Electronics > Beginners
what equipment should we buy for our new electronics club?
Old Printer:
As Schmidtt said, have a meeting and identify areas of interest. Electronics is a broad topic and there will certainly be some focus. If no one knows anything, unlikely, even that is a focus on Ohm's Law 101 :)
innkeeper:
--- Quote from: patchie on June 19, 2018, 07:30:25 am ---We are going to start a electronics club here in Norway.
We need some suggestions on what equipment we should buy.
--- End quote ---
Hi patchie, welcome to the Forum!
Tell us a bit about the club, what kind of projects you see your club doing in the short term.
It does sound like you have a limited budget, but, that should not be a problem.
There are plenty of good recommendations already, but, over time, you can grow your equipment base.
it will help us help you save money if we know more about what you want to do initially.
over time, you can then grow the depth of the equipment as projects dictate, or, as funds allow.
rstofer:
I pitch the Analog Discovery 2 quite often. But it's an expensive gadget, all in, and people just don't want to give it a try.
Here's the thing: It's a dual channel scope, dual channel arbitrary waveform generator (fancy signal generator), dual adjustable power supplies (but limited in voltage and current), and a whole lot more. It literally replaces a rack full of test equipment and is ideal for prototyping and learning. Just look at the list of things it will do:
https://store.digilentinc.com/analog-discovery-2-100msps-usb-oscilloscope-logic-analyzer-and-variable-power-supply/
No, I'm not going to scrap my real signal generators, power supplies or scopes but I'm really glad I have the AD 2. Among other things, the traces are easy to see on a 27" computer screen.
Dave did a video on the original Analog Discovery, I don't know if he has done one on the AD 2. There are several on YouTube.
Personally, I would go for the Pro Bundle:
https://store.digilentinc.com/all-products/scopes-instruments/
Or one of the other assortments that includes parts like the Maker Bundle (add a pair of scope probes).
You can do a heck of a lot of electronics with the AD2.
One of my major interests with electronics is analog computing and, for that, I need X-Y plots. The Tek 485 will do them but I don't wind up with a hard copy. The DS1054Z will do them but on a small portion of the screen. Through some convoluted process I can get a hard copy. The AD2 does them on my PC's 27" monitor. Alt-PrtScrn gets them into Paint and that gets them saved as a file. See attached... BTW, that first example is two 1kHz sine waves 90 degrees out of phase. One signal goes to X (Ch 1) and the other goes to Y (Ch 2). Change one of the frequencies to some multiple of 1 kHz plus a little bit (like 9.001 kHz) and you get a really neat Lissajous pattern that rolls. A single shot looks like the attached. Note that I have both Y versus time and X versus Y.
If you are not using the BNC adapter, both scope channels are fully differential. This can come in very handy when you want to measure the voltage ACROSS a component that doesn't have one end connected to ground. Base resistors come to mind. As does Vce... Differential probes for conventional scopes are kind of expensive.
jancumps:
--- Quote from: schmitt trigger on June 20, 2018, 05:04:41 pm ---...
For example, if you are interested in audio amplifiers, [...] get yourself some high-power non-inductive load resistors.
--- End quote ---
Why focus on the non-inductance when the only thing the power amplifiers will ever see is an inductive load?
Old Printer:
I will ditto what ristofer said. The AD1 & AD2 give the beginner a very wide range of test gear, but with limited ranges. I bought the AD2 at full price and have really learned a lot with it. By watching ebay I recently picked up an AD1 for $55 shipped. That is unusually low, but no one was looking when this one closed. The usual price is more like $150 and up, at that rate I would probably go for a new AD2. Watch local classified Craigslist ads as graduated students that bought the AD1 for the old $99 price may be dumping them.
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