Remembering Electronics

It has been YEARS since I have taken the time to play with various small electronics parts...thinking on it, the last time that I made something was in university. Sure, I've taken apart computers and other electronic devices, but I haven't "made" anything really useful.

I've been wanting to make a AC-DC adjustable voltage power source. Starting with a space laptop charger, I thought that this would be a fun, yet easy project. Additionally, I found some extra ideas after a quick search on Instructables.com. However, I needed some parts. A voltage regulator. I found some at the local electronics shop here in Puyo (though, admittedly, it was not exactly what I was looking for). So, testing my design on a breadboard, then I moved it to a small perf board for soldering. After some trial and error in the soldering process, I finally got the board together, but it didn't work as well as expected. To this day, I'm still not really sure why. Perhaps my poor soldering techniques burned out one of the parts...perhaps. In any case, I had to push the project off to this side because, well, life happens.

Several weeks later, one of our portable fans stopped working...or rather, the on/off button stopped working. So, I decided to take it apart to try to fix/replace the on/off button. After taking the fan apart and finding the buttons, thankfully, this looked like something that I could actually fix. I could take off the rotation button (which we never used) and use it in the power button (which I did confirm, that the fan motor worked fine, but the button itself had simply quite working. But herein lies the new problem...desoldering. It took some practice, but after about 30 minutes I (re)developed some skill in desoldering with a suction tube. Now to try it on the fan board. I failed miserably in removing the power button in one piece, so I knew that I had to be much more careful when removing the rotation button, since that it the one that I wanted to keep in good, working condition. After spending several minutes and getting some assistance from my wife, we managed to successfully remove the rotation button. I quickly installed it in place of the power button and tested its functionality. It worked! I put everything back together and the fan is working wonderfully. Though it is nothing that will win awards, it did give me a lot of confidence that with practice and patience I CAN still have fun with electronics.

Enjoy!

The Return

Having a background in engineering, I have always enjoyed "tinkering" with things...well, not ALWAYS. Only after having been forced to complete project from my professors in university, did I start to appreciate that fact that I could make anything. I tinkered with making holograms for a while, but eventually I got married, started having kids, and focused my time and attention on fixing up our house and keeping things running smoothly.

Skip forward more than 10 years, and my brother-in-law sends me a link to download several Make Magizine books. For the previous year, a growing desire for creating/making electronics had started to arise inside me again. Perhaps, it was due to my children finally getting old enough to understand and enjoy working on harder, time-consuming, and attention-consuming projects. In any case, after downloading the books and devouring them, I decided that I really wanted to regrow the skill of being able to make cool electronic circuits. After reading through Make: Zero to Maker by David Lang, I realized that the "maker" bug had never really left me. Also, that many of his struggles did not really apply to me and moreover, most of his suggested "maker" traits were ones that I had always had...but for the past 10 years I had simply applied them toward other project, primarily in woodworking. 

Sadly, through lack of practice, I have lost much of my electrical engineering-specific skills. However, so much has changed. Microcontrollers, like the Arduino and now much more easily available than they were when I was in university. Raspberry Pi, laser cutters, CNC machines, 3D printing, and more! All these were no longer only available at the high-end corporations. 

While the books that I read were inspiring, I must also face reality: I no longer live in the US were such tech parts are so readily available. I live on the edge of the jungles of Ecuador. However, I searched and asked and eventually found a decent electronics shop. The owner is an electronics teacher at one of the nearby high schools. I am also starting to keep my eyes open for scraped electronics boards; there are several audio and TV shops that simply trash the spare parts...however, many of these shops know what they are doing and scavenge off the quality parts before it goes to the street...nevertheless, I'm keeping my eyes open from now on. 

After all this, probably my most toughest choice is deciding what to make. I think that I would like to start simple so that I children can participate with me and eventually aid in future design decisions. Perhaps, I should order a few kits...though it may take several weeks for them to arrive from the States, still, it may be nice to have something to start. 

...now to clear off my table and make it ready for tinkering!
Enjoy!