Taking Things Apart

That's how a lot of us got started, in addition to building things in kit form. If you don't find a site to your liking, you could create a freebie yahoo or msn group just for this purpose. They give ya plenty of space for storing pics and posting messages. Good luck and happy tinkering!

has quite a bit of info of this sort on it, careful though, it's easy to get sucked in for hours.

Sounds good to me. That's how many of us got started. :)

Now you have the Internet!

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You're one of what seems to be a dying breed.

I wish more engineering students felt this way. Most of them today have never bothered to take something apart to see what was inside. It makes me wonder what posessed them to study engineering in the first place.

Keep it up! You may be driving your parents crazy, but you're picking up skills and experience that will be incredibly valuable to you some day if you enter a technical career. And even if you decide to live your life as a fisherman or a sculptor, you'll still have a great hobby.

And Universities don't help. Many EE departments think that doing computer simulations is equivalent to hands-on experience. Remember all those ideal inductors? :)

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ:

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Have you considered getting yourself an amateur radio license ? Thre's still a lot of us that are genuinely technical, and are happy to see new technically minded licensees come on the air. You get to talk to a bunch of friendly people, world wide, and also get to have the satisfaction of making those contacts either on kit you wholly built yourself, or at least using accessories and antennas that you built for yourself. Great way to pursue your hobby and interest, and meet new people as well.

Arfa

"ServCarpenter" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

There are some sites out there like that, but they're usually device- specific.

For example, this is the Apple Newton 2000/2100 disassembly guide:

Comments usually to go to the email group list that many Newton users know about. (NewtonTalk.)

Puckdropper

--
www.uncreativelabs.net

Old computers are getting to be a lost art. Here at Uncreative Labs, we 
still enjoy using the old computers. Sometimes we want to see how far a 
particular system can go, other times we use a stock system to remind 
ourselves of what we once had.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

Man, I wish we had the gear available to work on, back when I was your age! Seems like your'e on the right track, & doing very well already! Good for you! Keep in mind, soon...there will be little need for repair people, in T.V., VCR...if they still have them. I still love it, & hope you stick with it, but try to get another trade also, even related to what your'e doing now, because you WILL NOT make a lot of money at it. Learn computers, PLC, three phase frequecny drives, some electrical, & study, study, study, on your own. I'll send you some great sites, when I dig them out. You will be floored by what you can learn online, & from the guys here. Also check out these newsgroups. There lots of posts with sites to look up. BE CAREFUL not to get electrocuted!!! Alway discharge (with the unit unplugged), the main filter capacitors. Take care, Sky.

sci.electronics.repair, misc, equipment, design, components, basics, & sci.electronics.

I agree. I just finished school a year ago, and none of the students with the exception of one or two seemed to even care about electronics. Most of them were in it because they thought they could make lots of easy money. I've always been a tinkerer, starting out very similarly to what the o.p. stated, , and I admit I was disappointed when I finished school, both in the lack of interest in the future generations of engineers and for the lack of demand for people like us, but seeing websites such as Mike's Electric Stuff and Power Labs reminded me there is hope. I knew repair shops were on the downhill, seeing many of the close around me steered me towards other fields, but I found a cal lab that does repair work, so now I'm a calibration/repair tech and I couldn't be happier. I get to work with expensive equipment all day that I'd otherwise have no exposure to, and get to fix much of it. There is still some hope out there, but hobbyists are quickly dying.

I've gone off babbling,...

Steve

go for it...and don't get discouraged....

I took apart and broke lots of stuff for good before I managed to actually "fix" something....

Mark

Well the time has never been better to get stuff to practice on, every day more and more equipment is getting junked due to trivial problems.

"Dana" bravely wrote to "All" (26 Nov 05 21:57:50) --- on the heady topic of "Re: Taking Things Apart"

Da> From: Dana Da> Xref: core-easynews sci.electronics.repair:349652

Da> I agree. I am a blind person and I started out that way. I was always Da> curious how things worked.

Don't mean to be insulting, but please indulge a small personal question, which wire do you cut, the red wire or the blue wire?

And now a word for the extreme braille sports fans,

\ \o_ \ m \\ \ \o_ \ m \\ \ \o_ \ m \\ \ \o_ \ m \\ \ \o_ \ m / \\ w_ \ \o_ /o \ m \\ _ \o_ \___./ \ m \\ \ \o_ \ m \\ \______________________________________

,+*^^*+___+++_ ,*^^^^ ) _+* ^**+_ +^ _ _++*+_+++_, ) _+^^*+_ ( ,+*^ ^ \+_ ) { ) ( ,( ,_+--+--, ^) ^\ { (@) } f ,( ,+-^ __*_*_ ^^\_ ^\ ) {:;-/ (_+*-+^^^^^+*+*____) >___ ^\_\_\_\_\_\_\) ^^^//\\_^^//\\_^ ^(\_\_\_\) ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^ HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Asimov

... I worked hard to attach the electrodes to it.