Did you ever make an electronic circuit and gift to your loved one?

[lichurbagan]

By loved one I mean the special one. If yes, what circuit/device was it?

[Randy222]

Years ago I had a baby nephew and later his baby, my grand-niece. When they were old enough to be interested in lights, buttons, noises, I made them busy boxes full of buttons that controlled lights and buzzers. The 1st was just basic hardwire of parts I had extra laying around. The 2nd one used a microcontroller for some functionality, one button was linked to an adafruit one wire led ring, each press of the button produced a different pattern and light show on the ring, getting progressively "louder" with each press, after 10 presses within 60 sec you got the "jackpot" light show, kinda like a simon-says game. The 1st box had basic on/off switch, the 2nd one used a master digital sleep function, after 5min of no activity the whole think went to sleep and would wake up after a any-button press (std battery saving). Built them in a plastic case about 6l x 3h x 4w, one box was blue plastic, the other had to be painted pink.

The 2nd made with the microcontroller (I believe a trinket) could be re-programmed, so inside the box was my program on paper to show how its done. My grand niece grew up in the STEM track in school. I dont believe they ever did re-program it. Nephew now 40, grand niece now 10.

I believe the boxes were a seed of some sort.

Babies/kids today need to be immersed in technology under parent supervision if the kids are to have a good chance of surviving the tech world they live in. Some may even go on to be great coders, AI tech wiz's, engineering, etc etc.

[ve7xen]

Years ago I made a Christmas tree ornament and sent it out to friends / family for the holiday season. Just blinkenlights.

https://github.com/ktims/xmascard2020

[NiHaoMike]

I built a gaming PC in a DVD player case about a decade ago as a graduation gift for my cousin.

[reboots]

I made a clock!

Still works great, 13 years later.

https://reboots.g-cipher.net/time/

[Gyro]

Nice implementation.

I built a clock too, for my wife to be, back in the late '70s. It had an LCD display with filament backlight. It's usp was a separate mains unit with relay control of her cassette/radio and bedside clock for alarm and sleep timer. She may even still have it tucked away at the back of a drawer somewhere.

[lichurbagan]

I built a gaming PC in a DVD player case about a decade ago as a graduation gift for my cousin.
(Attachment Link)

Wow! A whole gaming PC! What was your main processor? It doesn't look like there is a Raspberry Pi.

[lichurbagan]

I made a clock!

Still works great, 13 years later.

https://reboots.g-cipher.net/time/

Nice! Nixie tubes look very prominent. Whenever I tried digital clocks, I faced one common drawback. The time lags after sometimes. With or without RTC, I faced this problem. I can see you used only one ATmega48 but no RTC, right?

[Conrad Hoffman]

I've built power amps and speakers for various relatives.

[kite31]

This story is not quite about the thing itself. A long, long time ago, and amongst other things, I used a 556 to create a doorbuzzer which had a higher tone while pressed then continued with a lower tone for a couple of seconds after release. At night the button surround flashed slowly, based on the internals of an old-fashioned roadside warning lamp which I may possibly have nicked whilst a little inebriated in earlier youth. I thought the doorbuzzer a bit of a whimsy though visitors seemed to like it.

Over 30 years later it was still functioning when we sold the house.

About 7 years later, we noticed that the house was for sale, and there in the pictures you could see my doorbuzzer, still apparently doing its thing. Not bad.

[NiHaoMike]

Wow! A whole gaming PC! What was your main processor? It doesn't look like there is a Raspberry Pi.

A Haswell i5, pretty decent at the time. The goal was a sort of portable gaming PC to take when traveling. There was no Ryzen APU back then so it was about as good as it got for a budget build.

If I were to build something similar now, I would obviously go for a Ryzen APU, but also integrate a projector so that it wouldn't be necessary to bring a separate display or have to rely on whatever display is available at the destination.

[reboots]

Nice! Nixie tubes look very prominent. Whenever I tried digital clocks, I faced one common drawback. The time lags after sometimes. With or without RTC, I faced this problem. I can see you used only one ATmega48 but no RTC, right?

I used a DS32KHZS TCXO to clock the AVR, which is not the same thing as a RTC, but did prove surprisingly accurate. The clock probably gains or loses a minute over several months. We have power outages a couple of times a year, so it gets reset then.

There are many more accurate ways of keeping time, but I wanted a simple appliance that didn't depend on a GPS signal or AC line into the clock.

[lichurbagan]

I've built power amps and speakers for various relatives.

Good to hear that. Ever tried the Deacy amp, sir? https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/deacy-amp-circuit-diagram/msg6347834/#msg6347834

[lichurbagan]

Wow! A whole gaming PC! What was your main processor? It doesn't look like there is a Raspberry Pi.

A Haswell i5, pretty decent at the time. The goal was a sort of portable gaming PC to take when traveling. There was no Ryzen APU back then so it was about as good as it got for a budget build.

If I were to build something similar now, I would obviously go for a Ryzen APU, but also integrate a projector so that it wouldn't be necessary to bring a separate display or have to rely on whatever display is available at the destination.

I see. This is doable with Raspberry pi too, right?

[CatalinaWOW]

Years ago I made a simple thermistor based thermometer on a weighted cable for an avid fisherman relative. It was marked in feet so he could set his fishing rigs to operate at temperatures that would favor the fish he was after.  Never got any feedback on whether it turned out to be useful.

[NiHaoMike]

I see. This is doable with Raspberry pi too, right?

Raspberry Pi would only be handle some older, much less demanding games, but yes, it can work. There just wouldn't be much to "build" unless you wire up some input devices to the GPIO pins.

[lichurbagan]

Years ago I made a simple thermistor based thermometer on a weighted cable for an avid fisherman relative. It was marked in feet so he could set his fishing rigs to operate at temperatures that would favor the fish he was after.  Never got any feedback on whether it turned out to be useful.

Interesting. was the thermistor submersible in your setup?

[lichurbagan]

I see. This is doable with Raspberry pi too, right?

Raspberry Pi would only be handle some older, much less demanding games, but yes, it can work. There just wouldn't be much to "build" unless you wire up some input devices to the GPIO pins.

Yeah. Pi cannot even be in the same competition with a core I5 processor.