Painless Technology: Charles Platt

Showing posts with label Charles Platt. Show all posts

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Make: Electronics Parts Packs

Saw this on Hands On: Make Electronics and quickly went over to Make to get the details. My biggest complaint, and pretty much only one, about the Make:Electronics book up to this point is having to stop and order parts.

Maker Shed is in the process of creating two component packs to go along with the book. The first one will available mid march and the second one shortly after that. The cost of the first is $99. I probably won't be buying this one since I've already purchased most of the items included already. As soon as they list the parts in the second component kit, I'll make a decision regarding that one.

I figure I've dropped over $300 so far including the book and the tool kit. Being able to buy the components like this won't be any more expensive. You do miss out on the opportunity to figure out how to buy components, but that will come sooner or later.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Make Electronics (10) Capacitator

This is the second part of my sketching/thought process for understanding the oscillator circuit in Experiment 8 in Make: Electronics.

I sketched out a simple oscillator circuit using a relay and a button. When the button is pushed, the circuit is completed which pulls the switch up which then breaks the circuit letting the switch go back down again. This process repeats very quickly until the button is released.

Here is the same circuit shown on a breadboard. (Note. The relay I'm using here is still the one that I carved up earlier.)

The relay is opening and closing so fast it sounds like a buzzer.

Next part of the experiment is to slow down the speed at which the relay opens and closes by adding a capacitor.

I put the capacitor in the circuit first without the LEDs to help keep it simple. This is how I sketched it out.

This is what it looked like on the breadboard. Push the button and I could hear the relay opening and closing at a slower rate.

Time to add in the lights.

Here's the sketch (same as the book) of the completed circuit. LEDs added in along with a resistor to keep them from burning out.

Picture of the completed circuit. The capacitor slows things down enough that you can see the lights blink.

I'm writing this several days after I worked it all out and I find I am still a little fuzzy on how the capacitator is hooked into the cirucit. I need to go back and play a bit more with this setup to cement it in my mind.

Bear with me....my mind isn't as nimble as it once was. If you are following along in the book and moving at a faster pace, check out Jim Kelly's Blog, he is much further along than I am.

[Images: All taken by Al Gunn: (CC: Attribution)]

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Make Electronics(9) Sketching to Understand

Finally got my order from JameCo, including the capacitor I was waiting for to move on in Make: Electronics.

My pesky teaching job kept me from getting back to my new hobby for a while. When I finally did open up my storage box and started fiddling around, I realized I could build the relay from the last activity (Experiment 8) but I didn't really understand what I was doing. I followed the diagram and it worked, but when I tried to explain it out loud to my dog, we both soon realized I didn't really get it.

I'm a visual thinker. I doodle during meetings. I doodle when I make lessons. My principal picked up some of my plans for teaching last week and just shook her head. It was a page of quickly sketched out web pages that I wanted to talk about with my kids. Very few words....just lots of badly drawn images.

When I realized my lack of understanding regarding what I was doing, I grabbed a pencil and paper and started drawing out the circuits. I broke up the entire circuit into it's separate parts. Once I sketched it out, then I built it on the breadboard.

This first circuit just turns on the magnetic switch inside the relay.

I built it on the breadboard and when I pushed the button, I could hear it click as the switch engaged.

So far so good. I understand this!

In the second circuit, I added an LED to the closed portion of the relay switch. It should be lit, until I break the circuit by pushing the button.

It also worked.

For the third circuit, I wanted it to do just the opposite. I wanted the light to be off until I pushed the button.

(The picture for this one looks pretty much the same as the previous one, so I left it out.)

For the fourth circuit, I added both LED lights. Now when you push the button, one light goes out while the other is on.

One light is always on.

It also worked.

This takes me up through experiment 7 in the book. The next one had to do with creating a circuit that automatically opens and closes. I'll show the same step by step process I went through to understand that circuit too....along with some more snazzy pencil sketches!

I found drawing out the circuits really helped me to understand what was going on. It also helped to cement the different symbols into my memory. By the time I hit the fourth sketch, I was drawing the components without looking at the book.

[All images taken by Al Gunn: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.]

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Make Electronics (8) Relays

All but one of my orders came in over the past few days and I decided to tackle the next few experiments in Make: Electronics. I worked my way through switches. No problem other than hooking everything up with alligator clips.

The author, Charles Platt, has you tear apart one of the relays to see how they work, as shown to the left.

Essentially a relay is a switch that turns on another switch. It has a small electro-magnet that closes another circuit when it gets a little juice. After I played around with this for a bit, I remembered making one of these using a nail with wire wrapped around it for the electro-magnet part when I was in 5th or 6th grade. When you turned the magnet on, it attracted another bit of metal that then closed a switch which turned on a light bulb. Almost the same experiment as shown in the Make: Electronics, only using nails, wire and a block of wood to hold it all together. How many classrooms today allow elementary kids hunks of wood, nails, hammers, real cutting utensils (not safety scissors) and dry cell batteries?

As you can see here, I have the first part of Experiment 7 using the relay switch put together using alligator clips. It works, but shake the table and it all falls apart. Thankfully, the next step is to start using a breadboard to build circuits.

Here is the completed circuit built on a breadboard. Push the red button and one LED goes off and the other turns on.

Unfortunately, the next experiment called for a capacitor and it's in the one order that hasn't arrived as of yet.

So I spent another thirty minutes just messing around building different circuits on the breadboard. I bought a box of pre-cut wires on the advice of the author and that makes throwing things together much easier. You could cut a bunch of wires to different lengths, but for around $5 someone else did that for me. Lazy....yes. Useful....oh yes!

[Images all taken by Al Gunn]

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Make Electronics (7) Soldering

I decided to practice my soldering skills while waiting for my electronic parts to arrive. Gives me a chance to break in the new soldering iron and practice some of the joints mentioned in the book. Right away let me say after trying to hold pieces of wire together, the solder and the iron, I'm glad I ordered a Helping Hands stand the other day. I ended up using some alligator clips to help me keep everything together. I remember this being much easier when I was a teenager. Although the first joint shown here turned out pretty good. Nice and shiny. Uniform. Rounded shape.

It went downhill from there.

I kept adding joints to my wire until I'd done about six different connections. My first was my best.

Think I'll wait for the helping hands before I do anymore.

Found this video tutorial on Make for the beginner.

[Images: Photographed by Al Gunn (CC: Attribution)]

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Make Electronics (6) More parts...More Money

Spent all morning shopping online electronic companies to find the parts I need for the next set of experiments in Make: Electronics by Charles Platt. Must say this was not as easy as I thought. Might be that I'm not familiar with electronic components as of yet, but it took me about three hours of comparison shopping to find what I needed. I think if I was willing to spend a little more time I could have got everything from two companies and saved some shipping costs. At this point though, I just want the parts. Really wish MakerShed had put together a more complete set of components to go along with the book.

Ended up using these four online companies today.
Radio Shack $30.52
This was the hardest site to use unless you know the exact order number. Doing a general search just gives too much to sort through.

JameCo $28.78
This company seemed to have the best grab-bag kind of deals. Spent a little more here just to get an assortment of LEDs, capacitators, and resistors.

All Electronics $23.70
Found a few items cheaper here than the other sites. Good selection.

Mouser Electronics $26.54
Felt like I needed to know more to be able to use this site more efficiently. Huge selection, but I got overwhelmed several times as I was trying to find a specific component.

Surfed around eBay a bit and once again just didn't feel like I knew enough to make a reasonable purchase. Saw some good prices on bulk items and might have bought here if the shipping had been faster from some of the oversea suppliers. I will definitely be looking more closely at this location for future purchases.

Total cost of my online shopping today: $109.54
Total amount I've spent on my new hobby so far: $303.30
(I'm thinking this is the last big purchase I will need to make for a while.....I hope!)

[Image: "Money Grab"; Steve Wampler; Uploaded on September 27, 2008;http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgw/2892058635/ (CC:Attribution)]

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Make Electronics (5) My first experiements

Worked my way through the first five experiments in Make: Electronics tonight and had a great time. Some things I already knew. Some stuff I am still working to clarify in my own mind. Up to this point, I am still pleased with my purchase. I was wishing I had a kid in the house who could share this with me. Too bad my nephews all live so far away. My wife says we aren't going to start a family in our late fifties just so I can have a playmate. She can be stern that way sometimes.

The author has you burn up a couple of things to see what happens. This includes putting too much power through a LED that stops working with a satisfying little pop. I also burnt up two more accidentally while I was messing around a bit with some of my own circuits.

Learning through destruction! My kind of lesson.

The picture is of Experiment 3 in the book. Various resistors and an LED are hooked to a battery to see what happens. Directions are also given on how to check a resister with your multimeter to determine it's resistance rating. This is something that frustrated me tremendously in high school. I was always reading the stripes incorrectly. For those of you not in the know, a series of colored stripes tell you the rating of your component. This is all fine and dandy unless you are color blind, a disability I didn't even know I had until my physical for college.

My instructor and I in high school both assumed I was a lost cause when it came to electronics. I felt a great deal of satisfaction tonight as some thirty years later as I figured out the ratings on each resistor without having to figure out the colors. This is going to be fun.

Went as far as I could today with the components on hand. I skipped ahead a bit and messed around with the breadboard. Set up the same circuit from Experiment 3. Later tonight, I'll be going online to buy what I need for the next few lessons. While I'm waiting, I am going to practice soldering.

[Image: Photographed by Al Gunn (CC:Attribution)]

Sunday, January 31, 2010

A Blog about MAKE:Electronics

Found someone else who is blogging about their experience with the MAKE: Electronics book. James Floyd Kelly has created a blog, Hands On - Make:Electronics.

His blog will take you step-by-step through the whole book....or at least he has done this so far. He has lots of pictures and some videos of his progress through the book. He also lists prices of items as he purchases them for the various projects.

He is much more detailed than I am in regards to the various experiments from the book. Good blog to follow if you are interested in the book or want to see how someone else is doing while you work through the chapters yourself.

[Image captured from Hands On - Make:Electronics; http://handsonelectronics.blogspot.com/]

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Make Electronics (4): New Tool Box

One little detour today in my study of electronics. I have been keeping all my stuff in a cardboard box. I don't really have a place to set up a permanent work bench at the current moment. So, I decided to go buy a big toolbox to hold everything neatly and let me stow it out of site in the garage when I wasn't messing around.

I figure this would be a useful addition and help maintain a healthy and happy marriage. My wife is patient but she does like to use the kitchen table for meals occasionally.

I headed down to a nearby Lowes to see what I could find. This toolbox caught my eye because it had the small parts bin built into the top of the box. That seemed like a good idea and would let me hold off on buying some small parts containers to hold all the components I am sure I will end up with eventually.

I also splurged and bought a better wire stripper than came with my kit for $8. The original is adjustable but you have to tighten/re-tighten a screw for the different gauges of wire. I decided to keep that one set up for 22 gauge wire and keep this one handy for other sizes. It may end up being a frivolous purchase....I'll let you know.

All the bigger tools fit into the main body of the toolbox. I may cut down a few small boxes to organize things a bit better in the bottom compartment, but for now it all works out nicely.

A feature that I didn't plan on was how the wire spools sit so nicely in the top compartment.

The parts bin works great with one possible problem. You have to be sure to close it tightly before opening the main box. If not, you could spill all your tiny little pieces all over the floor. I had looked at another box ($15 more expensive) that let you remove the small parts bin off the top. I think that may have been a better choice, but until I do a few projects, not really sure about my workflow.

Tool box and wire strippers cost: $27.08
Total cost up to this point: $193.76

[Images: Photographed by Al Gunn (CC: Attribution)]

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Make Electronics (3): The Shack

Went down to my local Radio Shack to buy some of the parts I needed for my Make: Electronics experiments. It's been a while since I was in Radio Shack and the walls of electronic components have been reduced to a small corner of the store. They are more efficiently organized but you can no longer stand around looking at the various bits and pieces. Now you have to open a drawer labeled resisters or LEDs. Luckily, I had a list of things I needed and didn't feel intimidated. The bad news is they didn't have everything I was looking for and some of the items had to be purchased in different configurations than stated in the book.

For Example. The author recommended an assortment of resisters in a bulk pack that are usually cheaper when purchased this way. The Shack didn't have anything like this in their store and I ended buying three packages of specific resistors for 99 cents a package.

I will be doing most of my purchases online from this point on. The book lists several online vendors along with Radio Shack. They could have ordered the items for me at the store but once again, I wanted to get home to play. I didn't want to wait another couple of days before actually getting my hands dirty.

I bought:

(10)Mini Aligator Clips
(20)Assorted LEDs
(15) Resistors (three packages)
(2) Potentiometers
(5) 9volt battery clips (they didn't sell them individually)
(1) 4 AA battery holder
(1) Breadboard

Total cost: $42.68 with tax. The largest cost item was the breadboard which set me back $19. I could have bought a slightly cheaper one for $16, but instead opted for one that included terminals to hook up your power source. Seemed like a convenience that might come in handy. I'll let you know.

Total cost of initial kit and supplies up to this point: $166.68

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[Image: Photos by Al Gunn (CC:Attribution)]

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Make: Electronics (2)

My Deluxe Make Electronics Tool Kit arrived and at first glance I am very pleased. I spent a couple of hours this evening reading the first couple of chapters of the book and skimming the rest. The tools and parts that came with the kit are acceptable. I probably could have got most of the tools and items for about the same price, but it was nice to get them all at once as I wouldn't have known what to look for in some of the items. Hopefully this will help me skip some of the bumbling around that occurs when you start a new hobby.

My first complaint about the kit is that I don't have the parts I need to do the first couple of experiments. It's a minor thing, but I would have liked to have started tonight. This means I need to shlep on down to my local Radio Shack to pick up a few things tomorrow.

I'll keep you posted.

[Image: photographed by Al Gunn (creative commons: attribution)]

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Make: Electronics (1)

I bought an electronics book a couple of years ago with the idea that I'd teach myself enough so I could tinker around with simple projects in my free time. It was a failure and I never built that killer robot I had rolling around in my daydreams.

Make published a new book, Make: Electronics, just before Christmas and I thought, maybe it was time to try again. I committed all the way and bought their Deluxe Electronics Tool Kit so I would have most of the basic items I needed to get started. The kit included (along with the book):

(1) 30w adjustable soldering iron
(1) Deluxe Solder Stand & sponge
(1) 1/4 lb Spool of rosin core solder .031" (60/40)
(1) 5ft Solder wick
(1) Digital Multimeter
(1) Wire strippers
(1) Deluxe Wire cutters
(3) 25ft spools of solid core 22AWG wire
(1) Deluxe Needle nose pliers
(1) 5 piece miniature screwdrivers kit
(1) Desolder pump
(1) Panavise Jr for holding PCBs
(1) WeeBlinky Kit - Requires soldering
(1) Maker's Notebook

Total Cost: $124 (I got free shipping because of a promotion at the time)

This was my Christmas present to myself this year and am hoping that by this time next year, I will be on my way to building that world dominating robot.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

[Image from MakerShed: http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKEE2&Show=ExtInfo]