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| Child pages (Children Display) |
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Electronics engineering is awesome; you can make really, really, really cool stuff if you know EE. For a quick idea, look at all the awesome gadgets at these websites:
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Forums
- http://www.edaboard.com/
- http://www.dutchforce.com/~eforum/index.php
- http://www.electro-tech-online.com/
- http://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=102
- http://www.electronicspoint.com/
- https://forum.sparkfun.com/
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Table of contents
| Table of Contents |
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Child pages
Child pages (Children Display)
Electronics engineering is awesome; you can make really, really, really cool stuff if you know EE. For a quick idea, look at all the awesome gadgets at these websites:
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/
You can prob. also get really rich if you use EE to make a cool invention; most of the people out in the world who know EE aren't very imaginative and will never use EE to its full potential, so if you're good at coming up with ideas for cool stuff that people would buy, it could be a very realistic goal to learn EE and then make a mockup of your idea yourself. Lots of people have done that and gotten their invention in stores or on a TV infomercial. Most people just never try.
I think EE has an association w/ being nerdy, and I think the reason for that is that EE has a steep learning curve; it isn't very fun to learn at the moment. And so I suspect that, in general, the people who are willing to go through the hell necessary to learn it are people for whom the opportunity cost of that investment of time is lower; in other words, the people who aren't going out to hang out at the mall every day.
Forums
- http://www.edaboard.com/
- http://www.dutchforce.com/~eforum/index.php
- http://www.electro-tech-online.com/
- http://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=102
- http://www.electronicspoint.com/
- https://forum.sparkfun.com/
Microcontroller Stuff:
US Raspberry Pi - http://downloads.element14.com/raspberr ... irect=true - This looks like the cheapest way to have a microcontroller with an ethernet port. $25 + shipping
Teensy - http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/ - This looks like it may be the cheapest microcontroller w/ USB port. $16 + shipping
Stepper Motor Control:
Sparkfun $15 Stepper Motor
PC/Web-to-Microcontroller communication:
Breakout - Allows a web browser to talk to a microcontroller using javascript
Seriality - Allows a web browser to talk to a microcontroller; this is Mac OS X only. I think you can use Breakout to do the same thing on Windows.
Arduino and PHP - example 1
RXTX - allows your Arduino to talk to a Java program on your computer [example 1]
Controlling a Stepper Motor via the Web - At first glance this seems to be exactly what I'm trying to do, although he's doing it for a surveillance system
Relays:
Using Relays with Arduino - Turning On the Lights
Learning Tools:
YouTube:
Channels:
Jeri Ellsworth - http://www.youtube.com/user/jeriellsworth
Make Magazine - http://www.youtube.com/user/makemagazine
Individual Videos:
How Breadboards Work
Electronics Kits:
The reviews for the Elenco Snap Circuits kits have been incredible; I have their smallest kit coming in the mail:
Elenco Snap Circuits 100
Elenco Snap Circuits 300
Elenco Snap Circuits 750
One guy writing a review for the Elenco 500-in-1 kit below rec'd this Kosmos kit:
Kosmos Electronics Workshop 2
The kits below sound like they're an older generation that may still be worth going through; I have the 130-in-1 and have found it useful to get myself used to what the circuit diagrams look like:
Elenco 130-in-1 Kit
Elenco 300-in-1 Kit
Elenco 500-in-1 Kit
Websites:
Electric Circuit Simulator
StackExchange - Electrical Engineering
http://amasci.com/amateur/elehob.html
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/index.html
http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?t=9538
http://www.electronicsinfoline.com
http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/proj.htm
http://www.electronics-lab.com/projects/index.html
Books:
There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlings
Getting Started in Electronics
The Art of Electronics
Grob's Basic Electronics (11 is the latest edition)
Make: Electronics
How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic
All New Electronics Self-Teaching Guide - seems good from the reviews
AUDEL BASIC ELECTRONICS
ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS - FUNDAMENTALS & APPLICATIONS by Mike Tooley
ELECTRONICS - CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS, 3RD EDITION by Owen Bishop
ELECTRONICS DEMYSTIFIED by Stan Gibilisco
ELECTRONICS EXPLAINED by Louis Frenzel
STARTING ELECTRONICS CONSTRUCTION by Keith Brindley
STARTING ELECTRONICS THIRD EDITION by Keith Brindley
TROUBLESHOOTING & REPAIRING CONSUMER ELECTRONICS WITHOUT A SCHEMATIC by Homer Davidson
FASHIONING TECHNOLOGY by
BUILD YOUR OWN ELECTRONICS WORKSHOP by Tom Petruzellis
ELECTRONICS AN INTRODUCTION by Jim Stewart
PRACTICAL ELECTRONICS FOR INVENTORS by Paul Scherz
PRACTICAL ELECTRONICS HANDBOOK SIXTH EDITION by Ian Sinclair
Electronics Projects Stores:
http://www.machinescience.org/store/home.php
http://www.electronickits.com/index.htm
Electronics Projects Websites:
http://www.instructables.com/tag/type-i ... ectronics/
http://electroschematics.com/
Other Sites of Interest:
http://www.diyvn.net/ - electronics projects by some vietnamese guy
http://www.buildinggadgets.com/ - website of the guy who wrote "Electronics Projects for Dummies"
Electronics Engineering Terms
Transistors:
It's kind of ridiculous how hard it is to find a satisfying explanation of how transistors work.
Video Explanations:
Make Magazine - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-td7YT-Pums - worth watching but he covers topics w/ too little detail for it to be totally satisfying. The links he gives at the end were very helpful, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Cv7CMHoGM - worth watching but not totally satisfying
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pni5JRJTMN8 - worth watching but not totally satisfying; what's positive current?
SteelWheelsDown - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkX8SkTgB0g worth watching
- first thing he talks about is how important transistors are to the world, and how ridiculous it is that you can't find a decent explantion online of how they work
- the next thing he talks about is what a diode is: there's a low amount of resistance in one direction but a high amount of resistance in the other direction. This got people wondering if they could get even more different levels of resistance, like being able to get clothing custom tailored vs. only being able to buy small or large.
Written Explanations:
http://amasci.com/amateur/transis.html
http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/trancirc.htm
Elenco 130-in-1 Experiments in Falstad:
17: Resistors in Series and Parallel
18: Light Dimmer
Stuff I want to make
Chess assistant
- A computer chess assistant that you put in your shoe. You use your toe to enter commands, and it tells you what move to make by vibrating in a particular pattern (morse code?)
Larabar dispenser
- a device that dispenses larabars at a maximum rate to prevent you from eating too many (eg max of 4 per day)
- a device that detects a certain frequency and lights up when it hears the frequency (so deaf people can hear audio warnings). I looked online and it looks like there are already some out there on the market, but I want to make one
- i should make an electronic lock for the front door where you can enable it or disable it, and have custom unlock codes for each person so that if someone gives out their code you know who did it.
- i should add an electronic doorbell for the house
- a cheap modern arcade that i can put in coffee shops and barber shops like Warren Buffett did with his pinball machines. I want people to pay with a debit card swipe.
- I want to make a device like a small tabletop gumball machine that disperses some goodie (like candy) when you play a game on your computer. I want it to lock so that there's no way to get the treat out w/o playing the game. In an emergency if the person needs to get it out they should have to go to my website and pay me for a code that will open it.
- A car safety device that electrocutes people like in that Robocop commercial, or other stuff that electrocutes people(?)
Dance Lighting
- A device that controls a whole bunch of different lights and times them to music so that the intensity/color of each light corresponds to a particular instrument in the song.
- a camera that takes pictures automatically when people are hanging out in front of a street mural
- a smoke alarm that automatically sends a text message to a landlord if the alarm has been going off for more than 5 minutes. Or a doorlock that sends a text message to a landlord if it has been unlocked for more than X amount of time.
hilarious prank that Steve Wozniak pulled in college:
Quote:Built a TV jammer...the only color TV (1968) was in the basement of Libby Hall, a girl's dorm. I sat there one night and jammed (fuzzed up) the TV. A friend hit the TV and I made it go good. After a few sessions, they started stationing a student right by the TV every night whose job it was to knock and pound and adjust (fine tuning in those days) the TV until it worked. I started making it work depending on what they did and where their bodies were. I got a guy to stand on a chair with the twin-lead antenna in his hand to make it work. One time I got a guy to hold his hand on the TV screen and a foot on a table while he stood on the other foot, to watch the last half of Mission Impossible.
I built one of these TV jammers into a magic marker. I was taking introduction to computers, which was a graduate course back then. I did get an A+ in the course but ran our class 5x over budget due to all the programs I ran on the CDC 6400 supercomputer. Well, this class was in 2 classrooms. The upperclassmen watched the professor live and the rest of us were in a room with 4 TV's. My jammer worked but the TV near me barely got jammed and others to varying degrees. 3 guys stood up in the front of the class looking back. I was going to turn my jammer right off but I didn't know TA's were present. They said to turn off the transmitter but I wasn't about to own up to it. If I reached down to turn it off, the guy next to me would see me and I might get caught. It was a dilemma. I left it on. Near the end of class, a guy under the TV jammed the worst gathered his books to leave class early. As he walked toward the door in the front right (from my view) I made the TV's go in-and-out, in-and-out. When the guy left through the doorway I made the TV's go good. A TA pointed at the student who had left and said "there he goes."
- area-denial devices. Basically, if I want to use the living room, or I want a table at Starbucks, or a bench at the park, I can hide an electronic device near the desired place and it will somehow get the people there to leave. Maybe w/ an annoying sound, or by releasing some kind of smell, or something else I haven't thought of.