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ELECTRONICS / CONSTRUCTION
ELECTRONICS
Electronics has been my hobby since I was about 12 years old. Like all in this field, I had to begin by learning to crawl before I could walk, so to speak. -You can do this, too! (If you are interested, that is.)
If you do have an interest, or desire to learn about electronics and the construction of small devices, I would suggest that you look in your local bookseller store, for magazines such as POPULAR ELECTRONICS or something similar.
Also, check in a Radio Shack store for a selection of books dealing with electronics theory and construction of simple projects. They also sell some "learn by reading and building" sets. These have written theory, followed by instructions (on the assembly of the project just described) for hooking up the unit. These can be fun as well as highly instructional. (-Even USEFUL!)
-Some pictures of my shop... -This will give you some idea of the shop's layout. The following pictures will give you a "sweep" of the basement shop, from LEFT to RIGHT.
The next image shows the NEWEST addition to my shop's "ham shack," the Flex-5000a. More information on the Flex-5000a is in the LINK. The Flex-5000a is an SDR-radio, something that is relatively new. (SDR stands for Software Defined Radio.) An SDR is an extremely good radio, made possible by the software and a computer that runs this software.
The Flex-5000a is being operated by an HP-Pavilion computer, which is mostly hidden behind the 27 inch iMac computer at the left side of the picture above. The front panel of the Flex-500a is just left of the 24" monitor, and just below the MFJ-868 "Giant SWR/Wattmeter." Just below the Flex-5000a is another Netgear SWITCH. (A Flex-1500 on top of a MFJ-993 auto-tuner; This is in the lower-left foreground.)
The Flex-5000a REAR PANEL is shown above. The front has just a power switch, mic connector and an earphone connector, so is quite plain looking.
ELECTRONIC CONSTRUCTION
As an example of some of the stuff I enjoy tinkering with, I'd like to tell you about an ELECTRONIC COUNTER system that I designed and built. This took place several years ago (1977, to be exact...).
The unit had an 8-digit display, and an upper frequency range of 1 Ghz. It had 15 PC boards. I used a proportionally-controlled crystal oscillator as the time-base. I placed the oscillator as well as the oven temperature controller and a secondary voltage regulator into the oven, also! I had the oven running at about 50 degrees Celsius, which is just over 120 degrees Fahrenheit. (The system was very stable!) I designed the unit so that the RF was not routed to or from the front panel, so the signals were well controlled by my use of ICs that acted as conditioners and/or routing devices. I was told that the system had at least four patentable designs, but the costs were just too high for me to consider.
I drew the PC boards out at four times the size, then had the local newspaper shoot the negatives needed for production of the printed circuit bards. I used ink pens, with a large WIDE tip to create the lines. An error would mean that I had to start the whole drawing again. (I was using India ink on large sheets of paper, using a drafting set, Tee-square, and the like. -No computers, back then!) The PC boards were made up from these negatives by a company in Iowa.
It was my first attempt at actually producing a product to the general public, in that it was offered as a "kit", of sorts. Included were the fifteen printed circuit boards (drilled and solder-plated for ease of construction) and a construction manual of about 50 pages. The manual offered such items as theory of operation, general use, normal operational procedures, construction hints, PC board layouts, schematics of the PC boards, overall hookup and interconnection suggestions, places to purchase the components, a drawing of a suggested mechanical layout of the chassis and case, parts list and checkout procedure. (Yes, even the hand-bent case was home-made, primed and painted, labeled, all in keeping with the general "theme" of being home-made!)
I developed this kit as this was something that I had always thought about; Producing a product. It was fun, as I mentioned. I sold just enough units to cover my costs, no more!
-No picture at this time; Maybe at some date in the future, though. (I still have the original unit!)
COMPUTER CONSTRUCTION
I enjoy modifying and construction of Macintosh computers. When I say that I "construct" Mac computers, I mean that I use a Macintosh MOTHERBOARD and mount this in various cases, add the required items that are required to make the unit work as a complete computer. (These "required items" would consist of a power supply, a video output device, a disk drive, a hard drive, keyboard and mouse.)
Most of the systems that I have made up have some sort of "value-added" features. As an example, I often used various accelerator boards which are hooked to the motherboard. This makes the basic motherboard faster, or able to handle more memory, as an example.
One of the most challenging systems I ever made up was a PORTABLE MACINTOSH. I called this unit TOTERMAC, for "tote-able Mac."
