Earlier in time, manufacturers used their own "in-house" numbers for the semiconductors. Now that is DIY unfriendly! Later, especially with the new Japanese equipment, the industry turned a corner and began using the real part numbers in their sets - and so died one huge advantage experienced techs had. The ability to figure out what part should be there. We treated the JIS parts as if they were house numbered and learned the difference in pin-out. Later we had access to data books listing these parts.
Some companies still use in house numbers for parts, and even make their own propriety parts. They hope to control the repair market, but what they really do is increase costs for the end user and ensure more of their sets hit the waste dump.
Throughout these times, the DIY community remained strong. Today, I see the strongest DIY mindset amongst HAM radio enthusiasts. What we really need are those kits that eased us into designing our own stuff. At least the test and measurement industry has brought out amazing equipment for really cheap prices. What I was able to buy as a young hobbyist was very limited. A Heathkit VTVM and army surplus oscilloscope, power supplies and generator. all running on tubes rounded out my early work area. I spent every penny on this hobby back then, as many others did too.
I'd have to say that today's hobbyist has massive advantages over those who came before. But maybe, just maybe, that is the problem. Today you can "buy" into the hobby and you have a world market for parts and devices. If only! Also, next to instant access to experts who can help. If you choose, there is no fight for anything. Maybe that is the problem?
No effort = no pride of accomplishment.
Some companies still use in house numbers for parts, and even make their own propriety parts. They hope to control the repair market, but what they really do is increase costs for the end user and ensure more of their sets hit the waste dump.
Throughout these times, the DIY community remained strong. Today, I see the strongest DIY mindset amongst HAM radio enthusiasts. What we really need are those kits that eased us into designing our own stuff. At least the test and measurement industry has brought out amazing equipment for really cheap prices. What I was able to buy as a young hobbyist was very limited. A Heathkit VTVM and army surplus oscilloscope, power supplies and generator. all running on tubes rounded out my early work area. I spent every penny on this hobby back then, as many others did too.
I'd have to say that today's hobbyist has massive advantages over those who came before. But maybe, just maybe, that is the problem. Today you can "buy" into the hobby and you have a world market for parts and devices. If only! Also, next to instant access to experts who can help. If you choose, there is no fight for anything. Maybe that is the problem?
No effort = no pride of accomplishment.
Simple, is AD584kH new or counterfeit? What's the design spec and what's the measurement specs? I've seen countless people use cheap opa627 on cheap board, only good for the eye but measurement shows otherwise.
Funny thing is, if they don't measure it, they think it sounds awesome, after knowing they had **** fake parts, they hear the flaw.
It's a shame when a designer spent so much time on designing a board, and someone just ruin it with cheapo fake IC and expect it to be perfect. Even sadder, people use cheap fake IC think it's real, and refuse to use newer, better, and cheaper (real market price) IC. like opa627 and opa827.
and the reason for DIY to die, not because of things are cheaper made as product. It will be due to the shortened attention span people have nowadays, everything has to catch attention immediately otherwise people lose interest, so people's interests is becoming less diverse.
I remember people in the audio industry talking about the death of DIY 30 years ago. For much the same reasons we claim today, smaller and smaller parts, the availability of cheap audio gear that's decent, other distractions.
Maybe "DIY is dying" just means "DIY isn't the same as I remember it from my youth."
Maybe "DIY is dying" just means "DIY isn't the same as I remember it from my youth."
IDK how the counterfeit IC market works, OR in this case how do you reproduce a complex function on silicon and still meet specs or come so close to it? Transistors or op-amps would be easier to substitute another lower performance Si dice.
Ive read the reviews from folks with the capable test equipment, not one of them shows me any is failing the specs. I don't doubt some the "custom" measurement data they sent is fake but you can pay higher for better data, I don't care that it's traceable to NIST standards. I'm not convinced low price of PRC goods automatically = fake, unlike most folks.
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I don't buy that. If anything there is a new appreciation of this growing as the young get fed up with the disposable generation.
It is indeed possible to build a decent ham radio transceiver today with very little "real" DIY work. I was an RF engineer at Motorola for 41 years. When I needed to design a "one off" test fixture to perform automated testing on a particular device we were looking at, or an EVB for one of our custom in house RF chips, I would go to the Mini-Circuits catalog for building blocks. Other blocks were often vendor sourced EVB's for "building block" chips like DDS's or RF frequency synthesizers.
Today you can get clones of these vendor EVB's from China, often cheaper that buying a single piece of the underlying chip from DigiKey or Mouser.
Case in point:
The AD9910 DDS chip from Analog Devices costs $62 from DigiKey and the EVB from Analog Devices is $543 (although we got them free at Motorola). You can find a Chinese clone of that EVB for about $60, but I got mine for $50 when Ebay was offering a discount.
So you could buy a $62 SMD chip, lay out a PCB, make it, and populate it, or you could buy the $50 version already made.......UH, I bought the Ebay version.
Now there are a few "modules" that don't exist, so you may have to actually design a small PCB, or repurpose an existing board. Need a Quadrature Sampling Demodulator? Buy a Soft Rock ham radio transceiver kit and just populate the sections you need and add some SMA pigtails. Assemble, buy, modify, or repurpose stuff to collect all the individual modules that you need, then connect them all with surplus (Ebay again) SMA jumper cables, and you can "DIY" a ham radio transceiver.
Want a custom PC that doesn't exist?
I wanted a PC, bigger and more powerful than a typical laptop, but portable enough to be carried anywhere, and capable of running for hours on 12 volt power or internal batteries. The only option is DIY. So I ripped apart a 20 inch LCD monitor and reused its guts, added several "modules" like a small motherboard intended for media PC's stuffed with a low powered Core I7 chip, an SSD, A 2 TB laptop HD, a "carputer" 12 volt PC power supply, and a genuine TI TPA3100 class D amp EVB (already had it), and a pair of Tang Band speaker modules. So the entire PC is made up of "connect the dots" modules. Is it DIY since I never lifted a soldering iron? If not, where can I buy one?
Note, I decided to build this about a week before a Florida trip last July. It worked well for a few beachfront software development sessions (the DIY music synthesizer project), and also provided hours of decent quality music.
The case shown was "temporary", what I could throw together with scrap wood and a table saw in a couple of hours. Like many DIY projects, it still isn't finished, in fact it still looks just like these pictures, but now has LiFePO4 batteries. I plan to make a new case which will be thinner and slightly smaller. The TI EVB will be replaced with a Parts Express DTA-2 which includes a volume control and is smaller. I'm looking at a smaller power supply too. The unit in this PC is 350 watts, but the PC draws 75 watts maxed out with Prime 95.
There is a DIY guitar amp / effects unit in the works which looks somewhat like a gaming PC and runs Windows, but you connect speaker cabinets, plug in a guitar, turn it on, and once the tubes warm up, you can rock the neighbors with 100+ watts of tube amp power. Mostly off the shelf modules and amp SIM software, but it does have a DIY tube amp PCB in it. True DIY?
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DIYing in a massive way is a WW2 by product.
Tons of people had been trained as war stuff factory workers so they were very skilled at different kinds of hand work and when it all ended and people went back to original jobs, from farming to retail sales to bus driving to whatever, they were an interesting market for all kinds of tools and motivated to do things on their own, this the (way back then) ubiquitous "home workshop in garage or basement".
There was also the "GI Bill", which offered returning soldiers subsidized high quality technical training for peanuts.
Doing anything from tuning cars to home carpentry to building electronic stuff to ... anything really.
And there *was* a huge price differential working for it, because worker cost (salaries) was high, parts were only a part of total cost, so you could save big money by building at home, even complex kits which could match or beat commercial products.
By the way, the driving force behind Heathkit great success ... way back then.
Also behind home tool makers success (such as Black and Decker) while up to that point tools (including power tools) were mostly sold to factories and repair shops.
This is a 1969 ad, so multiply dollars by about 5 , so kit (which is a very complex one and of course stuffed with US made parts) is equivalent to, say, 1200$ today.
Since it was roughly 50% of commercial product retail price, you were saving another 1200U$ for hand building it ... a nice justification to do so.
Also distributors and retailers had a large markup, so just by bypassing one or two stages, you got huge savings.
What killed that huge DIY market?
basically 3 factors (there might be more)
* Asian (and foreign in general) manufacturing had (has) way lower wages and worker costs so you are saving on those (low) wages, no US ones, so price advantage decreases a lot, if any at all.
* people is simply not trained (so not skilled) to do Tech work.
Factory workers might ... but when most people work at Mc D, WalMart or do just clerical work ......
* retail chain was oversimplified, discount became the norm, factories or distributors can sell direct to consumer if they wish, nowadays AliBaba and such let Chinese manufacturer sell straight to end user, fully bypassing US retail and even shipping/freight, they somehow can offer free delivery of stuff 6000 miles away.
Not even a US *manufacturer* can compete with that, let alone a hobbyist, so by definition *price* alone is not nor can ever be a justification.
I think USA has shot itself in the foot with Globalization, Free Trade, etc. but hey, who am I to have an opinion on that?
Edit: almost forgot.
If you want to use some heavy machinery such as metal shears and bending brakes (to make a chassis) , in the old days you could visit some local shop or small factory and after some talking, you coilñd job done at some idle time.
FWIW my first tube amp chassis (in 1969) were made in a small town galvanized sheet shop, the kind which custom makes gutters, stove pipes, farm animal feeding trays, even metal buckets, who didn´t charge the "whiz kid" but welcomed me because I always "forgot" on the shop floor a bag with a couple "long necks" (fine wine bottles) or a six pack.
Try finding a similar shop today.
Anybody needing such stuff will buy it ready made at Home Depot or whatever, and the actually Factory will usually be hundreds or thousand miles away ... and in any case too large to cater to a home builder.
Yes, there are a few CNC equipped or water jet cutters available ... checked their prices lately? 🙁
Tons of people had been trained as war stuff factory workers so they were very skilled at different kinds of hand work and when it all ended and people went back to original jobs, from farming to retail sales to bus driving to whatever, they were an interesting market for all kinds of tools and motivated to do things on their own, this the (way back then) ubiquitous "home workshop in garage or basement".
There was also the "GI Bill", which offered returning soldiers subsidized high quality technical training for peanuts.
Doing anything from tuning cars to home carpentry to building electronic stuff to ... anything really.
And there *was* a huge price differential working for it, because worker cost (salaries) was high, parts were only a part of total cost, so you could save big money by building at home, even complex kits which could match or beat commercial products.
By the way, the driving force behind Heathkit great success ... way back then.
Also behind home tool makers success (such as Black and Decker) while up to that point tools (including power tools) were mostly sold to factories and repair shops.
This is a 1969 ad, so multiply dollars by about 5 , so kit (which is a very complex one and of course stuffed with US made parts) is equivalent to, say, 1200$ today.
Since it was roughly 50% of commercial product retail price, you were saving another 1200U$ for hand building it ... a nice justification to do so.
Also distributors and retailers had a large markup, so just by bypassing one or two stages, you got huge savings.
What killed that huge DIY market?
basically 3 factors (there might be more)
* Asian (and foreign in general) manufacturing had (has) way lower wages and worker costs so you are saving on those (low) wages, no US ones, so price advantage decreases a lot, if any at all.
* people is simply not trained (so not skilled) to do Tech work.
Factory workers might ... but when most people work at Mc D, WalMart or do just clerical work ......
* retail chain was oversimplified, discount became the norm, factories or distributors can sell direct to consumer if they wish, nowadays AliBaba and such let Chinese manufacturer sell straight to end user, fully bypassing US retail and even shipping/freight, they somehow can offer free delivery of stuff 6000 miles away.
Not even a US *manufacturer* can compete with that, let alone a hobbyist, so by definition *price* alone is not nor can ever be a justification.
I think USA has shot itself in the foot with Globalization, Free Trade, etc. but hey, who am I to have an opinion on that?
Edit: almost forgot.
If you want to use some heavy machinery such as metal shears and bending brakes (to make a chassis) , in the old days you could visit some local shop or small factory and after some talking, you coilñd job done at some idle time.
FWIW my first tube amp chassis (in 1969) were made in a small town galvanized sheet shop, the kind which custom makes gutters, stove pipes, farm animal feeding trays, even metal buckets, who didn´t charge the "whiz kid" but welcomed me because I always "forgot" on the shop floor a bag with a couple "long necks" (fine wine bottles) or a six pack.
Try finding a similar shop today.
Anybody needing such stuff will buy it ready made at Home Depot or whatever, and the actually Factory will usually be hundreds or thousand miles away ... and in any case too large to cater to a home builder.
Yes, there are a few CNC equipped or water jet cutters available ... checked their prices lately? 🙁
DIY is mostly a hobby. We cannot judge anyone for how he sees his own hobby. Only he knows what is worth his time and what gives him satisfaction.
And even if you build things without kits or 3d printers, there will always be someone that decided for example that it is a good idea to try and bake his own silicon and make the fets he needs. Would he be entitled to judge us for buying our parts? Surely not. Noone made him the arbiter of what is "from scratch" enough.
But he would surely be entitled to feeling pride for himself.
Building from scratch is relevant.
To truly do it from scratch, you first have to create the universe (Carl Sagan)
Everything else is personal preference on how high you want that limbo bar for the diy dance 🙂
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Bought it at a yard sale years ago for something like $5. I thought about bringing it home to restore it, but I was surprised to find that it worked just fine and still does. I also have a pair of old Zenith H500 Transoceanics which worked when purchased, and still do. There are several really old RCA's on a shelf that need work, and one that I brought back to life. I had about 50 old radios at one time, but sold them all at an antique radio show before leaving Florida.
By 1969 Heathkit was opening up retail stores selling both kits and assembled products. I know that there were three in South Florida in the early 70's. The one in suburban Ft. Lauderdale (near the Motorola plant where I worked) didn't last long.
The two in the Miami were there for 10 years or so, maybe longer. I visited both often to get parts to repair their solid state guitar amp. It used the same circuit as the popular Kustom amps of the day, which originated in an RCA transistor manual.
I still have an old Univox branded Mosrite that I traded a CB amplifier for in 1977. Unfortunately I have played the frets off of it over 40 some years.
The large Home Depot near my house in Florida used to give free classes in basic (and not so basic) woodworking, and proper use of power tools. They strongly encouraged me to come to a "safe use" class when I bought my table saw there 6 years ago.
I was already enrolled in a county school board funded woodworking class at a local high school at night where we built important things like speaker cabinets, amp cases, and even musical instruments, (both unfinished at the time of the picture, but playable). These classes are still offered in Florida. Yes, the wood came from Home Depot in mine.
Home Depot still offers classes to DIYers at that store, but they have become far more basic. Now catering to "Millennials," they offer classes like "using the tape measure," "safe use of a hammer or circular saw" and "how to calculate square feet."
I haven't lived there for almost 4 years, so I don't know if they still offer more "advanced" classes. Got to give them credit for trying!
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This is a sad but predictable trajectory to this thread. The four Yorkshiremen are alive and well. In any case, I invite you to show those younguns how it's really done by volunteering with a local hs's robotic club.
I agree with this; in an earlier thread on this forum, there was joy over TI putting the later edition of the Nat Semi Audio / Radio handbook online. Yet almost all of the parts used in it, with the exception of a few of the linear PA's are long obsolete, and nearly unobtainable, unless you have laid in a stock, or are a champion scrounger, or willing to roll the dice with eBay. Some are still available as NTE replacements, but is that NTE replacement for a CA3089 really a CA/LM3089, or is it an LM3189? They are slightly different ....
Try finding a premade 10.7 MHz IF transformer, or even a slug tuned Toko coil to make a transformer. They're gone. Through hole 10.7 MHz ceramic filters are still available, but marked as obsolete. Get them while you can. 455 Khz transformers are still available. For now.
Some parts are insanely expensive. I'm mulling over a project right now, and was looking at prices of the once common LM350K voltage regulators. I must have been dropping acid, because one big place had them for like $50 USD. Even Jameco wants $10 USD for one. I'll have to use some out of my meager inventory, or just get a more capable dc module from the far east via eBay for $5 USD.
But, the premade modules available on eBay are terrific for DIY. I bought a frequency counter, with programmable IF offsets, delivered to my door for less than $12 USD. So when one door closes, another opens, but I wish we still had all the doors ....
Win W5JAG
I think I still have a couple of the multi dialed TRF sets....somewhere.
No computers either.
Yeah, $50 each for the TO-3 versions. Forget acid.....someone out there must be on crack to pay $50 for a $5 chip.......I sold a bag of at least 100 of those at a hamfest a few years ago for something like $20.
I think I still have some of the TO-3 7812's, but I sold the bulk of them too. I designed a high end big dish satellite TV receiver back in the 80's for a commercial venture. Just as the company was turning the financial corner, scrambling happened and the company folded since my unit was not compatible with the descrambler. I never got paid for all of the design work, but I did get all the parts inventory. The design used an LM350 and a 7812 in TO-3, and a 7805 in TO220. At the time of design it was cheaper to mount a TO-3 regulator on the back of the unit, using the aluminum chassis for a heat sink, than it was to put a heat sink on a TO-220 on the PCB.
I also got about 200 pounds of power transformers, 120 volts to 18 volts at 4 amps.......there was just one little problem with them. They were made by a vendor in Haiti who didn't read English too well. They used the red wires for the primary and the black wires for the secondary. They were good transformers, but myself and several DIY friends set more than a few of these on fire by skipping simple things like fuses on breadboards or small test circuits. They will dim the lights and burst into flames within seconds, but do not blow the 15 amp bench breaker when the secondary sees 120 volts. Tends to fry diodes and filter caps too. I gave the remaining transformers to a scrap guy before leaving Florida.
Yeah - no sweat. Marantz cd transports were built by Philips. 2 questions: what's it doing, and do you have the Service Manual?
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