First of all, forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this, or if I'm posting a long-dead question. I've been interested in learning electronics for some time now, and finally borrowed several books on the subject. However, a friend recommended that I buy a starter kit over the bare components, since that will be more helpful in teaching me. I've done some searching, and the best deal seems to be the Elenco
300 In 1 Project Lab MS-908, which has a low cost-to-project ratio.
Has anybody else used this kit before? If so, what are you opinions on it? Any critique would be appreciated, as would recommendations for other starter projects.
A little of everything, I guess. I'm generally interested in how things work, and like to apply my knowledge (I program as a hobby, for example.) I guess I'm planning on using the books to understand the fundamental knowledge and the starter kit to get a feel for how it works in practice. I hope to persue it further, although I don't have any particular projects in mind.
ok. That's a good enough answer, I suppose. Some folks just want to go "build a guitar amplifier" or something specific in mind and figure they have to "walk through coals" to get there. If you need something electronic that is already available, you are probably better off buying it unless you really intend on getting a learning experience and not the end product. If it isn't available, of course, you have to do the learning. But then, most things you are likely to want are already available these days. That wasn't always the case and many were forced to learn to achieve those things.
Since you do program as a hobby, you might also consider adding another facet to this. That is, embedded programming. So I'm going to talk about two directions, either of them is fine. Both are fine, too.
(1) I like the idea of getting some kind of simplified project kit your friend recommended. Some of these have "compressed springs" that make it easy to slip in part legs and attach them quickly into a circuit. Some of these are blocks you can snap together. The only problem with the blocks is cost, really, and perhaps some wear that may trick you up sometimes later on when the connections don't quite make a solid tie-in. But they are easy to put away for later and easy to use. Having formulaic things to do is a nice way to go.
(2) There are, today, so many really great and nifty embedded project boards for very little money (sometimes free.) I bought some (a dozen) USB prorgamming modules with two CPUs on them and some very sophisticated features for $9.90 each. I mean, you could just take one of those and start exploring right away, all the software comes with them to get started. Wasn't like that, years back.
Either way, you need to put some thinking work into things. This means playing around with the concepts so that they deepen within you. Just keep that in mind.
Hi Bill Your friend is right. I don't know about that kit in particular, but these project labs with the spring terminals are the ideal start to electronics in my opinion. I (and many others in the industry) started out with the Tandy/RadioShack 200-in-1 type kits which this is basically a copy of. I found the RadioShack manuals excellent bacuse they started out by getting you to build "idiot proof" stuff to gain your confidence, and then slowly branch you out into more difficult designs, and then encouraging you to experiment.
This Elenco one in particular looks good because it has a real breadboard on it.
Get yourself some test equipment like a multimeter and a cheap secondhand oscilloscope (from eBay), they are essential.
The world of electronics has headed toward microcontrollers these days, but starting at the ground roots component level is essential.
Also, you'll find you'll learn the most when your project actually
*doesn't* work first go. When you follow instructions to build something and it works first go you haven't really learned much. But when you have to troubleshoot something and figure out *why* it doesn't work, that's where the real learning begins.
With every project you build with this thing, start changing component values one by one and see what happens, you'll learn a heck of a lot.
Good advice. One of the best teaching books I ever saw on BASIC was Radio Shacks' for the TRS-80, Level 1. It would walk you through some programming steps that would NOT work. The author didn't warn you, but would then later tell you that it shouldn't work and talk about why it didn't. The author made you make mistakes so that you could see what happens when things didn't work right.
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: Any critique would be appreciated, as would recommendations for
Hi, I'm also just starting out and I'm using a software program called Edison by Design Soft.
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I just started using it and so far it seems like a great learning tool for creating circuits and measuring values, etc. I have the student version, cost $39. I have no affiliation with this company, just wanted to let you know what's available to assist in your learning. You should check it out.
J
LTSpice is free and with professional quality analysis. The problem for beginners will be the relative lack of common parts libraries (other than those parts Linear sells.)
What it doesn't do, though, is blink the LEDs on the schematic.
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