Author Topic: Anyone want to share how they got into electronics? (Read 13563 times)

IonizedGears · « **on:** February 10, 2013, 04:54:51 pm »

I came across EEVblog #54 video and this made me wonder about the background of many people on this forum. Care to share?

Here is my story so far as i am only 15.
I started out by taking this apart when i was little (5-8 years old) including those expensive 2000 dollars CRT computers because for some reason they would always fail each time my family of 5 got a whack at them and they would just sit in the basement collecting dust so i took them apart and me not being that knowledgeable at that age since i had no help from any magazines, internet, or basic help from people i would always completely destroy any possible salvage. I regret that completely by the way since i believe they could have been salvaged had i been more careful. I would continue doing that and when i became around 9 i started making a few things with still really no help at all ( i only started to get help at around 10 from the internet. I got into programming but i forgot a lot of that due to lack of using it that much but i still program a little java and c and assembly. I started formal school on electronics at 14 at my current tech. high school and i am the most knowledgeable in this area compared to my class and i never struggle with the current curriculum due to me doing research most of my time. Now my class is on function gens, and oscilloscopes and i am still breezing through so much that much teacher kind of hates how the questions i ask confuse everyone else due to being more advanced and what not. I am planning to go to college for a masters in engineering once i graduate from my high school. I am currently transitioning to a much bigger room which i am turning into a lab / bedroom. I am also collecting components and equipment too and even adding a built in fume extractor for work that would create a lot of smoke IE soldering and pcb etching.

Lightages · « **Reply #1 on:** February 10, 2013, 04:57:58 pm »

It was a simple beginning for me. When I was 2 or 3, I began to stick anything metallic into wall sockets to watch the sparks. When I was 11 my uncle gave me my first multimeter, which I still have today, and a Weller soldering gun.

jaqie · « **Reply #2 on:** February 10, 2013, 05:20:30 pm »

My mother used to tell me of the little girl that always took everything apart and cut the power cords off of everything. This was the early 1980s. I went to summer computer camp which used lego logo with apple II computers, and I was hooked. I got myself a TRS-80 model III used and taught myself the TRSDOS language, built single player yahtzee game on it, and many more programs... the TRS-80 broke and I tried fixing it... failed, but that got me started.

steve30 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 10, 2013, 05:23:26 pm »

I think I started by connecting 6V and 12V lamps and switches up to the spare motorbike batteries that my farther kept in the garage

.

I was originally more interested in computers, but then I got into electronics, and then managed to combine the two.

free_electron · « **Reply #4 on:** February 10, 2013, 05:42:21 pm »

I have an u cle that is also in electronics. He would sit at my grandparents fixing the tv ( tubes.. This is 1975 or so ) . One day he was building a radio tuner. As a six year old this fascinated me. He 'glued'( i didnt know what solder was, to me that was hot glue) parts together en there was music.
After coming home that night i tore apart a little pocket radio to see what made it tick. This was one of these first japanese all transistor radios that still had an output transformer. It was full of colorful coils with screw you could turn. So i happily started turnong away , completely destroying it....

My parents thought it would be better not to let me ruin working stuff so they got me one of those 100-in-1 electronics kits from radio shack. The rest is history...

houdini · « **Reply #5 on:** February 10, 2013, 06:03:32 pm »

i asked for an arduino and some components for my 15th birthday and it went from there. I allready knew how to program at that point and i found i liked bright lights and such so i built an led cube and stuff. I also annoyed my electronics teacher. These are capacitors they arent dangerous and wont ever explode. Yea right.

ptricks · « **Reply #6 on:** February 10, 2013, 06:07:28 pm »

It was around 1980 when a local ham radio guy started showing me how the radio worked and then helped me build a crystal radio. I was amazed how it could work without a battery and started to learn from him how it all worked. That started my quest to learn all the electronics I could.

If you ever want to learn more about electronics seek out your local ham radio guys, even when you think you know it all they know so much more.

IonizedGears · « **Reply #7 on:** February 10, 2013, 06:36:42 pm »

Nice backgrounds.

smashedProton · « **Reply #8 on:** February 10, 2013, 06:39:27 pm »

I built a shitty computer from parts when I was around 12 years of age because I could not afford to buy a readymade one. When looking at the motherboard, I saw a curious looking component that I have never seen before. (what I now know as a watch crystal). I ended up searching up that component, and all of the other jellybean electronic components. When I had enough money saved up, I bought as much as I could afford. Fast forward 5 obsessive years and now I have an adequate sized lab that is as complete as most people here. However, when I was fifteen, I took a detour from the hobby. I got into high voltage electronics. The dark side

Looking back, I am probably lucky to be alive. I was really doing dumb stuff; ZVS drivers, Cockroft walton multipliers, and a tesla coil. Now, I'm studying the grey area between analog and digital. Its really fascinating

G7PSK · « **Reply #9 on:** February 10, 2013, 06:42:09 pm »

I was about twelve when we moved into a big old house (over 30 rooms) in the attic I found an old but unused and still in its box cat's whisker and crystal in a glass tube with brass mountings. i did not know what it was so asked my father who told me about the old crystal sets, he helped me build a crystal radio from it winding the coil by hand and salvaging the other hardware, from there I discoverd the crystal set would only drive headphones so I had to learn to build an amplifier and as they say the rest is history.

FenderBender · « **Reply #10 on:** February 10, 2013, 06:42:27 pm »

Cool stories guys. I guess we are all very similar. Most of us seemed to have started of small by taking things apart etc.

I was always big into building computers. All plug and play stuff. Easy shmeezy.

So I came to the point where I pretty much knew everything about building computers...and I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to figure out WHY computers work. So I got some electronics books and went from there. It's been quite a journey so far.

FenderBender · « **Reply #11 on:** February 10, 2013, 06:43:18 pm »

Quote from: smashedProton on February 10, 2013, 06:39:27 pm

I built a shitty computer from parts when I was around 12 years of age because I could not afford to buy a readymade one. When looking at the motherboard, I saw a curious looking component that I have never seen before. (what I now know as a watch crystal). I ended up searching up that component, and all of the other jellybean electronic components. When I had enough money saved up, I bought as much as I could afford. Fast forward 5 obsessive years and now I have an adequate sized lab that is as complete as most people here. However, when I was fifteen, I took a detour from the hobby. I got into high voltage electronics. The dark side Looking back, I am probably lucky to be alive. I was really doing dumb stuff; ZVS drivers, Cockroft walton multipliers, and a tesla coil. Now, I'm studying the grey area between analog and digital. Its really fascinating

Same for me!

Sionyn · « **Reply #12 on:** February 10, 2013, 06:43:40 pm »

grandfather was a gpo head engineer had lots of nice testgear

jancumps · « **Reply #13 on:** February 10, 2013, 07:09:40 pm »

I visited an open day at our technical school when I was 12. That day I knew what I was going to study. I had to wait three more years because electronics studies start at the 4th year of our secondary school. I waited.

helloworld922 · « **Reply #14 on:** February 10, 2013, 07:13:57 pm »

My earliest memory of working with electronics was trying to fix the wiring for the lights in my grandpa's house... without turning off the power

I started out mainly programming, I would write fun little games for my calculator (TI-83+ FTW) Looking back, it's kind of funny how similar that is to microcontroller programming. It wasn't really till college that I got more into electronics. My junior year we had to build robots and I got put in charge of the wiring and electronics. That was a fun project, but I really didn't do too much outside of class as far as electronics was concerned (I'm a Mech-E). Then my senior year I was put into the position of the electrical guy for wiring a race car almost last-minute, and enjoyed the project so much that I decided to continue working with electronics as a hobby. Now I'm on the eternal search for acquiring parts and equipment so I can build fun and useful circuits (kindly accepting donations to the helloworld922 is poor fund).

smackaay · « **Reply #15 on:** February 10, 2013, 07:31:11 pm »

Well, I got into it pretty late. I was a programming from the time I was child though and was writing games from the time I was about 6. It wasn't until about 6 years ago, when I was 27 or so that I started delving into electronics because while I had good experience in programming and I'm a journeyman machinist that I wanted to link the world of the digital and the world of the physical. So now I build machines, gages and instrumentation.

andyturk · « **Reply #16 on:** February 10, 2013, 07:47:31 pm »

Quote from: free_electron on February 10, 2013, 05:42:21 pm

My parents thought it would be better not to let me ruin working stuff so they got me one of those 100-in-1 electronics kits from radio shack. The rest is history...

I used to build those PBox kits from Radio Shack... I can't remember exactly what the kits were, but I'll never forget the smell of that red plastic burning from my poor attempts at soldering. Sometimes I'd get bored with the completed kit and tear it down it for parts to build something else.

I also had a scrapbook of sorts with cut-outs from the Jameco catalog of all the things I'd buy if I had the money.

david77 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 10, 2013, 07:57:52 pm »

When I was a kid we would often visit good friends of my parents. The husband is an EE and has got the most amazing workshop in the basement. Rooms and rooms full of test gear and electrical junk. Their son is a few years older than me and he's got an amazing model railway setup in the attic of his parents house. It's a room of about 40m² filled with railways, computers, power supplies and so on.
When we visited them we would tinker away on this setup for hours and this is where I learned about electronics for the first time.
Also I took apart whatever I could get my hands on to see what made it work inside. My mum feared for everything that had a plug on it because I usually couldn't put things back together

.
When I was 9 this EE gave me my first soldering iron and a soldering lesson for christmas.
For my 18th birthday he gave me my Hitachi V550 scope which I still use.

PA0PBZ · « **Reply #18 on:** February 10, 2013, 08:44:26 pm »

When I was about 10 years old I started to take things home that people put outside for garbage collection, like radio's, vacuum cleaners and anything with a power cord and portable for a 10 year old. After taking apart enough to fill a few shoeboxes I started wondering what I could do with my collection. Since this was the 60's there was nothing like internet, you young guys have no idea how lucky you are

I only had the library to read about tubes, transformers and resistors, my dad was a mechanical engineer and while he was very good at that he had no interest in electronics.
When I was 15 there was a ham radio presentation at my school, and I immediately knew that this was what I wanted to know more about, so I've been a ham since I was 18 (That was the minimum age at that time). At about the same time I found out about digital stuff, like the 7400 series of IC's. Now that was something different from tubes!
A bit later I started reading about computers, but had to go to trade shows to get my hands on it. I still have my "is this a prime number" program I wrote on a teletype machine on one of these shows. A bit later I bought a "KIM 1", a board with a 6502 processor, 1K of memory and a hex keyboard and display. I payed like $500, probably almost a year of newspaper delivery, and that teached me assembly programming the hard way.
My first job was repairing household equipment like radio's, tv's, washing machines and so on. Doing repairs at peoples homes is a hard learning school, with kids complaining that the tv is broken while the family dog is trying to eat your equipment case... I think that time really educated me in understanding how stuff works.
Today my day time job is IT, and the hobby is still electronics, programming and ham radio. I finally have the equipment I could only dream of when I was a teenager, and I still enjoy fixing stuff. Just started playing with FPGA's, and I'm sure when that gets boring there will be something else

Teneyes · « **Reply #19 on:** February 10, 2013, 09:17:34 pm »

Quote from: IonizedGears on February 10, 2013, 04:54:51 pm

Here is my story so far as i am only 15.
"so much that much teacher kind of hates how the questions i ask confuse everyone else due to being more advanced and what not.

@IonizedGears, and beginners

Be carefull, you will probably get this line
"Only one thing worse than a Know-it-All that does NOT know it, and that is a Know-it-All that Knows It"

Talk to instructors after the class, Offer to help teach the class, start special projects,
get referred to after school electronic job.

For me, It started with plugging in things @2 , so my mother said.
Poor eye sight (600/20) so I had to visualize the world.
Ask Ma, "where do I plug in this rope.......
and like Dave "TAKE IT APART".

Family relied on me, and come back from College,
"oh Yeah, Teneyes you have to fix the Hot water"
as the shower went Freezing after 4 minutes

And many Shocking experiences:
Striping wire with teeth, seen many blue stars on 110 Vac
25,000 Vdc on Picture tube
5Kv arc to finger on a 6GHz TWT
100 W of SSB burns deep
220 Vac making me shaking on airducts alone at Satellite earth station
I hit the emergency Oxygen after that one.

Stay open to the many and exciting areas to play in

jaqie · « **Reply #20 on:** February 10, 2013, 09:21:15 pm »

Quote from: FenderBender on February 10, 2013, 06:42:27 pm

I pretty much knew everything about building computers...

nobody EVER knows everything about building computers.

I have been in the PC industry for at least 16 years, first as a hobby then a livelihood and now as an obsession as I am disabled and semi housebound. There is just way too much for any one person to EVER know everything about building PCs. And this is coming from someone that has worked on their hardware almost every waking hour for over 16 years.

I still learn things every day, just a week ago I learned that XT computers actually had two different ISA slot spacings, something I didn't know even though I worked on them when I started into PCs.

Neilm · « **Reply #21 on:** February 10, 2013, 10:01:00 pm »

I got into electronics when I found out I could give my little brother electric shocks using 2 AA cells and a small transformer. I was about 10

Neil

FenderBender · « **Reply #22 on:** February 10, 2013, 10:36:45 pm »

Quote from: jaqie on February 10, 2013, 09:21:15 pm

Quote from: FenderBender on February 10, 2013, 06:42:27 pm
I pretty much knew everything about building computers...
nobody EVER knows everything about building computers.

I have been in the PC industry for at least 16 years, first as a hobby then a livelihood and now as an obsession as I am disabled and semi housebound. There is just way too much for any one person to EVER know everything about building PCs. And this is coming from someone that has worked on their hardware almost every waking hour for over 16 years.

I still learn things every day, just a week ago I learned that XT computers actually had two different ISA slot spacings, something I didn't know even though I worked on them when I started into PCs.

Not sure what you mean. All I am saying is that I got to a point where looking at press releases for new parts just became boring and blah for me so I looked for something new to learn about.

Essentially I had peaked. Sure, no one can ever know everything about anything, but for my intents, I wasn't going to learn too much more.

smashedProton · « **Reply #23 on:** February 10, 2013, 11:00:18 pm »

I agree. There becomes a point that when learning all the wank words that the consumer pc industry uses is no longer interesting. Including all of the minor innovations that motherboard manufacturers blow out of proportion. Did you know that gigabyte uses the standby 12v rail to power the usb ports so you can power your apple/raspberry/pear devices 24/7? Hooray! Free kitkats for everybody!

What I am trying to say, is that there becomes a point where little things on arduino are more fascinating than big sometimes expensive things for pc.

I love it how apple never came into the picture here

Love you guys

FenderBender · « **Reply #24 on:** February 10, 2013, 11:33:32 pm »

Quote from: Neilm on February 10, 2013, 10:01:00 pm

I got into electronics when I found out I could give my little brother electric shocks using 2 AA cells and a small transformer. I was about 10

Neil

You managed to make AC out of two AAs? Magic?

SLJ · « **Reply #25 on:** February 10, 2013, 11:34:48 pm »

I got into model trains around 8 or 9 and learned about DC voltage. That started me taking apart everything to see how it worked. My father would bring me home radios, record players, tape recorders, and other electronics he found destined for the trash so I'd have things to take apart. I moved everything out of my closet and set up a table to use as a workbench. I kept puttering around with everything and eventually started having some successful repairs.

Just before High School a friend of my fathers gave me an old one tube radio from the 1920s he had stored away. I couldn't believe it worked with only one tube. That got me interested in collecting radios. Got into the electronics program at out area tech high school and went on from there. Eventually wound up working for a defense contractor for many years building custom test equipment. Went back to college a second time and wound up working in IT for the government for many years (more money) and retired from that a couple years ago.

I collected antique radios for many years and being a tech, I wound up also being interested in antique and vintage test equipment. Now I get to spend more time puttering around restoring really old electronics and researching it's history.

smashedProton · « **Reply #26 on:** February 10, 2013, 11:39:10 pm »

Quote from: smashedProton on February 10, 2013, 11:00:18 pm

I agree. There becomes a point that when learning all the wank words that the consumer pc industry uses is no longer interesting. Including all of the minor innovations that motherboard manufacturers blow out of proportion. Did you know that gigabyte uses the standby 12v rail to power the usb ports so you can power your apple/raspberry/pear devices 24/7? Hooray! Free kitkats for everybody!

What I am trying to say, is that there becomes a point where little things on arduino are more fascinating than big sometimes expensive things for pc.

I love it how apple never came into the picture here Love you guys

Who needs transistors anyway? Just hire somebody to open and close a switch really fast

IonizedGears · « **Reply #27 on:** February 11, 2013, 12:21:19 am »

Quote from: FenderBender on February 10, 2013, 11:33:32 pm

Quote from: Neilm on February 10, 2013, 10:01:00 pm
I got into electronics when I found out I could give my little brother electric shocks using 2 AA cells and a small transformer. I was about 10

Neil

You managed to make AC out of two AAs? Magic?

Well, i suppose it is possible if he connected the batteries whilst his little brother was holding two leads of the transformer secondary coil

IonizedGears · « **Reply #28 on:** February 11, 2013, 12:24:44 am »

These are all pretty interesting to see how people have gotten into electronics in all sorts of ways! But it seems like most people started off with taking apart items such as radios.

smashedProton · « **Reply #29 on:** February 11, 2013, 12:37:43 am »

Ionized gears, you're 15 right?
Do you have any in person friends that share your obsession for electronics?
I sure don't

electronics has pretty much excluded me from the friendship/dating arena in school.
But it's okay, I will take my scope and soldering iron every time

IonizedGears · « **Reply #30 on:** February 11, 2013, 12:52:00 am »

@SmashedProton
I am indeed 15.
Sadly, of my friends, i do not have any friends that share my obsession for electronics but i go to class for electronics with around 9 other people or so and none of them that i know of have a strong love for electronics. I don't really date since i don't really use that much time to socialize. I am rather obsessed with electronics though, so much so i am pretty much designing my whole room around it so that i get a massive lab and my bedroom portion of it only takes up around 1/5 - 1/4 of the room

. I plan on making a giant electronics company if i get bored doing only hobby/work engineering.

smashedProton · « **Reply #31 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:05:55 am »

I should make a video of a tour of my room! I have made my own workbench that is built into the corner. Good stuff

I don't even go to a class! I teach myself electronics by night, and I try to jam up the preamp of my physics teacher's sound system by day!
fun times

FenderBender · « **Reply #32 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:06:35 am »

Smashedproton, just curious, how old are you?

smashedProton · « **Reply #33 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:07:37 am »

I'm 16 years old
11th grade
studied electronics for 3 years

FenderBender · « **Reply #34 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:09:48 am »

Ah so many people here have me thinking they are much older than they are. I am 18. I see we have some youth on the forum.

IonizedGears · « **Reply #35 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:13:44 am »

Well the second photo is my current lab and the first is what i am turning into my new room,lab. In the second photo, the lab is going behind me as that has the most constant area perfect for a lab.

smashedProton · « **Reply #36 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:16:48 am »

I think that it's definitely a good thing. In my opinion Dave's videos are really inclusive to youth. I have learned a lot from his videos.
If only society can be more inclusive to geeks. And not the big bang theory kind of geek. This psuedo nerd culture really pisses me off

FenderBender · « **Reply #37 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:20:29 am »

Society is built on geeks. Not just computer or electronics geeks, but geeks in any profession. Business geeks, political geeks.

It's the people who aren't geeks that are missing out.

smashedProton · « **Reply #38 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:21:37 am »

I need to clean my room before I can take a picture XD

IonizedGears · « **Reply #39 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:30:34 am »

I hate how people say you have to be organized to find stuff, well maybe it just looks messy but in fact i organized everything so that it makes other people confused?

But yeah, i usually only clean when i get the sudden urge to purge all the mess off my workplace at once, i usually wake up in the middle of the night at around 2 am and start working on electronics %-B . I was thinking about soundproofing the new room so i wouldn't get in trouble for that but the prices for soundproofing are Much too high. The main thing i love about the new room is since we are currently building it, i get full say on how to do everything as i am going to custom build all my benches and racks etc. Then cover them with the usual chems to protect the wood and give it some sheen. But yeah, i am kind of obsessed with electronics, i could have chosen anything since i actually am good at anything but electronics spoke to me.

smashedProton · « **Reply #40 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:47:41 am »

Hey! For a while now i have been wanting to design an all in one control board for a remote control plane! It would have the rc reciever, brushless speed control, video transmitter, on screen display and gps module. Would you like to try and work on it together? That would be really awesome

IonizedGears · « **Reply #41 on:** February 11, 2013, 01:51:17 am »

Well i don't have multisim full since why would i pay 2700 for a program at age 15? But yeah, we could work together possibly through skype or email.

smashedProton · « **Reply #42 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:00:28 am »

Holy cow. I'm just on eagle and ltspice, and putty. Thats enough, right?

smashedProton · « **Reply #43 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:06:02 am »

Of course not! I will never steal it. Piracy is not a victimless crime. My parents bought me it a minute ago. It should be downloaded any minute

IonizedGears · « **Reply #44 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:08:27 am »

...Your parents purchased you a 2700 dollar program?

smashedProton · « **Reply #45 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:10:07 am »

Yeah, theyre so kind. The download rate is really impressive. There must be a lot of seeders

smashedProton · « **Reply #46 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:15:05 am »

You should tell me your facebook
Just saying

FenderBender · « **Reply #47 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:43:35 am »

Quote from: IonizedGears on February 11, 2013, 02:08:27 am

...Your parents purchased you a 2700 dollar program?

!!!!!

smashedProton · « **Reply #48 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:44:54 am »

I'm kidding

IonizedGears · « **Reply #49 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:50:23 am »

I pirated it because i though about it, if i wasn't going to buy it in the first place, what difference would it make to get it for free? Don't worry though, i will be avidly buying the programs and what not once i get old enough and make a good amount of money from a job.

smashedProton · « **Reply #50 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:53:56 am »

Yeah, It's not like I have a job or anything.

smashedProton · « **Reply #51 on:** February 11, 2013, 02:56:37 am »

Yo gears, give me your contacts

IonizedGears · « **Reply #52 on:** February 11, 2013, 03:25:32 am »

I sent you a pm with It

Neilm · « **Reply #53 on:** February 11, 2013, 06:17:25 pm »

Quote from: FenderBender on February 10, 2013, 11:33:32 pm

Quote from: Neilm on February 10, 2013, 10:01:00 pm
I got into electronics when I found out I could give my little brother electric shocks using 2 AA cells and a small transformer. I was about 10

Neil

You managed to make AC out of two AAs? Magic?

Sort of - wetted two fingers and put it on the secondary. Then touched the AA cells (in series) across the primary. A quick touch and remove then the only place the energy has to go is into the secondary. The voltage rises until it can pass the current and discharge the magnetic core. This is actually the principle that the fly-back SMPS works

Neil

smashedProton · « **Reply #54 on:** February 11, 2013, 06:21:10 pm »

So like a mutual inductive spiking deelio. Really interesting

houdini · « **Reply #55 on:** February 11, 2013, 10:07:30 pm »

Dont tell people you pirate stuff ever in a public forum in particular. Just dont do it.

hlavac · « **Reply #56 on:** February 11, 2013, 10:53:24 pm »

How did I get into electronics?
I went to a communist equivalent of Hitlerjugend.
They taught us to build radio jammers to block the western imperialist propaganda and radars to detect their nuclear bombers

But there was a computer class next door at the same time and that was more fun.
Even when we had to push the damn 4-bit x1k DRAM chips back into the sockets all the time.
We played "The final countdown" on the tape decks used to save programs... oh these times...

NiHaoMike · « **Reply #57 on:** February 12, 2013, 03:18:58 am »

Quote from: Neilm on February 11, 2013, 06:17:25 pm

Sort of - wetted two fingers and put it on the secondary. Then touched the AA cells (in series) across the primary. A quick touch and remove then the only place the energy has to go is into the secondary. The voltage rises until it can pass the current and discharge the magnetic core. This is actually the principle that the fly-back SMPS works

Interesting trivia: the flyback converter was the first switching power supply to be invented, even though it wasn't called that back then. It was (and still is) regularly used in automobile ignition systems, although there's a slow shift to dual stage forward topologies since that gives a more intense spark able to ignite leaner mixtures and thus boost fuel economy.

IanB · « **Reply #58 on:** February 12, 2013, 03:51:19 am »

Oddly enough, I never did get into electronics. Back when I was 15 or so the school library had a subscription to Everyday Electronics magazine that I used to read every month. I was interested in everything to do with science including electricity and stuff and I did all the usual tinkering, scavenger hunting, and experimenting. But when it came to choose a career I decided that electrical engineering would leave too many interests unfulfilled, so I elected to study chemical engineering instead. In recent years I have come back to see what I might have missed, but I don't think the world of electronics is quite the same now as it was then, 30 years ago. It's more about chips and integrated systems these days and less about doing clever things with discrete components.

One thing I have learned is that skills you learn in engineering can be applicable anywhere. As long as you have a decent insight into the physical workings of things, an ability to teach yourself by reading and studying, and a proficiency with mathematics, you need not be locked out of any field.

FenderBender · « **Reply #59 on:** February 12, 2013, 04:05:53 am »

Well put Ian.

I'm going to college this fall and I'll be majoring in EE. I am excited to start, but similar to what you said, the more we progress in the electronics world, the farther we get from the heart of electronics. Surely everyone will still need to know how to bias a transistor, but a lot of the brilliant design that I've seen from old equipment is vanishing and being replaced with an MCU or some specialized chip that does everything for you. (I suppose the real geniuses are the ones making these chips.)

I guess this really isn't a bad thing, and there's still plenty of "classic" design being implemented today, but I see what you mean.

Chemical engineering. Impressive. I'm taking Chem II right now in HS. Actually supposed to be writing up a lab on acid-base titrations right now. Ooops. I guess I like transistors better.

IanB · « **Reply #60 on:** February 12, 2013, 04:15:25 am »

Quote from: FenderBender on February 12, 2013, 04:05:53 am

I'm taking Chem II right now in HS. Actually supposed to be writing up a lab on acid-base titrations right now. Ooops. I guess I like transistors better.

In one sense chemistry is like electronics. If there's no smoke you're not doing it right

andyturk · « **Reply #61 on:** February 12, 2013, 04:15:46 am »

Quote from: IanB on February 12, 2013, 03:51:19 am

One thing I have learned is that skills you learn in engineering can be applicable anywhere. As long as you have a decent insight into the physical workings of things, an ability to teach yourself by reading and studying, and a proficiency with mathematics, you need not be locked out of any field.

Amen to that.

smashedProton · « **Reply #62 on:** February 12, 2013, 05:15:46 am »

You can combine both fields by entering the unrewarding, expensive, and fowl smelling world of pcb etching!

FenderBender · « **Reply #63 on:** February 12, 2013, 05:23:06 am »

I really don't think I'm ever really going to get into that...unless it made sense economically or something. (ie big boards). Even the cheap chinese boards are probably twice as good as anything you'd make at home.

smashedProton · « **Reply #64 on:** February 12, 2013, 06:03:23 am »

I have put a lot of money and time into it. Take my word for it, and don't ever get into it. It's a waste.

AndyC_772 · « **Reply #65 on:** February 12, 2013, 08:16:18 am »

I've only ever once worked in a lab with PCB making equipment. It was quite handy for prototyping with chips that were only available in fine pitch SMT, and I've a feeling someone's annoying mobile phone might have ended up in the etch tank once too.

The problem was disposing of the spent chemicals. I'm not sure quite what happened to them, in fact - the .com bubble burst shortly after we got the tank, I quit and found another job, and the lab closed down shortly afterwards. (90% chance they just went down the drain, IMHO).

Sionyn · « **Reply #66 on:** February 19, 2013, 10:54:20 pm »

found a kewl pic of taid (grandfather) in local telephone exchange


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