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Is the electronics hobby dead?
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homebrew:

--- Quote from: VK3DRB on July 14, 2016, 10:37:35 am ---There is always something special about building it yourself. Even better designing it yourseff. Both of these aspects tower over buying something off-the-shelf.
[...]
Similar with DIY in electronics. Do it yourself, its YOURS. Something to be proud of. And it is fully serviceable. Something that might last years and show your grandkids. And if it is your pride and joy, you can even ask to be buried with it when your times comes.

--- End quote ---

Exactly! The point I wanted to make is that this got harder and harder over time. While I fully buy into the argument that part's availability has radically changed during the last decade, it has has also become much more difficult to start.

Try, asking a newbie to order an 470 Ohm THT resistor from Farnell. Or a simple spindle of wire, a switch, a relay or something else. Much luck ...

And then the bar to reach satisfaction with your DIY project is so much higher. Not just in price but also in performance. The little LM317 power supply project might still be nice to do but it would not get any near to the performance of even simple bench supplies you can buy for a small amount of money.

So with every advancement in technology and availability there will be new requirements on the skills.

* cheap 2 and 4 layer boards available -> PCB design skills required.
* sophisticated SMD packages available -> advances soldering skills required -> hot air station -> microscope
* hundreds of thousands of components available from a single store -> product selection skills required

So, for the people engaged in the hobby this is heaven. But on the other hands there are high bars for outsiders to get in.
Dave does a great job in his videos but also here the bar is high. You already need a sufficient understanding of electronics to really profit. ABSOLUTELY NO CRITIQUE in this! Just my experience whenever I recommended your channel to an interested newbie ...
Chris Mr:
When I started, in the 1960s, the adverts in Practical Electronics had nearly all the parts that were available: on 1/2 page advert!  As time goes on one soaks up new stuff without realising that there are hundreds of thousands of parts now.  Thank goodness we have the internet to find stuff.

What must it all look like to a young person though?

I would say pretty daunting.

When there were fewer parts you could buy stuff and re-use it because all the designs had basically the same bits in.

The challenge now is to find something in fashion that's at a level of complexity that a young person would find attractive.  I guess that's part of the attraction of Arduino - when you have a mobile phone as competition.

How about starting a thread suggesting projects for young people - ask your kid(s) what they want and see if a project can be made from it?
Cubdriver:
The comments on the overwhelming aspect of part selection are very valid.  When I first began playing with electronics as a kid in the mid-late 70s, the Digi Key catalog was the size of a thin magazine.  Now it makes a phone book look svelte.  Hell, just the connector section is about the size of a phone book!  When you're doing this for a living and as a hobby all along, it is a slow change that you adjust to incrementally as it grows.  If you drop that monster book in the lap of a newbie, their eyes are apt to glaze over as they thumb through it.

And I have to say, I miss old part numbers.  Things used to be simple.  2N107.  1N34A.  DM74154.  LM324.  Now it seems that everything has a 75 digit alphanumeric part number, with special characters too.  LTC4365CTS8#TRMPBF.  TPS3808G01MDBVTEP.  MMST2222AT146.  SI4214DDY-T1-GE3.   :o :o

-Pat
Howardlong:
There is one other point, we are up against this shit:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11359517/Ladybird-books-from-the-1960s-that-would-be-banned-by-todays-health-and-safety-brigade.html

While the majority of H&S aspect is well-meaning, there is also a very negative subtext that undermines our innate desire for for exploration and creativity, which inevitably includes some risk. The problem is that the balance is not right. Nobody died, or was even hospitalised, or endured any injuries of any sort, from sucking on a couple of electrodes off a lemon. Sure, the carpet might need a clean after stripping a carbon battery though.
homebrew:

--- Quote from: Howardlong on July 15, 2016, 08:22:02 pm ---There is one other point, we are up against this shit:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11359517/Ladybird-books-from-the-1960s-that-would-be-banned-by-todays-health-and-safety-brigade.html

While the majority of H&S aspect is well-meaning, there is also a very negative subtext that undermines our innate desire for for exploration and creativity, which inevitably includes some risk. The problem is that the balance is not right. Nobody died, or was even hospitalised, or endured any injuries of any sort, from sucking on a couple of electrodes off a lemon. Sure, the carpet might need a clean after stripping a carbon battery though.

--- End quote ---

So true. But that changed for all (most) of us. When I was at the age of 7, my parents had no problem letting me use the soldering iron for myself - mains powered of course! My father bought it for me and my uncle built a lab power supply (still works today flawlessly!) for me to have sufficient power for my experiments ...  :bullshit:

And now I have a son myself at the age of seven. Guess what I would have a problem with ...  :palm: :palm: :palm:
Just imagine: Hot iron, toxic fumes, LEAD !!!
Luckily my son is more the sports, cars and planes kind of kid anyway.

But when you think about it, its quite scary how fearsome society has made us.
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