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Is the electronics hobby dead?

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MK14:

--- Quote from: homebrew on July 15, 2016, 08:49:10 pm ---
--- 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.

--- End quote ---

Just look at the picture (from these ladybird books), what could possibly go wrong ?

Howardlong:

--- Quote from: MK14 on July 15, 2016, 08:53:38 pm ---
--- Quote from: homebrew on July 15, 2016, 08:49:10 pm ---
--- 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.

--- End quote ---

Just look at the picture (from these ladybird books), what could possibly go wrong ?



--- End quote ---

Precisely, and I did them all. Cut fingers, bolllocking for messing up the carpet, dirty gob, messy everything.

Part of growing up, and growing a pair.

G0HZU:

--- 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 ---

I'm afraid that this also applies to modern industry. The large electronics/comms company I work for has introduced various H&S rules/restrictions along these lines. Basically, the modern corporate types have jumped on the bandwagon and introduced all kinds of rules and restrictions and I have to be trained for everything. I even had a (compulsory) 30 minute training session showing me how to safely operate the controls on my office chair so that I don't injure myself.

This may seem absurd but engineers are now not supposed to have any sharp objects in their toolkit anymore, (so no knives or scalpels, ESPECIALLY scalpels) and RF/HW engineers are not supposed to have a soldering iron on their workbench anymore. It all has to be carried out at a communal/safe workstation. The idea is that you do your soldering change/repair and then walk back to the bench to test the change. If you want anything cut you either get an approved technician to do it or you go for training and book out the tools to do it. You aren't allowed to keep the sharp tools and nobody is allowed to own or use a regular scalpel anymore. Only special/safe equivalents are allowed and only if you fill in a form and book it out for an allotted timeslot. PCB cleaning products and strong/smelly adhesives are also banned from ownership and this all has to be done by an approved operator using materials locked away in a secure cupboard.

To preserve my sanity I still have both my iron and scalpels and other banned items and still use them (I ignored the amnesty) but it's only a matter of time before someone complains.



MK14:

--- Quote from: Howardlong on July 15, 2016, 09:08:40 pm ---Precisely, and I did them all. Cut fingers, bolllocking for messing up the carpet, dirty gob, messy everything.

Part of growing up, and growing a pair.

--- End quote ---

Yes, I learn't a lot, from a similar process. I think you sort of have to make the mistakes, to climb the learning curve. There is not really a proper short-cut method. If you don't, the learning exercise does not get powerfully enough created in your brain.

Sometimes by messing about with things, you learn and ask questions "Why ?" does it behave in this way. Then you learn even more stuff.

Even within Electronics engineer circles there are issues. But hopefully they don't matter too much. In the 1960's, there were lots of engineers, who knew how to create circuits, with huge numbers of discrete transistors. Some of these circuits are rather amazing, even today. E.g. A very early (all transistor) Analogue Sound Synthesizer.

But these days, most people (Electronics engineers), especially younger engineers, (except ones who spend time at integrated circuit plants), don't really have the skills to easily/quickly design complicated, many transistor, circuits. Because they are so use to just using integrated circuits, such as op-amps, to do it.

I sometimes admire some of the early oscilloscopes, which may consist of a very large and complicated all transistor design, with very high voltage and bandwidth/accuracy capabilities.

These days, it would be very difficult, to get freshly designed a high performance all analogue, discrete transistor circuit.

Maybe I have not given the best of examples. But certainly some things would need advanced analogue designers, who are not very commonly available these days. Because of DSP's, op-amps and such, it usually does not matter, as circuits containing a large number of discrete transistors (only, no ICs), are rarely designed these days.

Kilrah:

--- Quote from: G0HZU on July 15, 2016, 09:09:44 pm ---I even had a (compulsory) 30 minute training session showing me how to safely operate the controls on my office chair so that I don't injure myself.

This may seem absurd but engineers are now not supposed to have any sharp objects in their toolkit anymore, (so no knives or scalpels, ESPECIALLY scalpels) and RF/HW engineers are not supposed to have a soldering iron on their workbench anymore. It all has to be carried out at a communal/safe workstation. The idea is that you do your soldering change/repair and then walk back to the bench to test the change. If you want anything cut you either get an approved technician to do it or you go for training and book out the tools to do it. You aren't allowed to keep the sharp tools and nobody is allowed to own or use a regular scalpel anymore. Only special/safe equivalents are allowed and only if you fill in a form and book it out for an allotted timeslot. PCB cleaning products and strong/smelly adhesives are also banned from ownership and this all has to be done by an approved operator using materials locked away in a secure cupboard.

To preserve my sanity I still have both my iron and scalpels and other banned items and still use them (I ignored the amnesty) but it's only a matter of time before someone complains.
--- End quote ---

What the...  :scared: :scared:

 :palm:


--- Quote from: MK14 on July 15, 2016, 09:32:31 pm ---I think you sort of have to make the mistakes, to climb the learning curve.

--- End quote ---

You don't necessarily need to actually make the mistake, just getting into the process of making it will often make you realize something seems wrong soon enough so you recheck and manage to avoid it.

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