... which leads to two general questions:
1. what is a fun hands-on hobby that relates to brass-instrument physics and engineering of the late 19th century (isn't that what we are all mooning over?). My personal direction has been towards speaker R&D and if I get nuttier, maybe to crafting a cone driver or electrostatic panels.
2. what kind of introduction to electronics understanding can I impart to my young grandkids? Not much available... electric motors and stuff like that. While automobiles are far more sophisticated today (like computer controlled fuel injection), it is still easy to teach about cars, suspensions, air/fuel ratios....
BTW, as I think about it, ALL electronics is inherently "black box" in the sense that we don't see electrons move; but in the past, we've been quite content to see signals move on our oscilloscope screens.
Ben
1. what is a fun hands-on hobby that relates to brass-instrument physics and engineering of the late 19th century (isn't that what we are all mooning over?). My personal direction has been towards speaker R&D and if I get nuttier, maybe to crafting a cone driver or electrostatic panels.
2. what kind of introduction to electronics understanding can I impart to my young grandkids? Not much available... electric motors and stuff like that. While automobiles are far more sophisticated today (like computer controlled fuel injection), it is still easy to teach about cars, suspensions, air/fuel ratios....
BTW, as I think about it, ALL electronics is inherently "black box" in the sense that we don't see electrons move; but in the past, we've been quite content to see signals move on our oscilloscope screens.
Ben
I'm reminded of another company that went from the owners selling a small product to selling of his excess parts, and the rest, they say, is history. See my latest new thread in The Lounge.
I got an LCD oscilloscope kit for $25. It was relatively easy to assemble. The SMD chip was presoldered and the rest were all leaded pars. It works fine for my intended use, a module in a modular music synthesizer.
My thoughts exactly. The old Heathkits let you build something with your own hands. The real value however that you actually LEARNED SOMETHING in the process without feeling like you were in school. Those opportunities still exist today, but as previously stated, just soldering a few parts in an expensive AM radio that will probably not be used, isn't going to reach too many people.
Heathkit needs a home run early in the batting order in order to survive. At best the radio was a foul ball, reality it's strike one! Where does Heathkit look to find this homerun? How about looking at their past through the eyes of a kid today......what would he want to MAKE. How many things seen at a MAKER FAIRE are powered by an Arduino or compatible.....uh, at least half. Didn't Heathkit make microprocessor and basic digital trainers? Where are they?
Before I left Motorola the most common request I got wasn't to teach people my job functions, no, everyone, including my boss, wanted to learn how to use and program those ChipKit boards (a powerful Arduino compatible) that I had been using in my automated test boxes. I filled a large meeting room twice with classes, and helped several people one to one. I still discuss Arduino projects with people from those classes.
There is still a large user base that fumbles with getting over the Arduino learning curve, which really isn't that steep. There needs to be a Heathkit style instruction manual, with a compatible board, and several step by step programming and interfacing lessons. This "kit" doesn't even need to involve soldering, just one of the white breadboards, some parts and jumper wires.
SparkFun, Adafruit and others already have the kits on their web site, but many people my age and younger will not watch a squeaky voiced girl with poor audio quality, bright red (blue, green or whatever) hair and a face full of metal talk about Arduino with words like "like" "awesome" and "really." I never could get through this one even though I wanted to hear it. I Googled up the PDF and worked through it on my own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vopvXHW0Bok
Since the major rules relaxations, no more morse code, and digital chat type modes, the ham radio hobby is actually growing. There were maker type booths at the last Dayton hamfest, and it took me about an hour waiting in line to buy a Raspberry Pi 3. There are more licensed hams now than there ever were, and many of them are under 21. The prepper (world is coming to an end) movement is also fuelling ham radio. Heathkit used to be dominant in this market, they could make a comeback, but not, initially at least, with a multi kilobuck radio, but with something akin to a multi band SoftRock, again with a heathkit style instruction manual that includes how to make an antenna, set up a station, and operate it.
/
note in the the Youtube interview between Dave Doherty of Digikey and Limor Fried, founder of "adafruit" -- Limor mentions she just got a ham radio license!
This bodes well for ham radio shields!
That sounds neat. I've seen the little oscilloscope display in videos of the Korg Minilogue.
Totally off topic (and something Heathkit seems unlikely to make), are you on any fora for synth design? I already asked in the $100 guitar amp thread about making a new diyaudio subforum for it. I've tried signing up for the Synth DIY mailing list (which has good info in the archives, I've spend too much time reading it lately), but the last archive post is July 1, and the owner has yet to respond to an email. I'm on that Muff site and seen a few others, but they don't have a good signal-to-noise ratio, nowhere near as good as the list archives.
Yes, that was something called Heath Educational Systems that lasted decades after the main kit business folded. Here's something on it from four years ago:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story...hkit-educational-systems-closes-shop-for-good
(in my original post I should have added that I was making a generalization about PWM amp usage)
No, I'm not at the moment. I spend too much time in front of the computer as it is, and the synth thing has been rather off and on for me over the years, although I have been making some good headway on something new and unusual recently.
I suppose I could create a thread about synth design in the Instruments and Amps forum. I have mentioned my experiments and progress using the Teensy Arduino compatible board and their audio library in several threads on diyAudio and it hasn't drawn much interest, but some experiments that should be taking place in the next few weeks will help me decide which way to go forward with it.
I worked at Motorola in Florida for 41 years. I had the pleasure to interact with dozens of technicians and engineers who also played musical instruments, and maybe even built instruments or amps. One of my co-workers had built a room full of modular synth stuff over the years. His stuff is posted on this forum (user name THeff). I still discuss my synth ideas with him, but real collaboration is more difficult since I am now 1100 miles away.
electro-music.com :: View topic - DIY Poly ARP
You are seriously out of date when it comes to Lego.
Lego these days is not the simple stuff of the old days...
Build a Robot - LEGO® MINDSTORMS® - LEGO.com - Mindstorms LEGO.com
http://www.lego.com/en-us/technic/products/mercedes-benz-arocs-42043
Johan-Kr
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Superhets of modern design (anything since the 1980's) do not require any alignment. The IF strip uses ceramic filters that are already tuned to 455 KHz for AM and 10.7 MHz for FM. The multiplex (stereo) decoder and the local oscillator are PLL frequency synthesizers, and are also programmed to the correct frequency range. There is not an adjustable coil or capacitor in a modern radio.
Even the multi kilobuck police radios from Motorola have zero manual adjustments. They are "tuned" over a serial data bus by a complex test system in the factory, and need no user adjustment unless internal service is performed. Frequencies, options, and transmit power adjustments are done in the field via a PC.
It is now possible to design a complete multi band ham radio transceiver that requires zero alignment by the end user after assembly.
My daughter had motorized Legos in the 80's.
There are already several SDR packages for the Raspberry PI and some high powered Arduino compatibles. Most are receive only at this point.
I have not ventured into this domain due to the very restrictive employment agreement in place between myself and Motorola, which expired last year. I was an advanced research and development engineer designing two way radio transceivers. I might be looking into this area soon. It takes some time and money to collect the test equipment needed to design a really good radio. I am almost there.
Yes, of course you can sell a kit that needs no IF alignment but there is nothing to learn either.... just as you can sell a completed radio with nothing to wire either.
Granted, some Lego kits have motors. Apparently, all the stuff comes in a box that you poke together the pieces to assemble from specific instructions what psychologists might call the result of "convergent" thinking.
An Erector set of old (I forget the British equivalent) is a big box full of totally loose screws, nuts, beams, etc. and you create from those atoms.
So, I'd still put Lego stuff on the dumber side of the toy world.
All a matter of degree and far be it from me to be doctrinaire about your choice of toys that challenge or that don't. Depends on the day of the week for me.
Which leaves the question of Heath kits. For sure, when a kit is always "a work in progress", that's creative electronics. For example, if you take a Heath tube amp and add a "mod" (as we motorcycle super-uppers term it) to balance the output tubes, that's creative. For example further, I added a fine-tune* and a square-waver to my Heath audio oscillator.
Ben
*so as to synch precisely with my twin-tee distortion filter, 45 yrs ago.
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I had an idea for a kit that uses "retro" technology that could probably pique the interest of anyone under the age of 25 & act as a stepping stone to get them into more modern circuitry, but after reading the comments concerning Arduinos, decided it could be too retro........but then saw the posts mentioning shortwave making a bit of a comeback. So anyway......
The idea was inspired by the current interest in steampunk technology and a flashback to the "p-box" kits sold by Radio Shack back in the 70s. I built six of these and one of them was the battery powered 1 tube AM radio.* It used a total of just 5 active components. If a shortwave receiver could be built using a similar circuit i.e. something relatively inexpensive (tubes aren't cheap these days), I think the thought of something using a glass bulb "thingy" with a red-hot wire inside would get a few kids interested in building it.
Here's a (mostly) complete list of those kits, with scans of parts lists, theory of operation, etc: P-Box Kits Page
Btw I think a lot of those kits are pretty classic, in the sense that they are fun and/or just interesting to interact with, even if they don't use digital technology. One of my personal favorites was the "Goofy Lite" which IIRC uses something akin to a switch mode power supply(?) to boost battery voltage to a value high enough to fire off the neon bulbs.
Or, all of the above is the ranting of a grouchy fifty-something & I should mind my own business.
* I never found out if my kit worked, because the required 22 volt "B" battery we finally found for sale (at a K-Mart of all places) was too weak to operate the tube.
The idea was inspired by the current interest in steampunk technology and a flashback to the "p-box" kits sold by Radio Shack back in the 70s. I built six of these and one of them was the battery powered 1 tube AM radio.* It used a total of just 5 active components. If a shortwave receiver could be built using a similar circuit i.e. something relatively inexpensive (tubes aren't cheap these days), I think the thought of something using a glass bulb "thingy" with a red-hot wire inside would get a few kids interested in building it.
Here's a (mostly) complete list of those kits, with scans of parts lists, theory of operation, etc: P-Box Kits Page
Btw I think a lot of those kits are pretty classic, in the sense that they are fun and/or just interesting to interact with, even if they don't use digital technology. One of my personal favorites was the "Goofy Lite" which IIRC uses something akin to a switch mode power supply(?) to boost battery voltage to a value high enough to fire off the neon bulbs.
Or, all of the above is the ranting of a grouchy fifty-something & I should mind my own business.
* I never found out if my kit worked, because the required 22 volt "B" battery we finally found for sale (at a K-Mart of all places) was too weak to operate the tube.
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After seeing discussion about synthesizers, I had to post a majestic trumpet+synth track by Mark Isham, from a CD I very unfortunately lost and have been trying to replace for years:
"On The Threshold Of Liberty", from the album Vapor Drawings (on the Windham Hill label).
Large woofers or a sub is needed for best reproduction.
"Men Before The Mirror" is another favorite.
"On The Threshold Of Liberty", from the album Vapor Drawings (on the Windham Hill label).
Large woofers or a sub is needed for best reproduction.
"Men Before The Mirror" is another favorite.
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I had an idea for a kit that uses "retro" technology that could probably pique the interest of anyone under the age of 25 & act as a stepping stone to get them into more modern circuitry, but after reading the comments concerning Arduinos, decided it could be too retro........but then saw the posts mentioning shortwave making a bit of a comeback. So anyway......
The idea was inspired by the current interest in steampunk technology and a flashback to the "p-box" kits sold by Radio Shack back in the 70s. I built six of these and one of them was the battery powered 1 tube AM radio.* It used a total of just 5 active components. If a shortwave receiver could be built using a similar circuit i.e. something relatively inexpensive (tubes aren't cheap these days), I think the thought of something using a glass bulb "thingy" with a red-hot wire inside would get a few kids interested in building it.
Here's a (mostly) complete list of those kits, with scans of parts lists, theory of operation, etc: P-Box Kits Page
Btw I think a lot of those kits are pretty classic, in the sense that they are fun and/or just interesting to interact with, even if they don't use digital technology. One of my personal favorites was the "Goofy Lite" which IIRC uses something akin to a switch mode power supply(?) to boost battery voltage to a value high enough to fire off the neon bulbs.
Or, all of the above is the ranting of a grouchy fifty-something & I should mind my own business.
* I never found out if my kit worked, because the required 22 volt "B" battery we finally found for sale (at a K-Mart of all places) was too weak to operate the tube.
Interesting idea! I'm almost 19 but I got into electronics at a young age with the old Dick Smith Funway 1 kits, then I learned to solder and built a couple of the Funway 2 kits before DS left the hobbyist electronics business.
Fortunately I discovered Jaycar and Altronics were still making kits and have built a few small radios, led chasers, amps etc. Mostly just for fun, few had much practical use although I did use the 12v Jaycar amplifier kit in my car stereo setup.I have never had the chance to work with much retro electronics, the only thing that comes to mind is the crystal radio kit I built as a kid and the record player I'm playing with right now.
I have seen the Arduino stuff but the complexity of the programming sort of put me off. Of course you can use other people's programs but actually understanding how to write your own is a very different thing! I also don't see the fun in just plugging pre-built shields together, for me the soldering is part of the fun, and making your own designs to work with arduino without being able to etch your own PCB's is near impossible. I did build a few small robots with the old Picaxe 08m chips though, and it was great fun as you do get to actually solder together the project board and maybe a few motor drivers!
At the moment I'm cleaning up an old record player and was suprised to find a circuit schematic inside the cover, it's one of the first times I've come across something that is actually intended to be repairable!
So much these days really is meant to be thrown away with all the impossibly small SMD chips and flimsy ribbon cables.Anyway, I never actually had the chance to see or build any of the Heathkits, but if they make a comeback I would probably give one a shot!
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Restoring those old Heathkit products is almost like being able to build the kit twice. I discovered that the performance of their later audio kits was much higher than I had given them credit for when they were new. It would have been a smart move had I built their separates back then.
Restoring the test equipment allows you to modify them for higher performance too! Maybe not cutting edge, but certainly cool!
-Chris
Restoring the test equipment allows you to modify them for higher performance too! Maybe not cutting edge, but certainly cool!
-Chris
I remember attempting my first Heathkit, and discovering that I'm partially color blind, and somewhat randomly mixed the resistors... It took a proper tech over 8 hours to fix it. I had to measure every resistor after that in the next kits, and preferred Dynakits, as the boards were already filled...
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