theory, very fun read.
Hope that points you in the right direction.
-Scott
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
The old HeathKits, like oscilliscopes and ham radios, were of value as exercises in assembly and part identification. Beyond getting a general sense of what the circuitry was about, I never learned anything about electronics from building such stuff.
Most book stores I've been in have a poor selection of such material. Look for Getting Started in Electronics by Forest Mims and then look for Practical Electronics for Inventors. For components, just kit yourself out as needed from online supplies (Mouser, Digikey, Jameco, Newark, etc).
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Whew!
Glad I'm not the only one who looked at the title and thougt "W00T! FEMBOTS!"
Of course, the rest of it was kind of a letdown. Ah well. I guess learning electronics and circuit soldering is it's own reward.
Even if there is no sweet sweet robot girl loving involved.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Seriously. The kits have nice big, brightly coloured bits which are physically large and easy to handle. They are also relatively hard to break. You don't really need those featues. Instead, get a good beginners book, for instance by Forest M. Mimms III, a solderless breadbroad, and then buy the components mentioned in the book. You can then start assembling them on the breadboard.
For what it's worth, I'd duggest the following:
Several reels of 100 metal film resistors, 100OHm, 1K, 10K, 100K and 1M.
A bag of brestripped, tinned and finished wires of various lengths for breadboard prototyping.
A reel of single core wire (for when the premade ones won't quite stretch).
Several bags of capacitors (100p 1n 10n 100n ceramic, polyester, mica or mylar and 1u 100u and 1000u in electrolytic). You want maybe 20 of the smaller ones and 10 of the larger ones.
A nice big bag of cheap transistors. These are a little trickier, but all of the low priced ones will be similar. You probably want something like 20 small ones like BC108 (NPN, low power) a corresponding PNP one and 5 medium power ones like BFY51.
10 cheap LEDs
1 Buzzer
1 loudspeaker
A good powersupply. You won't need more than 1Amp, but you probably want 0--15V variable, and 2 outputs if you can manage it. This is the mist expensive part, but you could just get a 9V wall wart if this is a problem. Batteries get annoying quite fast.
This will set you up way better than a kit.
You can also add to it later. You can buy a rail of 741 op amps (indestructible, and still popular even though they're 20 years obsoloete) and 555 oscillator chips. Later still you can get some logic ICs.
Plase, slashdotters weigh in, because I've missed something here.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The entire US Navy Electricity & Electronics Training Series (NEETS) is online in PDF book format here:
http://www.phy.davidson.edu/instrumentation/NEETS.htm
This explains virtually every part of electronics you could possibly want.
(Bonus: as it was produced by the US government, there is no copyright; download, read, print, copy, etc. as much as you'd like.)
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Going back 40 years, HeathKit and to a lesser degree Radio Shack were the big names in home electronics kits. Projects ranged from simple amplifiers and AM radios to electronic organs and TV's.
Going back about 35 years with the dawn of the microcomputers, IMASI and ALTAIR were branded kits. I was very surprised to see that IMSAI is still around: www.imsai.net For that matter, you can still build an Altair 8800 using NOS (new old stock) www.altairkit.com
Moving into the early 80's, the Timex Sinclair made a 4 chip z80 set. Believe it or not, you can still buy that one too. www.zebrasystems.com
About that time we also tried out an OKI Semiconductor evaluation kit for a digital PCM encoder (think digital answering machines, voice recorders). You can check the various semiconductors manufacturers who publish evaluation kits, sometimes with sample projects for a slightly more advanced challenge.
I don't know if this has come up already, but there's a handy online circuit simulator here:
www.falstad.com/circuit
You can create circuits from scratch or load and play with a large library of existing circuits. I used it a lot in grad school when I had to build something electronic for the lab, just to make sure it was going to do what I expected.
All stated opinions are subject to further review
Heathkits were good for learning physically working with electronics. Soldering irons, pin identification, mechanical assembly, but didn't really teach theory.
The 150 and 200-in-1 radio shack kits actually did a fairly good job of this. They started you out with "connect the numbered terminals, here's a picture", to later replacing the picture of the parts with a schematic. They encouraged you to experiment, and there was accompanying text for each project later on that described what was going on in the circuit so you understood what all the parts were doing.
It didn't teach you electronics theory formally in any kind of structured way, but it was an excellent crash-course in basic electronics. It was also a very quick way to teach you how to read, use, and create schematics. There are still 200-in-1 kits available but not by Archer anymore: http://www.quasarelectronics.com/epl200.htm
There really are 200 different projects in that kit, ranging from very very basic, "press the switch to turn on the light" all the way up to "a divide-by-2 counter" and "build your own one way telephone". It teaches the basics of digital computing at the gate level which is interesting. Also there was a very wide variation in the projects. Something interesting for everyone. Photodetector alarms, simple games, noisemakers, just all sorts of variety to keep a kid interested.
Once you want to really start fiddling, this is something you should have. It doesn't teach you anything in itself, but lets you play more: Heathkit ET-3100 electronic design experimenter: http://providence.craigslist.org/ele/696855286.html
I had one of these and it's very basic, but by this point you should have some spare parts around already, and having adjustable voltages and signals and a breadboard takes you to the next step of design. Actually I think it did come with some projects, it's been awhile. This was a kit, so you had to assemble it properly for it to work. I used to spend my free time at school planning out schematics of things I wanted to tinker with, sometimes preplanning how to lay them out on the breadboard when I got home.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I actually bought and built one of those Sinclair ZX-81 kits back in the day! I was just a young pup at the time and I was hella enthusiastic about starting right away when the package (assembly instructions, PCB, chips, various little baggies of resistors and caps, etc. etc.) arrived one bright and sunny day.
My Dad told me "wait until the weekend when your brother can help you ... this is a complicated kit," but I wasn't having any of that and I got started soldering right away. All in all and considering my tender age, I think I did a pretty good job except for one fatal flaw: I soldered a 9-pin resistor pack onto the board backwards. Then, in attempting to fix the problem (using nothing but my unbridled enthusiasm and a roll of desoldering braid purchased from Radio Shack) I managed to pull the traces up off a portion of the PCB. At that point, the mess was officially beyond my (or my brother's) skill to fix.
The solution involved mailing the entire kit away to a repair depot and waiting for many, many, many weeks until they returned the machine (in working condition) along with a substantial bill for the repair work.
The fact I can remember so many details about this episode - right down to the number of pins on the ill-fated resistor pack or the exact spot on the living room carpet where I laid down newspapers in order to do my work - is testament to just how valuable these little experiences are for a young mind.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
I learned electronics as an adult. Beginning electronics books found in the library is an excellent place to start. Check many library branches and suburban nearby districts. Often you can get a library card for the suburban district libraries with a central city card at no charge.
Some other suggestions:
>Get a cheap digital voltmeter for about $20. Invaluable.
>Download several of the sound-card oscilloscope programs floating around on the web. Many of them have poor quality user-interfaces and documentation, but nearly all of them work on low-frequency AC signals like audio.
> Get an inexpensive soldering iron and salvage/recycle parts from junk electronics, especially old electronics that used through-hole components. A spring-loaded plastic tube solder-sucker used to remove solder from joints on recycled/used circuit boards is quite useful. A solder-less 'breadboard' where components can be connected to make temporary test circuits is handy. Sometimes community college students in software have to take electronics classes to graduate. They have to buy component kits for labs. After finishing the class, they show their contempt for these electronics classes by selling their supplies for super-cheap or by giving them away.
> Ask 'stupid' questions on 'beginner's' web sites. Ignore all the smart-ass 'stupid noobie' responses.
> Post a message on the local CraigsList for free surplus hobbyist electronic components. You might meet local people who can direct you to local inexpensive parts-sources and assistance.
> Be open to exploring microcontrollers. There's a real learning curve, but they are now very cheap and flexible. I recommend exploring the Atmel AVR family. I strongly discourage using the Microchip PIC, because they are a pain in the neck to program, and are not very cheap. The AVR chips can be programmed directly through the PC parallel port.
> Most electronic manufacturers will give free samples of their parts if you ask them. It is standard practice in the electronics industry to get free samples to build a prototype of a new product, and then buy thousands of the chips when the product goes into production. You can use your work e-mail address to convince the electronics manufacturers that this is your plan with the samples.
> Eagle makes a great free software package for creating schematic drawings of your circuits and, as you advance, for designing a printed circuit board. Google for more info and download site.
> Several companies now make small numbers of small-sized professional quality circuit boards for $35-50. These 'board-houses' are invaluable for use with tiny surface-mount components and integrated circuits that the electronics industry is standardizing on.
I hope that all this helps. I suggest focusing on a specific area that you find interesting. For several years I studied electric guitar effects pedals like fuzz/distortion, flangers, and echo/delays. The schematic circuits (and documentation on how the circuits work) for the older 1970s and 1980s effects are available on the web. Also you can get cheap knock-off clones of expensive effects on eBay for $15-$25 each. With a DIY signal generator (like a simple 555 timer), you can feed signals into these cheap effects clone boxes and use the free PC sound card oscilloscope programs to see how the circuitry is changing the signal through each stage of the effect.
Best of luck.
But a much, much better option is to buy this starter kit and learn the hot new Arduino instead of the aging Basic Stamp. You'll need to start a junk drawer of components, including resistor assortment like these four kits. Local Amateur Radio HamFests and eBay are both good places to fill out your junk box.
Some good resources:
o The Arduino Home Page
o Peter Anderson's Arduino page (the whole site is great, and most can be adapted to the Arduino)
o Sparkfun Tutorials (and don't miss out on their store that has all the good stuff)
o The Electronic Goldmine is a great resource for odd surplus electronics.
I've ordered a number of "Velleman" kits http://www.vellemanusa.com/ for various projects. They're quite similar to heathkits and others mentioned. The problem with kits like those is that they don't really teach you about electronics so much as they're just good soldering practice. A bit more professional and adult in execution than the wire+spring kits sold by rat-shack but just as empty in the theory it teaches.
.22mm silver bearing solder, a de-soldering iron, a nice set of helping hands, a nice set of miniature pliers, a nice set of cutters/strippers/crimps, and some 22ga stranded hookup wire. You'll spend about $50 and have pretty much everything you need to tackle any DIY electronics project. You should also consider spending a bit of cash on a good multimeter, which isn't necessary but HIGHLY recommended for troubleshooting or reverse engineering.
:)
If you're really interested in leaning about electronics the first thing you need to do is pick a project, pick something that someone else has already done and posted the schematics and other information about. Then head over to to this website Its the home page for a highschool electronics club but IMO it's some of the best info on the web on the basic theory about how electronics work as well as how to read diagrams, understand components and solder them together, everything you need to get started.
now you've got a project and some basic knowledge head over to a site like SparkFun loads of useful parts and kits to get you started on nearly any project. I order 99% of my parts from Digikey if they don't have it there you'd be hard pressed to find it elsewhere, it's not very beginner friendly though... Mouser Electronics is much more suited for beginners but their pricing is also a little higher and their selection not as good.
I didn't get into electronics until I was in college and I didn't study electronics in college at all. I basically just picked a project and then just did as much research and self teaching as I needed to get it done, then picked a harder project then a harder project until I am where I am today. I've actually had a couple of my custom electronics projects published in magazines and I only started learning this stuff about 6 or so years ago, not even knowing how to solder or what a resistor is. The resources above were invaluable though
Having good equipment is important too. Go to the rat-shack and buy their 15Watt iron, a spring stand with a sponge, some
Good Luck and have fun
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