Love electronics... but lacking ideas

[Hydrawerk]

I found that wonderful book here. http://worldtracker.org/media/library/Reference/Encyclopedia's/Graf%20-%20Encyclopedia%20of%20Electronic%20Circuits%20-%20Vol%206.pdf
Please note that there might be a copyright violation. I am no an owner of that web www.worldtracker.org.

[Hydrawerk]

What about building a simple little vehicle?

[jimjam]

Thanks for the wonderful project ideas and book suggestions. I agree - start simple I wonder if I should start a new thread on books... but here it is for now:

I am currently planning on getting these books:

Practical Electronics for Inventors, Third Edition by Paul Scherz
Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071771336

I'm not sure about this book:
Digital Design and Verilog HDL Fundamentals by Joseph Cavanagh
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1420074156
 I am looking for a basic to intermediate digital design book as a refresher. I studied it at university a long time ago but back then I haven't heard of HDL / Verilog, so I am curious about it. I'm not sure if this is the best book to re-fresh on digital design basics.



Circuit Analysis: Theory and Practice by Allan H. Robbins
Link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1133281001
This is mainly theoretical stuff that I think I used to learn at uni too, but have forgotten most of.

Not sure if I'm on the wrong path here by picking these books.

I will also read that encyclopedia of electronics circuits, thanks for the PDF link! It sounds interesting

[corrado33]

My inspiration for my designs are my hobbies! When I was into fishtanks, I wanted to build a "Moonlight" circuit that would mimic the phases of the moon and have the "moonlight" "rise" on one side of the tank and "set" on the other. I actually did it, but I didn't know how to use real time clocks then, so my timing was always off. I even integrated "soft start/stop" lights so that when the timer for the main lights went off, smaller LEDs would kick in and slowly dim (like a sunset), then in the morning the small lights would come on first then the entire project would reset when the main lights came on (I used a photodiode). The main light timer was one that plugged into the wall, I didn't want to mess with 120V in my little project box.  Actually, I lied, I believe I used an LED as a photodiode. Interesting stuff.

Then, when I was into cars, I build an H-Bridge for a seatbelt motor (before I knew what an H-bridge was). And I did it with relays! It was much cheaper than buying the $100+ part. Then a few weeks later I found a wrecked car in the junkyard and got the part off of that for a few bucks! But my circuit worked like a treat! Wouldn't call it much of a circuit though.

Other times, inspiration comes directly from fun things. I got into robots for a while, but was quickly overwhelmed. I actually built a hexagonal 4 wheeled omnidirectional bot, ordered the electronics for it, then never built the board. I was having trouble with making PCBs (and I moved). (I refused to use arduino for the sake of "I should just learn the damn stuff myself."  )

My current project stems from necessity. I wanted a display that I could connect to any of my microcontroller projects and help me debug things, so that's what I'm building.

Anyway, take your hobbies and think of something you could improve. Or think of something you could improve in your daily life!

[lapm]

I sometimes get going from learning something new. Or atleast trying to learn something i havent done before... Even if my experiment fails, theres always something to learn from it that improves my skills in long run...

Sometimes i just out of curioisity take small challenges, do somethign simple just becouse you can. It docent matter if someone else mass produces it cheaper. I make it just becouse i can or i need some functionality that is not there on ready made item...

[jamesglanville]

One other thing I thought of - clocks are a nice project. Hundreds of ways to make them suit what you want to learn about, whether you want to control a weird display like a VFD (my favourite), do the whole thing in discrete logic, or with a microcontroller. Best of all though, you can't really have enough clocks and then you get to have your project sitting around and not just stuffed in a drawer somewhere when it's done.

[M0BSW]

How about buying broken electronics on ebay and fixing them , a lot can be gained by that, this is the road I've taken.

[vk3yedotcom]

Another thought is keep things simple. 

Look for circuits you can build with just one transistor. 

These include a surprising number of oscillators, amplifiers, test gear, radio receivers, transmitters etc. 

As one example, the video at shows how I spent a morning doing range tests on a milliwatt level 1 transistor VHF radio transmitter. 

You then go on a walk (with a receiver) to see how far the signal goes.   Even a 1 transistor transmitter can be heard several kilometres away if built right.

[jimjam]

Wow more great ideas! I'll also be writing ideas down. The simple one transistor circuits is an awesome idea for learning the basics. I can't wait to get my breadboard and other stuff.

[macboy]

Have you ever had the internet go out?

That's called apocalypse

*IPocalypse*