What to expect when starting in electronic hobbies???

[doctorm]

a curious thought came to me last night that has kinda got me bugged a bit.

for months i have been reading my electronics books, watching the reviews and stuff on here, and so forth and been gitty about electronics and stuff.

but going back to last night, my mother reminded me of some of my other ventures that i tried that didnt turn out so well and i lost money on. now im kinda afraid of losing money on starting this hobby if all doesnt go well.

one thing is i want to have good equipment and stuff to do this stuff out right when i finally am ready to start. another thing is how much do i have to spend to continue doing projects and stuff. also im planning on going to medical college soon and i know ill be busy with that for a few years.

so my question is what is the expectation of keeping up with an electronics hobby? how much overall will it cost to start up and then maintain from then on? will technology get so advanced in the next few years that all my studying on all the basic parts will be for not?

sorry if some of this doesnt make sense. its hard to put my words on here from my head. kinda gets jumbled lol.

thanks for any help i get.

[KTP]

so my question is what is the expectation of keeping up with an electronics hobby? how much overall will it cost to start up and then maintain from then on? will technology get so advanced in the next few years that all my studying on all the basic parts will be for not?

The basic stuff hasn't changed for decades.  People still use bipolar transistors which have been around for over 50 years, and some crazy folks still make things out of vacuum tubes, which have been around for a century.  The more advanced parts do change quite often...certainly it is hard to keep up with the hottest new microcontroller, but even there the basic knowledge of how to program for a simple microcontroller will carry you a ways into learning new ones.

[doctorm]

ok well that makes my feel better.

but what about my second question about cost? i mean i really cant work bc of college and stuff.....i mean i do have money to buy what i may need but im looking farther down the line.

[EEVblog]

so my question is what is the expectation of keeping up with an electronics hobby? how much overall will it cost to start up and then maintain from then on? will technology get so advanced in the next few years that all my studying on all the basic parts will be for not?

The basic stuff hasn't changed for decades.  People still use bipolar transistors which have been around for over 50 years, and some crazy folks still make things out of vacuum tubes, which have been around for a century.  The more advanced parts do change quite often...certainly it is hard to keep up with the hottest new microcontroller, but even there the basic knowledge of how to program for a simple microcontroller will carry you a ways into learning new ones.

I second that.
Very few things you learn will be "wasted" and outdated, the industry doesn't really work like that. It appears to on the surface with rapid change in certain areas, but the fundamental skills remain pretty constant throughout.
All the hype about super advanced technology like FPGA's taking over the world and hobby electronics would be dead etc turned into a complete fizzle. Hobby electronics is still alive and growing still using the same old basic technology, and will be for the foreseeable future. Witness TI's recognition of the importance of DIP packages for their new range of MSP430 microcontrollers for instance, still 20 years after DIP packages were supposed to go the way of the Dodo.

How much does it cost?
Basically, as much as you allow it.
A $50 2nd hand analog oscilloscope, a sub $50 multimeter, and a cheap brand sun $100 soldering station will get you a long way.

Dave.

[doctorm]

ok. that was really helpful.

know any good places for alot of cheap components to get a stock pile going?

ive looked at electronicz express and they seem pretty cheap.....

[DJPhil]

know any good places for alot of cheap components to get a stock pile going?

I've been doing nearly the same thing you describe for the last nine months or so. I've looked high and low at package deals on parts as well. I think there's a better way than buying them.

When I first started back in November or so I had a $10US soldering iron from radio shack, a crummy desoldering bulb, and a cheap multimeter, all about twenty years old. I asked around for old, broken things to take apart and got a few things from friends. I had them pass the word out and got even more stuff. I went to a few garage sales and thrift stores to score some cheap items. As I went I took everything apart and saved as much as I could of the hardware without wasting space. I desoldered all the parts I could and improved my soldering skills. The first thing I did with spare cash was buy a Hakko 936 with some spare tips, a nice solder sucker, two types of liquid flux to experiment with, some desoldering braid, and some fresh solder. When it was all said and done I've got a heap of parts, albeit a bit aged, plenty of connectors and hookup wire of all kinds, and a lot of soldering iron time. All in all I've learned a great deal and managed to put the money I had saved for parts into tools and equipment.

If you insist on buying your parts (and you're in the US or can arrange shipping) I'd recommend the resistor and capacitor assortments from Velleman supplemented by some jellybean ICs and transistors from an assortment from a smaller retailer like Nightfire Electronics. Full kits for everything under the sun are available from both. Ebay can be a source as well, as can the big house suppliers like Digikey, Mouser, Newark, and Allied. I tried them all with a $20US order or so to see who would win me over. Either way be sure to pick up a breadboard or two. Don't sweat the fancy options, but getting two allows you to leave a circuit built when you want to work on something else (or similar).

That's just my 2?, but I hope it helps.

[ThunderSqueak]

When I got my start I was 9 years old with a cheap electronics kit that had an instructional book with different designs, I later got a cheap multimeter and a standard breadboard and went from there.  Took years to accumulate the other stuff for my home shop, a lot of it I got for free just by keeping my eyes open.

a couple other places that you can sometimes find cheap parts..

http://www.goldmine-elec.com/
 and
http://www.allelectronics.com/


just gotta keep your eyes open when something comes up. 

If you are into music at all (guitar) check out http://www.runoffgroove.com/articles.html   

Some neat things there ^^

[DJPhil]

http://www.allelectronics.com/

Those guys are my new favorite thing! I just put in an absolutely massive (for my budget) order with them about six hours ago. I could browse there forever.

If you are into music at all (guitar) check out http://www.runoffgroove.com/articles.html

I've been spending a lot of time at runoffgroove's Salvo of Sound page studying effects circuits. Truly an excellent resource.

[shodan]

I used to think knowing electronics wasn't a big deal, that it was common knowledge even
but early this summer I had friends over and they were messing with their modified car and it wasn't working good
so they searched on the internet and they found instructions that told them to remove the jumper smd resistor R11 and install a 1kOhm one accross another sets of pad

I figured ah they found their problem, I'll go back to mowing the lawn

but they turned to me and said "ah crap, now we're going to have to go to a tuner in town, it's gonna cost 1XX$ and the rest of the afternoon, can we borrow your car ?"

I was really surprised by this, the instruction were clear there wasn't even any guesswork or probing of voltages to do

I told them that and they didn't really believe me and still wanted to go, I had not been clear enough how easy that was

I went to my bench, installed the articulated magnifying lamp, took out my weller iron, the fluke 88 I got off ebay for 80$ 5 years ago and a couple of electronics scraps with smd parts

I searched around for a 1k smd resistor with the dmm on one of the scrap boards, found one, I heated the board a few seconds with a heat gun, off came the resistor, and a whole bunch of other smd parts that just fell off

then I opened the ECU, found the resistor, take it out with the iron this time (it's not so easy with just one iron though, I should get another !)
put some flux on the pad, soldered the new part in, close the ECU we plug that bag and voila, problem's gone

my friends couldn't believe it worked, I was like, that's nothing I made my own pcbs ...

well that afternoon they thought I was a god or something, I couldn't believe it, this was so trivial !!

it's that afternoon that I learned how valuable it was to have played with electronics, lots of people have no clue whatsoever how electricity works
and this isn't rural Poland, I'm in Montreal FFS !

so yeah, it's going to cost you a good 500$ overall and lots of weekend and many frustrating moments when blue smoke fills the air
but it is oh so worth it when you get to exercise that skill later

-shodan

/cooltldrstorybro

 

[saturation]

You don't need a lot of money to do electronics as a hobby if your goal is to understand electronics rather than collect equipment or design and build gear that often, you can buy more cheaply fully assembled.

What you need is a curriculum that will cover the field efficiently so you get familiar with all devices, techniques to use them, and how to put them together.  Many of these build "300 electronic kit" will do that.  It covers typically analog & digital circuits, and you'll need another for microcontrollers.  Each cost about $100, by folks like Elenco.

To study them, you need at least a DMM and a scope, and a PC to run the tutorials or the microcontroller programmer.  For these kits, any elcheapo DMM and 'toy' oscilloscope will do. 

Control of electronics it will reveal the basic working of most all devices that run our lives, and to control these machines, is to get control our lives.   Shodan's story is typical of that.  Without knowing how much can be fixed, your left running to stores on the smallest fault, buying a new device, helpless without lots of money and a way to run to the store. 

The next phase not covered by the kits are how to solder and desolder and assemble working devices: to use vero board, perf board, make your own PCB and finally send one out to a design house, so you get the feel of it.  But you don't need to build items forever, 1-3 kits built will give you control over the basic skills, including housing them.  You need to know that the layout of PCB, or wiring, can affect signal transmission the higher the frequency you use.

Finding parts is cheap and easy, it abounds mostly for free in the trash, if you can catch it before it gets hauled away.  You can also find parts cheaply in 'grab bags' or places that salvage old devices, so they sell parts in mixed bags.  

Modifying typically takes minutes while building whole kits or devices are measured in hours of devoted time.  That's not counting the time tearing a device apart, analyzing its design to figure out how to mod them, or in full builds, putting a schematic together and collating parts.  Time used is highly variable, depending on the complexity of what you're doing and how well you know your electronics.

[Mechatrommer]

get a part time job or real money making business to support your electronic expenses. i've been kinda interested in electronics since i got out of my mechanical study. but since i got no money, the interest is put on hold until now, when i can self support for the electronic equipment that i bought. but hey! nothing will stop you, your passionate and "craziness" will tell.

[catamaran]

One thing that nearly stopped me was our local owned R-S dealer. The guy that owned the store was a cranky old turd. I was young (18) , and afraid to even go there, sometimes I would drive to Lawton (30miles away) just so I didn't have to put up with him to get my parts. But if I need something on the fly, I had to go there or wait weeks. He would look at the parts (ICs , connectors, passive, components, solder..etc) on the counter and question  why I wanted those. ANYWAY, MY POINT  IS:  don't let anyone discourage you from your vocation or hobby. Over the years, I have met so many wonderful & encouraging life long friends in electronics.

[Kiriakos-GR]

ANYWAY, MY POINT  IS:  don't let anyone discourage you from your vocation or hobby. Over the years, I have met so many wonderful & encouraging life long friends in electronics.

Well I could possibly sound as negative charged , but I do discourage the people who are not in the proper age ,
to start an such of hobby .
Especially if there is no inspection from the parents , or other adult with some experience in electronics. 

I was all ready an student electrician ( 16 years old) , when started to have the electronics as hobby.
And my father was an freelancer cars electrician , who died when I was ( 16 years old).
Even so, he was my teacher and  I was his helper at Saturdays = no school .. since the age of nine until my sixteen 16.
At the age of seventeen , I got actually invited , from the shop that I was buying my electronic parts ,
to work for them, as trainee at their electronics repair workshop.

It looks that my father charged me with his talent , or I just inherit ate it .
It was a big honor for me to be actually invited , from the top store about electronics in my city.   
And I learned allot after of 10 years of practice, by working for them.
 
Never had an true accident with electricity , because I was playing the game by the rules .
Most young ones , hates the rules , and they just start a hobby , mostly for just having fun with it.

The question of what it will happen if I start this ?  Where it will lead me ??
Sounds a bit stupid to me ..

If you are truly talented ,  in what you do ,  the chances of the hobby to become an profession grows dramatically.
But the talent by it self , its not enough , you need experiences too, and this takes time = Years of your life.
And so we come again back at the starting line .... The age of starting this specific hobby , it is very important.     
 

 

[Zad]

Follow your heart, buy what you need.

Don't get into electronics because you think you should, get into it because you want to, and because you enjoy it. It has more in common with medicine than people might think. Electronics is all about understanding how things work from the inside, and then why they go wrong, and using your brain to diagnose what isn't working and why.

You don't need any oscilloscope at all to start off with, and a $10 meter is fine for most things - as a beginner you really shouldn't be working with mains voltages anyway. Maybe get something like an arduino, a cheap breadboard and some hook-up wire and a few dozen components to play with. Add to that a pair of wire strippers and needle nose pliers and take it from there.

Buy things as you need them. If you find yourself interested in radio electronics, that will take you down a totally different path to digital electronics or audio electronics. Find out where your interest lies and then work towards it, rather than buying a "one size suits all" $1000 electronics set that you will probably pack away and lose interest in. Buy electronics magazines and see what interests you.

[Kiriakos-GR]

Well if I mix the medical college with electronics ,
the only word that comes in to my mind,
are

ROBOCOP.   

Seriously now , for every hobby no matter what is it ,
you must have also some financial resources of your own,
so to properly support it.

An part time job at minimum.

It is more wise to save your spare cash, for the time that you will be in college.

[Mechatrommer]

Seriously now , for every hobby no matter what is it ,
you must have also some financial resources of your own,
so to properly support it.
An part time job at minimum.
It is more wise to save your spare cash, for the time that you will be in college.

i know this thread is old, but i agree with Kiri.

[sacherjj]

Well if I mix the medical college with electronics ,
the only word that comes in to my mind,
are

ROBOCOP.   

You would be surprised how many Electrical Engineering majors went into Pre-Med.

[Mechatrommer]

Well if I mix the medical college with electronics ,
the only word that comes in to my mind,
are
ROBOCOP.   

You would be surprised how many Electrical Engineering majors went into Pre-Med.

probably because of this... there are still alot to improve...

[MrPlacid]

You would be surprised how many Electrical Engineering majors went into Pre-Med.

That's the smart move. Medicine is so much easier than electronics, yet it pays better and get more respect.

[saturation]

Curious for you both, how do you know this?

You would be surprised how many Electrical Engineering majors went into Pre-Med.

That's the smart move. Medicine is so much easier than electronics, yet it pays better and get more respect.

[MrPlacid]

Curious for you both, how do you know this?

I took premed classes designed to be the equivalent of the first two years of med school. It was called BMD, biomedical degree, but since it was so new they called it a science degree on the diploma. Those classes were also taught by the same medical school professors as well.

Medicine is blown way out of proportion. It's costly that's for sure. Medicine is actually easy since once you enter the field, you might as well throw math and many other science courses out of your head since they don't build up on each other. You just need a good memory. If you don't possess a good memory, get yourself ready for rote learning.

In college, my friends and I respect engineering students a lot. We know we were no match for engineering students. I don't think anyone of my college friends would argue with what I just said. Engineering is much harder than medical. It's just the mcat exam you have to worry about.

[Mechatrommer]

...biomedical degree...

my bro in law is in biotech degree. yes there's new course coming, i cant think of anything except like what kiri said, a robocop or bionic man. he did answer my question of what they do but thats out of the story here.

In college, my friends and I respect engineering students a lot... Engineering is much harder than medical.

this goes backward here. we (was) think med is much harder than engineering since you need a good memory. later i realized everybody got their weakness and strength. eng=math, med=memory.