looking for a beginner's electronics kit for adults

I'm trying to learn about electronics as a hobby. Far too often, I'm exploring a hobby (flashlights, photography, etc.) and I run into DIY projects that involve electronics. And I hit a roadblock here because, even though I can buy the parts and wire them together (albeit, crudely) as a diagram depicts, I have no clue what's going on and why certain parts are used. So I've decide to try to learn on my own.

I'm looking for an electronics kit that guides you from the basics using real components (resistors, transistors, etc.) on a breadboard to more advanced topics (ICs), possibly soldering onto a circuit board. I'm not looking for a banana-plug project board. Does anyone have any recommendations? My goal is to be programming PICs or AVRs and integrating them into circuits that I design.

I'd consider buying all the parts separately, but it'll probably cost me hundreds getting parts at my local, overpriced Radio Shack. Not to mention that they will definitely not have most of the parts and no one there would be able to assist me (I've asked a RS store rep about what tripods they have for my camera, which she responded with, "what's that?" And yes, they do have tripods for sale.). Along those lines, where do people get their components at a low cost?

Thanks in advance.

Reply to
Tom
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Radio Shack experimentors kits, preferably the ones with books by Forrest Mims III. Check their web site. I've got the "Learning Lab" one, with both analog and digital parts.

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has a number of getting-started kits.

Reply to
DJ Delorie

ELECTRONIC OLD TIMERS visit memory lane, check out this website that collects data and pictures on the old "P-Box kits" we once built sold by Radio Shack.

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I have my own 100% Radio Shack project webpage which would be difficult for a beginner. Build my Theremin, a musical instrument that is played without touching anything. It can sound like bowing a musical saw or womans voice when played.

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  • * * Christopher

Temecula CA.USA

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Reply to
christopher

A good lot of todays engineers started with the Radio Shack (Tandy)

200-in-1 type spring terminal kits. They are an excellent introduction, and you can still get them in various forms.
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Aimed at young kids, but probably still suitable for adults too.

The next step after that is building your own breadboard and/or veroboard designs.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

I wouldn't worry about the cost details. Just focus on the learning part and let that take care of itself. If you find the learning valuable, the nickels won't matter all that much and, in any case, you'll be able to find alternatives because you will know what you are looking for, much better than now.

The Radio Shack kits didn't really teach me that much, when I used them many years back. They had a number of simple circuits you could build up, but as you point out above, building something doesn't teach you much -- whether it works or doesn't. It just lets you know one particular arrangement that you could try and analyze, if you knew how to. And that's the problem. Getting the theory down.

I'm just a hobbyist myself, with only the occasional moment for play and learning. One thing that has helped is that I'm okay at math. How's your math? Do you understand trig and algebra? (Ultimately, you may want to be able to handle 2nd order ordinary differential equations and complex numbers, know Euler's by heart, and so on, but that isn't strictly necessary for a lot of very practical stuff... so don't worry about it, unless you find yourself needing that much.)

Learning the basics includes learning theory. Usually, this is just understanding resistors, voltage sources, current sources, and being able to handle some analysis for networks -- like mesh analysis, for one example. That stuff, you get from books or from others who can teach you. Once you get that down, you can either choose to move on to include AC circuits, capacitors, inductors, and magnetic fields or else instead focus on transistors, fets, and stay in the DC arena for a little while longer, adding in a little simplified AC theory as needed (blocking capacitors, DC vs AC gain, bootstrapping, etc.) Building things reinforces all this. And you can use Spice to help you identify places where you aren't yet getting close on your own, in analyzing something, and that can give you reason to post a specific and narrow question here.

What kinds of things might you be doing with PICs? Can you suggest an example of something you are interested in actually making? Perhaps, by picking something you care about and asking for help understanding some schematic to do that, you might acquire theory in satisfying bits and pieces. Just a thought.

Jon

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

Only true if it works. You learn an incredible amount when something *doesn't* work and then you have troubleshoot it. That's where real learning takes place.

And that's the rub. If you start with the theory it's incredibly boring for most people, and odds on you'll give up pretty quickly. Most hobbyists start out with the fun practical side and then fill in the theory later when and as needed. A benefit to this approach is that the theory falls into place much easier when you can relate it to the practical stuff you have already done. This is often done as part of the practical troubleshooting mentioned above.

Theory can often start with learning your basic "building block" circuits and how they interact. It's possible to do a lot with this knowledge without knowing all the specific component fundamentals.

If the OP is interested in microcontrollers, then a good understanding of digital electronics is not going to go astray.

Unfortunately Spice doesn't come with that all-important "blown capacitor" smell :->

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

I admit that I haven't used things like trig for years, but I can handle my math. I'm a computer programmer by profession (but in a corporate world, not a technical world), so I'm familiar with algorithms and debugging. I don't doubt that I've forgotten a good part of my math education over the years and there's plenty of math I've never learned, but I don't mind investing the time to figure it all out.

Well, the reason why I started in this direction is because of my photography. Photography is an expensive hobby, so DIY projects always interested me. One such DIY project is an optical slave flash trigger

- it connects to an external flash unit and triggers the flash when it sees another flash. The creator uses a PIC is his design. Perhaps that's a very simple circuit to some people.

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I figure PICs would be a nice way to accomplish some very specific tasks that would otherwise require a lot of wiring. Combine that with the realization that I've always wanted to "know" electronics, it seemed like a natural hobby progression.

I'm going to do some research, perhaps find some online guides (that involves circuit theory) and attempt to purchase the corresponding parts for those guides. The idea is that I'll then calculate all the expected voltage and current levels at certain points in a circuit, then verify it in a hands-on project with a multimeter. Thanks for everyone's help so far. If there are more suggestions, I'd Iove to hear it.

Reply to
Tom

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They've really dumbed-down the theory sections -- when I was a kid it was happy little electrons running through the wires on white shoes, now it's "it works 'cause it works".

--
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

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Lets not forget the "Magic Smoke" theory!

Reply to
radiosrfun

That's a shame. I remember them being really good in teaching the (very basic) theory. And they progressively took you from "join this wire to that wire" instructions, to having to interpret the schematic yourself. All the time encouraging you to experiment and keep log books of the results.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

Many people consider microcontrollers (PIC's) to be the "end of hobby electronics". Lots of stuff is now done by software in a small micro that was traditionally achieved by "real" analog and digital electronics. So it's possible to learn PIC's and do some very nifty projects without knowing much basic electronics theory. But sounds like you want to learn the "real" electronics too which is great (and wise).

That slave flash trigger is a classic example of that.

Get yourself an oscilloscope too (20MHz+ analog second hand from eBay), an essential tool to help you understand what's happening in a circuit. You'll need some other gear like DC power supplies (more than one), and a function generator. Basic test gear like that can (and should) be built yourself. Plenty of kits around and DIY articles.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

One each of

  • "The Art of Electronics" and its companion student manual.
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  • The "Schwab's School Selection" from Jameco p/n 163213
  • Solderless breadboard and inexpensive desktop power supply (some examples)

  • A quad-ruled notebook, e.g., Staples p/n 858198

  • Multimeter. Web-tronics offers a freebie with qualifying orders that's good enough to get started.
  • Assorted hook-up wire. A few minutes stripping the outer insulation from a couple of feet of surplus Cat-5 yields plenty and it's color coded!

Read the book, work through the exercises in the student manual, keep good notes of what you do and what you observe.

The parts bags from Jameco probably won't have everything you'll need but they'll give you a place to start.

For general parts and supplies and other gizmos, some samples of places you can check out:

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Reply to
Rich Webb

Perhaps just before you hit Art of Electronics, don't forget this gem:

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Forrest Mims' "Getting Started In Electronics" is what got myself (and probably a lot of others) started in electronics. It won't have the depth that AoE has (be sure to get that for later), but it will demystify a great deal of fundamental stuff right off the bat. It has a pile of cheap n easy circuits that you can build right away and tweak all night long. I would get the parts from somewhere other than Radio Shack (see above post, and Jameco is my #1 choice). Note that there are others in the series, in case you want to expand in those directions later.

It does NOT cover microcontrollers, however. There are books on that, but i haven't read any.

-phaeton

Reply to
phaeton

Hmm... is there a market for "Getting Started With Microcontrollers, now with CD-ROM *and* hardware!" type books? Hardware is getting cheap enough to just include it with the book.

Reply to
DJ Delorie

Same here. I was also interested in photography -- but I wanted a

150mm, f/0.6 lens along with a 2000mm, f/7 lens. I wasn't made of money and as you can imagine, I had to design and make them from scratch! Electronics came later.

Yes, it is. However, the software will be the more interesting part of it.

I clearly see your point.

There are some electronics books that may help, but you aren't looking for too much complexity in the electronics -- most of that will be in the programming and you are probably better prepared for much of that than many -- though embedded programming can be like night and day, to someone in the 'corporate programming world.'

Given the programming penchant, you might start looking for a micro toolkit that provides some basic features you will need to get used to using. Perhaps someting with some pushbuttons, LEDs, a prototyping area (where you can add some parts) or else a way of fashioning a ribbon cable from it to a prototyping board (Global Specialties has a nice, cheap one that is serviceable.) Start out from the micro perspective, learn about the functional units you commonly have available in them, learn to use the programming tools (linker, compiler, assembler, etc.), and try your hand at some simpler tasks there.

Then consider adding some interesting external components -- for example, try and make a D/A converter using PWM, a resistor and a capacitor, for example. Make sure you understand that. Then try learning what bipolar transistors may do for you, after that.

These kits are often VERY inexpensive. Manufacturers are looking to sell product and make very useful demo boards available to push their wares. If that sounds useful, I and others may suggest some more specific ideas there.

Jon

Reply to
Jonathan Kirwan

An easy way to get started with AVR microcontrollers is to get the AVR butterfly demo board. It's only $20 but has a pretty powerful microcontroller built in with a bunch of little sensors, leds, an lcd, etc. (You need to be a C programmer, or otherwise have a compiler for the AVR for your favorite programming language.)

The process is even easier if you buy a kit from:

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They sell kits including the butterfly along with other components to help you build some simple Butterfly based projects. They also sell a homegrown book called "C Programming for Microcontrollers." It goes through a bunch of the Butterfly's demo programs, explaining what the code does.

I myself went with one of the above kits and the book. While I think there could be a number of improvements, overall it was a pretty painless way to get started with microcontrollers.

Reply to
Arthur Rhodes

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