Which test equipments must have?

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nabi

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 9:34 pm

Guest

I have lots of spare time after work and little spare money.
I wish I make big money. :-(

I plan to get my hands dirty - real circuit buildings. I'm going to
get the Nuts & Volts every month.

What are the must-have test equipments in electronics?
My focus is on digital but I think I need to understand the basic
analog stuff.

Do the oscilloscope or multimeter can be used for troubleshooting
digital circuits?

How effective the cirucit design program?
Some authors suggest that those are very helpful.

And the last, to understand electronics is like to learn physics?
I gotta solved hundreds problems to understand a theory or law then, I
could apply on my own.

Randy Day

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:29 pm

Guest

nabi wrote:

Quote:

A multimeter is a must; an oscilloscope is
nice, but not a must-have; you can get by
without it.

A small-tip soldering iron is a must for
printed circuit work. A larger one for
large terminals and thick wire connections
is also recommended.

Some form of breadboard is useful to build
circuits on.

must have: needlenose pliers, wire cutters
useful: wire strippers, tabletop vise
useful: alligator clip leads, variable power
supply

Quote:

How effective the cirucit design program?
Some authors suggest that those are very helpful.

If you know what you're doing, they can
help spot and correct mistakes quickly.
If you don't know what you're doing,
the program can't can't tell you you made
a mistake connecting pin 7 to ground
instead of pin 8.

Even a simulator program can't work if
you can't understand the output it gives you.

Quote:

And the last, to understand electronics is like to learn physics?
I gotta solved hundreds problems to understand a theory or law then, I
could apply on my own.

You need to be able to read a schematic,
and understand what the components in
the circuit do. Understanding why those
*particular* values were chosen, and not
larger or smaller values, will allow you
to modify the circuit to meet your needs.

Build small projects and work up...

Scoobywan

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 12:46 pm

Guest

I'm in the same spot with wanting to get more into the field. And
wanted to know if anyone had any links to some good beginner
schematics with explainations of how the circuit functions.

Thanks

Homer J Simpson

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:33 pm

Guest

"Scoobywan" <cshortridge@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1170434804.140133.183200@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...

Quote:

I'm in the same spot with wanting to get more into the field. And
wanted to know if anyone had any links to some good beginner
schematics with explainations of how the circuit functions.

"Electronics for Dummies" (or, perhaps,
http://flibrary.org/2007/01/31/electronic-circuits-for-the-evil-genius/#more-1466)

nabi

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:38 pm

Guest

On Feb 2, 9:46 am, "Scoobywan" <cshortri...@gmail.com> wrote:

Quote:

I'm in the same spot with wanting to get more into the field. And
wanted to know if anyone had any links to some good beginner
schematics with explainations of how the circuit functions.

Thanks

I've read three electronics book so far.
The Lab manual for the Art of Electronics I'm reading is 4th one.

Well, sometimes I'm getting frustrated too and looking for a good
example ciruit that really works all the time.

The funny thing is most electronics books do give detail description
about simple circuits for example, emitter follower or op-amp
amplifier, etc. After the introduction, the example ciruits become
three or 4 times complexed even in the introductory books. I only
guess to explain a good ciruit - 30 or 40 IC - takes too many spaces
and time for the authors.

I read [TABS] Electricity and Electronics. The author said it's
intended for the beginner who doesn't have math or electrical
background. So, he put few chapters for explaining how to build a lab,
test equipments, grounding rules, etc.

But, he did not mention at all how to read the catalog and find the
right component. For example, I spent at least one hour to find the
right transformer on Digikey catalog book. There are so many types of
transformer with different specs. LOL

I think I would end up having hundreds electronic book on a bookshelf
till I get the skills I have in mind. :)

When I stuck, I set back and always looking for resources especially
books which explain clearly about the subject than the book or
material I've read. It's expensive but I prefer not to copy and paste
ciruits or memorize formulas.

Patient and time, trials.

What else?

Michael Black

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:24 pm

Guest

"nabi" (k2.mountain@gmail.com) writes:

Quote:

On Feb 2, 9:46 am, "Scoobywan" <cshortri...@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm in the same spot with wanting to get more into the field. And
wanted to know if anyone had any links to some good beginner
schematics with explainations of how the circuit functions.

Thanks

I've read three electronics book so far.
The Lab manual for the Art of Electronics I'm reading is 4th one.

Well, sometimes I'm getting frustrated too and looking for a good
example ciruit that really works all the time.

The funny thing is most electronics books do give detail description
about simple circuits for example, emitter follower or op-amp
amplifier, etc. After the introduction, the example ciruits become
three or 4 times complexed even in the introductory books. I only
guess to explain a good ciruit - 30 or 40 IC - takes too many spaces
and time for the authors.

ONe thing is that it's accumulated knowledge. The larger circuits are

generally made up of smaller circuits, so when you know what an emitter
follower is, there's little reason to explain it in a more complicated
circuit. On the other hand, the description of the larger circuit
should be a more overall explanation, so you can grasp what's going
on based on your more basic understanding.

As an aside, the more complicated a circuit, the more the layout becomes
significant. There are ways to draw schematics where what is going
on is far clearer than if it had been drawn a different way. I've
seen schematics that make it easy to follow when wiring it up, but is
almost impossible to follow to figure out what the circuit is doing.

I think it is natural or common to look at those larger circuits and
be puzzled by them. When I started reading hobby electronic magazines
when I was a kid, none of it made sense to me. But I kept buying
the magazines because I wanted to learn, and there was often some material
in each issue that wasn't really technical, so I could get something
out of the magazine. And continuing to read them and try to understand
was a needed step, because eventually it did become clearer.

Some people want to start with a book that takes them from the very
beginnings and then advances. But sometimes that gets bogged down
in details that don't matter so much for a lot of people. I sort of
bypassed a lot of that stuff where they give analogs to resistors
and such, yet on some other level my understanding was fine. But
then I jumped in with the magazines, adding books some months later,
and I tended to define things from practical schematics rather than
learning the theory as a prelude to understanding those schematics.
I can't remember what was going on in my mind all those years ago,
but with later things, it would have been like looking at a schematic
and then reading up on things to figure out that schematic, rather than
reading a book from start to finish and then applying that to the
schematics.

Quote:

But, he did not mention at all how to read the catalog and find the
right component. For example, I spent at least one hour to find the
right transformer on Digikey catalog book. There are so many types of
transformer with different specs. LOL

This isn't going to be helpful, but one of the problems of conveying

material to newcomers is that you forget what it's like. So a book
will assume you know something that the author knows because of
their long participation in the field. Or the author doesn't put
themselves in the mind of the reader, and realize how daunting it
can be coming into the field.

Treat the early experience as sort of a throwaway, that if you don't
try in the first place you won't get any further. But the trying will
soon enough put sense to some of it, and that leads to further learning.

The first time I tried to build something, I picked a store out of
the yellow pages (it was a time when there were local stores that sold
electronic parts to the hobbyist) and went there with the list of parts
copied out of the magazine article. That project never worked. IN
retrospect, it might have been something like my awful soldering on
the project (again, practice makes that better), but I had so little
knowledge that when the store subsituted parts I wouldn't know if
they were suitable or not, and just about everything about the assemblying
was guesswork on my part. Did I wire that coil write, or did I mix
up the connections? ANd the second project, again going to the store
to buy the parts, didn't work either.

But oddly, after a few months, I'd picked up enough that I could put
a simple audio oscillator together using parts I'd taken off a surplus
computer board (back when those boards were full of transistors) and
a transformer I took out of a transistor radio. I merely twisted the leads
together, but it worked. SOmehow, in some way, I had picked up enough
that I was less dependent on following the instructions in the book, so
I could decide that that transistor just might work here, and it did.

If I'd stopped after the first failed project, or hadn't bought a second
magazine about electronics, I wouldn't have gotten up that curve where
it was easier to go further.

Quote:

I think I would end up having hundreds electronic book on a bookshelf
till I get the skills I have in mind. :)

It helps if you buy used books. Then you don't have to decide at the time

whether or not it's worth the cover price. For a few dollars you can
usually learn something from it. ANd reading books about more specific
things is always a way of getting new stimulus. When I go to used book
sales and find books about electronics, I'll generally buy them, because
they are so cheap I might as well have them around.

Michael

David L. Jones

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 5:32 pm

Guest

On Feb 2, 11:34 am, "nabi" <k2.mount...@gmail.com> wrote:

Quote:

An analog oscilloscope can, yes. But remember, you cannot view a 20MHz
digital signal properly on a 20MHz bandwidth oscilloscope!

- Multimeter
- Function Generator (with a TTL output)
- Dual channel Analog Oscilloscope, 60MHz or better preferred.
- A Logic Probe is handy for digital work
- Power supplies, and lots of them, you can never have too many power
supplies. For digital work, one with a fixed 5V and 3.3V supply is
handy, or an adjustable high current one (say 3A) with a small
adjustable range (say 0-6V). You can make your own power supplies if
needed.
- For digital design, you cannot beat having a Digital Storage
Oscilloscope (DSO), they are very handy for capturing waveforms like
serial data packets. PC based ones are not as good, but are at least
affordable.
- For digital design a Logic Analyser might come in very handy. Once
again, PC based one are inexpensive.

Dave Smile

Matt J. McCullar

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 1:50 am

Guest

Quote:

ONe thing is that it's accumulated knowledge. The larger circuits are
generally made up of smaller circuits, so when you know what an emitter
follower is, there's little reason to explain it in a more complicated
circuit. On the other hand, the description of the larger circuit
should be a more overall explanation, so you can grasp what's going
on based on your more basic understanding.

That's why I like Forrest Mims' books of small circuits. They're building
blocks. Power supplies, flip-flops, oscillators, etc. They're also
reliable. They always work, as long as they're assembled correctly. I'd
like electronics books by TAB if only they weren't riddled with errors in
their schematics.

Quote:

I think it is natural or common to look at those larger circuits and
be puzzled by them. When I started reading hobby electronic magazines
when I was a kid, none of it made sense to me. But I kept buying
the magazines because I wanted to learn, and there was often some material
in each issue that wasn't really technical, so I could get something
out of the magazine. And continuing to read them and try to understand
was a needed step, because eventually it did become clearer.

Amen! Step aside, we're in the same boat. Part of the learning process for
me was in studying a great many circuit articles in those magazines. They
were usually clear, well-written, and easy to understand. As I gained more
experience, I was able to build more of these projects with more confidence
because I actually understood what was happening in the circuit, rather than
just following the instructions and hoping it would work. I solved a
20-year-old electronics mystery recently this way... there was an article
about building an electronic drum set that was published in a magazine in
the late 1970s that I really wanted to build, except for one thing: they'd
left out the part number for a critical transistor!!!!!! I kept the
article, revisiting it every once in a while. Eventually, after having
built several other drum circuits that were kind of similar, I made an
educated guess as to which transistor would be used in that particular
application... Then, one day, after buying a bunch of electronics hobby
mags at a library sale, I found that very same article republished in
another collection of electronics articles -- and in this reprint, they
printed the part number of that particular transistor -- and I discovered
that my guess was RIGHT!!!!

Quote:

It helps if you buy used books. Then you don't have to decide at the time
whether or not it's worth the cover price. For a few dollars you can
usually learn something from it. ANd reading books about more specific
things is always a way of getting new stimulus. When I go to used book
sales and find books about electronics, I'll generally buy them, because
they are so cheap I might as well have them around.

And how! Ham fests are good places for these things, as well as buying back
issues of ham radio magazines. These are jam-packed with small hobby
projects that are perfect for beginners. (The only catch to this is that
they sometimes do contain errors, and it's necessary to look at a few
subsequent issues to look for corrections.)

Matt J. McCullar, KJ5BA
Arlington, TX

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