Any electronics gurus out there?

[Ian]

Are there any other keen electonics nutter around?

 

[muckshifter]

Do you mean ... when I take my sweatshirt off my hair stands on end with "static electricity" ... or when I put my fingers in a "live" socket" just to jump-start my "ticker" in the mornings ... or is it anther subject I know nuffin about?

:crazy:

 

[Ian]

I think its the latter category you fall in

 

[muckshifter]

Well you did ask for...

keen electonics nutter

 

[Ian]

OK, you win

 

[floppybootstomp]

Hmmm...

Well, I have a City & Guilds Pt. III certificate in Electronics, in Colour TV Reception & Digital Techniques. I was told it's the equivalent of 'half a degree'.

Unfortunately that was 16 years ago and in real life I had very little call to use the knowledge I'd acquired.

Seems to me unless you're at College/Uni or actually involved in the design of Circuits, most folks won't be versed in matters Electronic.

However, some of it must have rubbed off, I can still usually find my way round a circuit diagram and can repair/fault find on some things.

 

[james]

Ask!8)

 

[james]

Come on ask anything!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Ian]

Will I win the lottery?

Oh... you mean electronics related Um... I cant think of any questions, but do you know much about "PICs" (i.e the 16F27)?

 

[james]

Not unless your playing My numbers!

Ian you refering to microchips and embedded controlers?
When i have a problem at that level,i check for an obvious component failure and replace it,if it still dont work i replace the entire board!
sorry mate not much help,i know!:brow:

 

[floppybootstomp]

Ah-hah! Same philosophy

In truth, it's only in college that a fault finding solution get's looked at in detail.

When I started work fixing stuff (I don't do it anymore) the instructions were: 'Replace all the obvious components, all semiconductors and IC's, if that don't work, replace the board.' It's cheaper to do that than spend hours proving and rectifying a complex fault. Fact is, time costs more than electronic components.

However, if you have the time, it can be a very interesting process, dicovering what's exactly wrong. Won't earn you much money though

 

[Ian]

Good point there actually

 

[kristel]

I got my hair caught in the CPU fan and got a shock off my MB while trying to add a fan to my graphics card........ I turned the power on after fitting it but before I was fully out of the case and it hurt... alot! No damage done though

Do I count as an electronics guru yet? :crazy:

 

[floppybootstomp]

I'd say so.

Your certificate is in the post

 

[petesmc]

Hey Ian,

I should be learning how to program PICs in about 4 or 5 months. I'm sure we can talk then, when i make my very own Compunurse / Digidoc!

-Pete

 

[Ian]

A custom build DigiDoc would be great! I've been playing around with PICs a little more, and I'm really starting to see how useful they are! I'm using the basic 16F627s in Assembler, and driving an LCD to display things from the PC / Digital inputs at the mo

 

[petesmc]

Very cool....well I've for AS i'm doing a temperature probe basically which will require PICS and then the addition of fan speed monitoring and turning fans on and off will be added for A2. Going to be difficult, but if i can do this, it'll save me buying a digidoc.

-Pete

 

[eein]

If youz want something more than just a pic/avr, I can supply anyone who wants it with full circuit diagrams for the Motorola Coldfire 68000 processor.

http://www.eein.co.uk/images/stuff/processor_top.jpg

There are other forums that specialise in this processor and will tell you how to load linux onto it and connect a lcd screen and stuff.

Iain