Free Parts for school - Los Angeles area

I started as an electronic hobbyist but I've moved up the food chain and do it for a living now. I work at a decent size company, designing electronics for the professional entertainment industry. However, because I don't want to turn around and do more of it when I get home I find I have not touched my garage full of electronics for quite some time.

Hence I have a lot of surplus electronics and components. Is there a trade school or maybe even a high school electronics instructor in the greater Los Angeles area who would like a truck load of parts and all manner of whole and partially whole electronics for the students to practice with.

A lot of it is oriented towards audio or building disco type lighting controllers. I also have some supplies for making your own PCBs.

Please call me or e-mail me at snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net

-- Dan Fraser

From Costa Mesa in sunny California

949-631-7535 Cell 714-420-7535

Check out my electronic schematics site at:

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Reply to
Dan Fraser
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In article , snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net mentioned...

I wish I could say yes, but sadly the budget cutbacks and retirements have forced our college district to close the electronics program. After the next semester, it will be no more. :-(

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Reply to
Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun'

The one I attended years ago died due to student attrition.

Tom

Reply to
Tom MacIntyre

I run into the same thing here in Kansas City, but my best outlet has been the IEEE club. They use what they want for whatever they want, and sell the rest at their sales to raise money for class trips. See if you can find a market there. Let us know what you find.

WT

and

me

Reply to
Wayne Tiffany

and

me

Your English is better than many Americans!

How is the technical education system in Italy? In the US, for the most part, they have always tried to force all students into to take "book learning" rather than classes that would allow them to persue a trade. Any profession that involves working with your hands is looked down upon by teachers that spent many years studying from books. Very little "trade schools" are available, and many that do exist are being closed. The US has a very high percentage of students that don't finish high school, because they want to learn about things that they can touch. Occasionally, a high school will offer "hands on" classes, but as you have seen from this thread, these classes are being shut down as well. It is frustrating, one more generation, and no one will know how to change the oil in their cars, and finding a repairman who does know is going to be difficult.

Reply to
Ken Finney

--------------- I'm hobby, hobbier, hobbiest, NO, I'm a hobbyest!!!

Learn GRAMMAR! Yeah, I know, your grammar lives in another state!

The schools are technically incompetent, they don't know what they need or how to use it, it's truly pitiful. We need to bring more non-bachelor-degreed technicians and 2-year technologists into the school system to teach this stuff, but the established teaching staff and priciplaships are all degreed and insulated from the world of blue-collar expertise, which they were taught to denigrate for some unknown reason, (until they need something fixed) and they have NO IDEA of who knows what and how-to do it in the outer society. I've tried to DONATE innumerable devices and even my own time to schools over the years, and all they would have had to do is say: YES, but they were paralyzed with technophobia and bureaucratic doubt for anything that hadn't been done much before, and yet they consistently complain that they don't KNOW how to do any of this stuff!!

-Steve

--
-Steve Walz  rstevew@armory.com   ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!!  With Schematics Galore!!
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Reply to
R. Steve Walz

It's not just the States. Here in Australia I've offered tools, equipment and even to teach courses with material and time provided free, to my childrens high school, but those offers have always been ignored. My youngest son has just changed to a newly opened high school dedicated to maths and science, it'll be interesting to see their approach, I've made the offer of several development kits, parts, built boards, time, and support, I'm waiting to see if anything happens.

Al

R. Steve Walz wrote:

Reply to
onestone

I had a similar experience in Hamilton. Ontario, Canada. It was a real struggle to find someone in the school system to accept the databooks and equipment I wanted to donate.

When I was in high school, electronics was a 3-year course. We got to take equipment home for the weekend! I remember people' reaction when I setup an oscilloscope and two signal generators to produce spiral figures (I can't remember the name, lysageos, or something).

Dana Raymond

Reply to
Dana Raymond, a minor God

I have been an electronic engineer for over 20 years, and what I have seen over and over are new engineers coming out of college with no idea which end of a soldering iron is hot. It is not necessary to intern as a technician for four years, but it would be nice if they had some idea of what the real world was like.

Reply to
Earl Wildes

If they did work as a tech first, they would understand that part of a design is to make it easy to assemble, and work on. The best engineers I have worked with all started working with electronics before they went to get a degree.

--
Its August 5, 2003, so I'm 51 today!
Michael A. Terrell
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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Yes, I do find it frustrating. No one learns hardware any more. No wonder it takes Being 15,000 engineers to design anything.

I worked many years as a tech before I finally got a full time engineering job. When I hire techs now its amazing how little many of them know.

I just can't bring myself to throw the stuff out. I already tossed the real crap but it seems most of the hardware design seems to have moved to China. Everyone here wants to do software. I have news. The software jobs are starting to move to India where speak English better than a lot of Americans

I'm designing a low end DSP here but our high end unit is being done in India to my spec as next to no one here seems to know crap about writing tight machine code software let alone the hardware.

I even find the techs and engineers laid off from aerospace just don't seem to have that good a knowledge. So few people are really into hardware anymore.

Well its a god thing my company does not have a forced retirement age. It looks like I'll just keep designing hardware until I drop. at least there is always work for people who know how to design and repair stuff.

I'm 52 and my grandfather made it to 101. After that, well, we just buy all our hardware from China I guess.

-- Dan Fraser

From Costa Mesa in sunny California

949-631-7535 Cell 714-420-7535

Check out my electronic schematics site at:

formatting link
If you are into cars check out
formatting link

Reply to
Dan Fraser

in Italy the situation is the same... There are no "hands on" classes in the technical school, and learning is everyday more theoretical... If a student wants to know how stuff works, he has to do it by himself. :( bye

--------------------------------------- Saluti Paolo Squaratti "Speak softly and carry a big stick" Theodore Roosvelt

Reply to
PaoloS

Tell that to the employers who want a pedigree of degrees as long as my arm.... I was once in an interview for a microwave communications company in Montreal. I explained to the 'gentleman' interviewing me that I don't have a bachelor's degree but that I have designed devices and have a small lab at home and basically learn on my own. He looked at me as if I had sprouted spontaneous gangrenous leprosy and sneered 'Oh, you're one of those', with heavy italics on the 'those'. I didn't get that job.

Reply to
A E

Lissajous figures. ISTR you hook two sinewave oscillators up to the scope with different frequencies, but the same amplitude. Set the scope to "X-Y" mode and watch the patterns :)

Later.

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Phil.                                | Acorn RiscPC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem@despammed.com (valid address)| ViewFinder, Ethernet (Acorn AEH62),
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Reply to
Philip Pemberton

Another Canuck I see. I'm living in Canada's 5th largest city, Greater Los Angeles.

Yes, while I work as an engineer now, I'm one of "those" too.

I found a smaller company that is still a world class operator where they were willing to overlook my dropping out of university and going to tech school (Damn fool mistake on my part dropping out).

They were willing to overlook the formal degree and see my experience. To the interview I brought my patent and a circuit board (assembled) where I engineered the circuitry as well as designed the PCB. Quite a complex board too. Having faked my way into the Audio Engineering Society at one time helped as a credential too.

While you are supposed to have a bachelor's degree to get in I got in by owning an audio related business and interviewing at the NYC head office.

Overall, its my dream job and now I'm designing world class products, been promoted and making more money than ever before in my life. However, both people who interviewed me were engineers themselves.

If you have to interview with a non tech HR person, you're right, you never get anywhere without the paperwork. However, I've met a lot of paper engineers and it takes 10 of them to do what I do.

The difference I think is that most paper engineers are not really "into it". That is, after work, they go home and don't do any tech stuff outside of work. Its just a job to them.

Myself, I do sound every month for a show in San Diego and I have a free schematics web site. The big reason I think I have stopped doing my projects at home is because I am doing the same projects and sometimes better ones, at work anyway.

Why build something at home when I can do it at work and be paid for it. I'm lucky my personal interest parallels what I do at work.

-- Dan Fraser

From Costa Mesa in sunny California

714-420-7535

Check out my electronic schematics site at:

formatting link
If you are into cars check out
formatting link

Reply to
Dan Fraser

Ah, but the degree shows she 'learned to think'.... That's the excuse I get for the rationale of the 'bachelor degree for everything' mentality. You, sir, can not think. :)

Ah, but she photocopied it like only a university graduate can. It was the same story at my previous employer.

But she could give you the exact convolution matrix of the smearing! Don't you see?

Everyone's an engineer these days. Component engineer just means data entry clerk. Where I was working before, it was actually kind of sad to see the kids fresh from university, all excited, start to work as component engineer, it didn't take them too long to figure out that they're not engineers... Lots of confused kids. That being said, I'm trying to get in university myself... Resistance is futile. There's *nothing* out there for two college diplomas. You know, it's not so much the university experience itself that I have a problem with, it's how the employers use it, like in your case. Feels like to get any kind of decent job, you need a bachelor's these days. Massive overkill in most cases.

Reply to
A E

People wrote, in part.

I agree the best engineer I ever hired (that was when a group/departmental managers still, in our organization, had a say in who was chosen!) was an individual who had been the top tech at a small TV network. A good 'People person' too; he's been promoted and very roughly now has the same job that I held some

15 years ago before I retired! I couldn't agree more. When I was a four year student apprentice about half way through some graduate engineers were placed alongside us and spent two years sort of 'hands on'. They were a little older and a little more worldly but it was a good mix. Come to think of it the second best engineer that I worked with had grown up on an isolated Scottish farm that depended on a set of surplus W.W.II ex German U Boat batteries for power; IIRC they were charged partly by a windmill and partly by an ancient one or two cylinder engine driving a dynamo via a big leather belt. I knew what he was talking about cos my uncle's chicken farm had a similar set up in the early 1940s! Anyway that engineer knew all about battery voltages and specific gravities at various temperatures. Terry. PS. In another aspect, my wife's career as a commercial caterer, we found that architects often don't design kitchens that best suit their purpose/use. But that's another rant for another time. Ergo all apprentice architects should work as cooks, for a time!
Reply to
Terry

"R. Steve Walz" wrote: in part

As a general statement I have to agree. I have never figured out why in our 'western societies' we do not value more, people who can actually 'do' things. We spend millions on athletes and 'famous' people who often have a limited repertoire of skills and sometimes a not to be admired life style? One of the most knowledgeable (about home repairs and house construction) individuals I know is a 50 year old man without a great deal of 'formal' education. I feel I have always attempted to recognize and compliment someone, in what I hope is seen as a genuine manner, for perceived skills. However it seem fashionable to speak disparagingly about technical people; referring to an electrician, for example, as "sparky". Not that is really insulting among peers. Within reasonable limits of knowledge and time one can just smile at the general public and then, often, go fix something yourself. Or at very least have some rapport with the professional trades person who is doing a job. One always can learn something too; even if it is how little one knows about a particular trade/profession. many thanks for any/all help here. Terry.

Reply to
Terry

He should have said, "Of course!", and hug up. Let the moron look for it the rest of the day!

--
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

In this day and age of pop stars, entertainers and financial and media whizz kids it is crushingly unfashionable to be good at technical or practical things whether they be developing electronic circuits or just simply a bit of bricklaying. The root of the problem lies with the media and that fact that the practical and technical minded people don't fight back against the system.

I myself started on electronics when I was 10 and by the time I was a teenager became highly skilled and knowledgeable in the subject but it was totally ignored by my school and just about all in society apart from a few neighbours who wanted appliances fixed. My parents stated that if I were good at the arts or sports then my talents would be well recognised and I would have received plenty of support from outside forces.

Reply to
The Technical Manager

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