Just getting started - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: sgkini
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2014, 11:23:47 pm
content: After reading posts after posts and confusing myself a lot in the process . This is what I have done.1) Purchased UT61E from Franky and theis on its way to Germany.2) Purchased Siglent 1072CML after going through hgg's thread and speaking to him over PM3) Converted my very old ATX to bench power supply with fixed voltage banana socket. (+3.3V , +5V , +12V, -5V , -12V )I still need to build myself a CC/CV Linear voltage lab power supply or buy an old one on ebay.Also need to buy anothermaybe a Digitek DT-4000ZC / TekPower TP4000ZC to replace my voltcraft DMM and all because of Dave. I opened it and saw what a piece of junk I haveVery soon I can start making the magic smoke.SatishUpdate : I guess I posted in the wrong forum. I thought I was on General chat .

author: Maxlor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 15, 2014, 11:46:25 pm
content: The next step would then be, experiment as much as you can! You have a bunch of measurement equipment, so start measuring things. Maybe buy a couple of sensors from reichelt or pollin (they seem to be the cheapest sources in DE) and get those working. Mouser, Farnell and Digikey are the fallbacks. Or take apart your digital kitchen scale and see what the oscilloscope tells you about it.And then, start building stuff yourself. Maybe a robot that you can control from your phone? Or a digital thermometer? Or your own universal remote control? Or you complete home automation system? It'll all give you new insightIf you want to get into the digital side of things, a logic analyzer will be useful, although for simpler things your Siglent scope will just about work, since it has long memory. You'll have to decode things yourself though.

author: electronics man
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 09:13:25 pm
content: How much work space do you have and do you have lots of storage to keep lots of components

author: babysitter
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 09:52:00 pm
content: Was möchtest Du mit alldem denn hauptsächlich machen ?Keep the old Voltcraft thing, you will get into situations where you need just one more meter, and use the others to figure out how bad it really is and compensate for it. Use it for the least interesting value and cross-compare (calibrate) to the better ones.But get rid of the ATX power supply. It is a safe path to magic smoke, as it happily will pump many amperes thru failing circuits, and the output voltages are usually noisy. Some of these problems you can reduce by putting a nice homemade reglator behind its output. Which I recommend as one of your first projects

author: sgkini
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2014, 11:04:01 pm
content: @Maxtor : Have ordered some stuff from pollin, riechelt . The plan is to get a good book like Art of electronics try out the circuit on LTspice and play with the same on Breadboard and hopefully learn something in the process.@electronics man. I don't have much space as of now enough for 2 desk and some cupboards.That what I plann to do this weekend get some more cupboards to store stuff@babysitter I still don't speak Deutsch as of now but might get there if I ever understand the grammar but I can find my way through Riechelt , Conrad and Pollin without issues. One thing I have learnt over the years, within the few days of throwing something you actually need itI have already had the ATX cause the magic smoke yesterday while I was trying to make a buck converter from a very old MAX787 IC given to me by my friend. But nothing as scary as a exploding electrolytic cap connected in reverse bias. I think the first thing this weekend is also some safety glasses