by
Bryan
Bergeron,
Editor DE VELOPING
When I started out in electronics, my “junk box” of rescued parts
from TVs, radios, and the like was the
source of endless projects and test
instruments. Armed with a few key
texts — especially the ARRL
Handbook and Getting Started in
Electronics by Forrest Mims — just
about anything was possible. Sure,
my projects didn’t win any beauty
contests with labels made with a
permanent marker and reused
chassis with dozens of extra holes,
but most worked — eventually. It’s
the “eventually” part that’s key.
I can recall dozens of blown
circuit breakers, exploding
electrolytic capacitors, and shorted
vacuum tubes. However, I also recall
the satisfaction of seeing copper,
carbon, and steel come to life.
With time and savings, I later
could buy just about anything that I
wanted — from commercial test gear
to top-of-the-line ham radio
equipment. It made for a great
looking test bench and ham shack,
but I lost out on the learning end of
things. It didn’t matter that I could
read the schematic of the
hermetically sealed phase locked
loop synthesizer in my
communications transceiver — I
could never really know it. I could
replace it if defective, but not really
fix it the way I could one of my old
creations.
From a practical perspective,
having a nice portable o-scope with
high bandwidth and Flash memory
storage makes debugging a pleasure.
Then, there’s the safety issue — none
of my creations were UL listed or
approved.
So, there’s nothing wrong with
new gear that’s compact, safe, and
easy to use. It’s just that — from an
experimenter’s perspective — shiny
commercial equipment can become
a black box. I make a habit of
disassembling everything I buy; in
part to understand what’s in the
black box, but it’s still an imperfect
exercise.
If your goal is to maximize the
learning experience — whether for
yourself or someone you hope to
pass on your knowledge of
electronics to — then I’d consider the
old school “junk box” approach to
learning. Fill your box with parts from
tear-downs of whatever you can get
your hands on. It’s amazing what you
can harvest from an old PC, for
example. Even a discarded compact
florescent bulb can yield a half dozen
reusable components.
I’m fortunate to live a few miles
from MIT, where there’s a regular flea
market of used test gear and lab
equipment that’s sold by the pound.
Find out where your local ham or
flea market is held and drop by at
least once a year. Even if you don’t
use parts harvested from the gear to
build your own, the exercise of a
tear-down is educational in itself.
You can’t wildly rip things apart,
however. Take a methodical
approach, trace the connections to
see what components are associated
with each other and — if you can —
create a schematic diagram of the
circuit in the device.
Lately, I’ve been partial to
vacuum tube projects. With a few
tubes and high voltage power
supplies on hand, it doesn’t take
much effort to build oscillators,
tuners, sound effects devices, and so
on. So, go ahead. Give the “old
school” junk box method of setting
up your workbench and your
communications, robotics, or other
projects a try. Your projects may not
look as attractive as the commercial
systems, but you’ll really understand
the inner workings of what you build.
You’ll then be well on your way
to being a real experimenter. NV
PERSPECTIVES
For Learning, Old School
Can be the Best School
December 2015 5
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