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Beginner Electronic Maker

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I am 16 and am just now starting to make electronics. My current projects is an AM Transmitter and a Phone Jack power grabber. So far the am transmitter just needs a crystal oscillator and the jack needs a bridge rectfier and 2 resistors. Before I get into big electronics I want to get a good supply of objects. I was just wandering what all I should buy first.

How many capacitors what size?
Resistors?
etc...

hi c,
I would look at resistor and capacitor kits, you can buy from many suppliers, bags of resistors and capacitors that include most of the standard/regular values.
They usually pack 5 or 10 of each value in its own packet.

You can always buy the cheaper variable resistors for your projects.

Look here for example.
**broken link removed**

It depends upon what type of projects interest you for more specialised components.

Do you have have a particular project you want to start.?

also;
**broken link removed**


and:
**broken link removed**
 
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I have seen the very poorly designed projects as Instructables (they are designed by people who know almost nothing about electronics).
Here is the extremely simple AM transmitter (it does not use resistors nor capacitors):
 

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Hi cannon701,

To start out with, you should find a schematic of the device you wish to make. Schematics are one of the first things necessary to actually build something. In **broken link removed** link, you'll find a few AM circuits. Note that they create AM modulation, so you are going to need more than that if you want to build a radio. I think you might like to build AG's FM Transmitter, since it performs well and should be very educational. Simply search around, other people have inquired about the same FM Transmitter.

You can sift through thousands of schematics in case you want ideas for another project, here.
 
@Audio would I need anything else if i plan to connect that to a car system. OR does voltage not matter?
Also what do the swirls represent? A transformer(if so please explain what it does)?
 
What do you want to connect to what?
A car radio does not have an output to feed the AM transmitter.
I think the AM transmitter was designed years ago to plug into the earphones jack of a cassette player. Look up Transformer in Google or ask your teacher. The AM transmitter is so simple that it will have a range of only a couple of meters to a very sensitive AM radio. The AM transmitter needs to have an antenna 100m long plus an earth ground.
 
You can power it from a car at 9v, just look at the circuit breaker board in the car, it will have outputs at a wide range of voltages. Keep a civil tongue about you on this forum, these people offer their time to help newbies like us. See how AG is trying to help you. He has helps me all the time because I don't know too much about electronics either, yet he has continued to help no matter how frustrating it is. Good luck with this project.
 
I think the extremely simple circuit is an Instructable that was designed by somebody who knows nothing about electronics.
The 1MHz crystal oscillator work at only 1 frequency on the AM broadcast band. If there is a station nearby on that frequency then this transmitter will not work.
The frequency is so low that a very long antenna is needed plus an earth ground, both are not possible in a car.

The voltage in a car is not wide range and is not selected with the circuit breakers. The voltage is 12V to 14.4V and the circuit breakers trip when their current is exceeded.
I think the 1MHz crystal oscillator is designed for a 5V supply and 9V and 12V will blow it up.
 
Hmm.... could explain how the radio tapes work then? The ones with a cord coming out of it that you plug into a ipod or something and you can listen to must through a tape.
 
Hmm.... could explain how the radio tapes work then? The ones with a cord coming out of it that you plug into a ipod or something and you can listen to must through a tape.
What is "a radio tape"?
"you can listen to must through a tape" That is not an English sentence. Don't you speak English? Maybe the word "must" should be the word "music"? Where does the music come from?
 
What is "a radio tape"?
"you can listen to must through a tape" That is not an English sentence. Don't you speak English? Maybe the word "must" should be the word "music"? Where does the music come from?

For the record not everyone on the internet speaks English. The internet doesn't just exist in the US ya know (hence the name World Wide Web). That being said, he more than likely meant "music". ;)

He's speaking of the cassette tape adapters that were around back when in vehicle CD players were still too new for them to be in every vehicle like they seem to be today. They allowed you to interface a portable CD player into the cassette deck of a car stereo . They have a head in them just like the head that reads a cassette tape in a cassette player, which is just an electromagnetic transducer (i.e. it converts magnetic energy into electrical energy and vice versa).

The audio output signal from the audio source's line out is fed into this head as if the head were recording to a cassette. The head inside the cassette adapter converts the incoming electrical audio coming from the audio source's line out into a pulsing magnetic field that pulses in correspondence to the incoming audio. The head inside of the cassette player picks up these fluctuations just like it would from the magnetic tape inside of a cassette and converts them back into an electrical signal, which then gets fed to the amplifying circuitry inside the cassette player where it gets amplified and fed to the speakers.

The mechanical assembly inside the cassette had to put a load on the cassette player's mechanical assembly equivalent to that of an actual cassette tape to make the player "think" there was a real cassette in there to keep from getting inadvertently ejected (some players would do this).
 
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The last time I used a cassette tape player was before Cannon was born. I never used a "tape adapter".
35 years ago my car radio recorded and played cassette tapes. I recorded from its FM stereo radio on the day of the week that had no ads.
 
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