easily destracted?

[grim]

designed a simplish circuit for the car. sort of works. consists of the components on stripboard, with the board sitting in the door pocket.

suddenly discover the pic controller and realise that 1 chip and a few componets will replace my circuit.

knowing nothoing about the pic, i head off into the www, downloading and printing......

bookshelf now bulging under all that printed material, I start playing with pickit2

modify the pickit2 by fitting a zero insertion socket

realise that spending hours upstairs playing with pics will not score any brownie points on the domestic front, i purchase a laptop. i am now in the same room, although as a lot of you will probably relate too, "I am not listening to anything" being said to me.....

tensions also increase with the components and bits that are now being stored in the living room

i design a portable work bench. aluminium briefcase, power supply storage area and work area in one!

purchase parts to make it.

get bored/distracted. summer arrives

a few months later, whilst fitting another gizmo to the car, i think of a great project, design it, and get the bits.

purchase everything to make boards in quantity. chemicals and equipment.

realise i have to drill several hundered holes

start designing a cnc drill

purchase scrap printers for stepper motors

discover most printers don't have much in the way of steppers, but at leas i have lots of screws

realise i don't know enough about pics to design a cnc machine.

refer to large library

find article on pics and temperature measurement

knowing i am about to change my gaskets on the turbocharger, start thinking up turbo temp sensor project......


original circuit still in the door....................


is this familair to anyone else?

 

[mramos1]

Yep. I have about 5 project in the works at a time, but I do finish them
None related in most cases.

 

[HiTech]

hmmm, let's see now:

fill dog's water bowl, put new roll of toilet paper on spindle, check mailbox at the curb, drain old oil in lawnmower, locate substitute triac for power supply and install, repair broken meter on SWR bridge, eat dinner, replace burned out lamp in closet, sort and arrange semiconductor collection into parts drawers, test entire flyback transformer inventory, install lights in garage attic. Yep, alot there to distract me.

 

[madmikejt12]

i often get sidetracked... usualy by making a ckt on breadboard, it works.... transfer it to stripboard, doesnt work!!! i think oh ill do it tomorrow and end up starting something else

might just get loads of breadboards

 

[mramos1]

I have a bunch of breadboards in a corner of my room. I can send you a couple. Opps. UK, never mind, cost more to ship it than if you buy them.

Do what I do, get a laser printer, eagle cad, photo paper.. I drop that circuit on a board. I think I just like to play with the all that acid and stuff.

But a thought. Maybe go breadboard to PCB? Of course you can mess up the layout as easy and the stripboard.

 

[HiTech]

Bread Board?

**broken link removed**

Oops! See how easy it is to get distracted?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Bread Board?

**broken link removed**

Oops! See how easy it is to get distracted?

Not really, that's where the name comes from - you knock nails in the board and solder wires and components between them!.

 

[mramos1]

Not really, that's where the name comes from - you knock nails in the board and solder wires and components between them!.

Sounds like a lot of work. Imagine if that was all we had today but with chips (not transistors). I can see the hand drawing of it on paper now.. People today do not know just how good we have it.

Well, I am hungry now..

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Sounds like a lot of work. Imagine if that was all we had today but with chips (not transistors). I can see the hand drawing of it on paper now.. People today do not know just how good we have it.

All I can say it was a LOT neater than the modern breadboard pictures we get posted on here!

 

[Dr.EM]

Have to say I pay little attention to my breadboard layout neatness unless I expect there will be a lot of troubleshooting required.

I expect that manhattan style construction for RF is similar looking to that old fashioned "breadboard" type. Want to try a theremin with that actually...

 

[mramos1]

Nigel is correct, I will not take pictures to prove it, but I have boards all over and they have old circuits still on them. And what a mess. I leave a whole in the wires to get the pics in and out and that will change soon with my inchworm icd2 I can program in on the board.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I expect that manhattan style construction for RF is similar looking to that old fashioned "breadboard" type. Want to try a theremin with that actually...

Yes, 'real' breadboard construction doesn't have the problems that modern 'push in' breadboards do, so are fine for RF - after all, bear in mind they long pre-date PCB's!.

 

[grim]

see what i mean about getting distracted? lol

at least i have broken myself of the habit of thinking up a project, popping to maplins, buying all the bits, getting board/failing to make it work/thinking of better idea, and putting all the bits in a draw........

especially as i usually bought the project boxes too

 

[HiTech]

you guys can talk about breadboards all you want but all I'm interested in is BREAD!

**broken link removed**

 

[grim]

and now i have got an icd2 to play with, so I am destracted away from my project.

but my laptop needs a bigger hdd, so now i need to upgrade that.......

 

[zevon8]

Ah bread board.... over 30 years ago I did one in school, a superhet radio. Piece of wood with the radio schematic glued down like wallpaper, then nails at each junction, parts hovering on the copper rails.

Worked pretty darn well I might add. Nice "teaching aid" also, and was easy to test and align, being all spread out like that.

 

[hjames]

Ah bread board.... over 30 years ago I did one in school, a superhet radio. Piece of wood with the radio schematic glued down like wallpaper, then nails at each junction, parts hovering on the copper rails.

Worked pretty darn well I might add. Nice "teaching aid" also, and was easy to test and align, being all spread out like that.

Now, THAT would be neat gag. "Intro to electronics" - hammer not included.

 

[mramos1]

What is nice to know is I am not the only old'er guy here.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

What is nice to know is I am not the only old'er guy here.

Certainly not - and a lot of the younger guys here would learn a lot by building on a proper breadboard rather than these toys they use now, not to mention how many people seem to think electronics consists of running a circuit in a simulator!.

 

[grim]

i had an excellent introduction into electronics, when i found the valve radio my dad had built.

i also had an excellent intoduction into the high voltages that valves opperate at