Crazy But Able

I’m tackling the electronics hobby on two fronts: learning things, and doing things. As far as doing things goes I’ve been in a holding pattern and haven’t made much progress. I ordered some parts (female headers and a tricolor LED) from Sparkfun a while back but I guess so did everyone else (my guess is that it’s the start of the school year) so my order only just shipped. I also picked up a new tip for my soldering iron, 1/4 inch mono jacks, an aluminum enclosure and some PCB board at radio shack, and 13 red LEDs from Axeman. I’ve got some little ideas for those but I’m going to wait until all of my parts arrive from SparkFun before I decide what to do next.

I also need to clear away some space in front of my workbench. The past week has seen in increase in clutter and I need to whack that back before I can get any soldering done.

I’m also going to make myself a soldering iron holder with a coat hanger, some spare wood, and a sponge. I’ve got plans but haven’t started working on it yet.

As far as learning things goes, I’m not making as much progress as I had hoped, at least when it comes to electrical theory. As much fun as it is to browse The Art of Electronics, I’m going to go back to chapter one and actually do all of the exercises this time. Chapter one is the most math intensive, which explains why I skipped the exercises the first time, but I’m having issues understanding later chapters so I’m backtracking a bit.

I am learning quite a bit about guitar pedals and making my own effects boxes, however. I have ideas for many pedals but the ones I want to start with are a fuzz face and an orange squeezer. After I get some experience with those designs (and the challenges of drilling and painting aluminum enclosures), I’m going to branch out into making a bitcrusher/digital noise generator of my own design using an AVR microcontroller. That pedal is still in the planning stages however.

Finally, I am learning about PCB layout and making my own PCBs. Yeah, yeah, transfer the resist pattern and etch, whatever. That’s so last century. I’m learning how to use the EAGLE layout editor. It’s a great idea (with a steep learning curve): layout your schematic (using the exact part numbers), then switch over to a PCB design surface and route your connections (they have an auto-router that I hope to make great use of, mainly because I’m not doing anything high-frequency), and finally, output a bunch of files that are instructions to a CNC milling machine. Send those files to China and in three to four weeks, China will mail you your PCB. That seems like a lot more work and it’s going to be more expensive, but it has the advantage of being way more technogeeky.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 4:29 am and is filed under general foofiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.