Re: My secret geek shame

Bill Bradford <mrbill@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>Any suggestions / donations of books/tools/etc greatly appreciated.

The Weller 25W iron is a good start. You might get one or two more tips
for it to allow for differently-shaped joints. If you ever think you
will have to solder "big" wires, like 14 gauge and up, you might pick up
a $20 Weller soldering gun (usually you can find the 100/140 W model) at
the hardware store. This will also occasionally come in handy in
"delicate" electronics for things like shielding and heat sink joints,
etc.

The next step up is to spend $100-$150 for a temperature-controlled
soldering iron. There are basically two flavors: the Weller WTCPT,
which works with the Curie point of a magnet in the tip - you change
tips to change temperature. The other is the Weller WES51 or similar;
this uses a thermistor and PWM on the heater to control the tip
temperature. I bought a WES51 before soldering my 1,000-joint radio kit
and I'm glad I did.

>I picked up Forrest Mims' "Getting Started in Electronics" over the
>weekend, and am going through it..

It used to be the case that you could buy all the parts he talked about
in there at Rat Shock - at least that was true when I bought mine,
copyright 1983, fourth printing 1986. These days you can probably build
about half the stuff in there with Rat Shock parts. Once you understand
"Getting Started", get a copy of "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz
and Hill, 2nd edition. All the basics are good; the information on
microprocessors, as always, was outdated as soon as the ink dried. There
is supposed to be a third edition RSN; you can bug Mr. Hill about it on
news:sci.electronics.design .

You might also get a copy of the "ARRL Handbook for the Radio Amateur".
Despite the title, there is a lot of good basic electronics information
and several DIY projects in there. Recent years include a CD with the
whole book in PDF. If you do decide you want to hurl fire into the
ether, you can buy a radio from $ASIAN_COUNTRY like everyone else, or
build your own out of a kit from Ten-Tec. In these latter days, the one
you build will not have as many features or be as tiny as the one you
buy, but you'll learn more.

I don't know if there are any good electronics mags anymore. Radio-
Electronics, Electronics Now, and Popular Electronics eventually merged
into one and I think may have died. Nuts and Volts might be useful, as
well as Elektor (an import).

You might go to www.tinaja.com and read the back issues/reprints of the
"Hardware Hacker" and "Blatant Opportunist" and similar columns. This
is Don Lancaster's web site, author of the TTL and CMOS cookbooks that
have been mentioned. These were columns he wrote for the electronics
magazines through the mid-90s or so.

Repair is a bit different than building new, but you might look at the
sci.electronics.repair FAQ - there are some general "how to build and
solder" items in there that are pretty good. sci.electronics.design ,
..basics , .components, and .repair can also be a good read.

Other tools: The best unsoldering device I have found so far is the one
that uses a spring-loaded plunger to suck the solder through a pointy
Teflon(?) nozzle. Edsyn "Soldapullt" or any of the several knockoffs.
The rubber-bulb ones work sort of OK and I haven't been able to make
solder wick work very well.

Get something like a "helping hands" - a weighted base with articulated
alligator clips - to hold stuff.
http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=search&item=HELPH-M&type=store
is an example. The fancy version of this is the "Panavise" series of
vises and clamps.

Get a set of wires with alligator clips on the ends. Great for "this is
only temporary, unless it works" hookups.

If you're going to design your own circuits, you might consider a
"breadboard" - a plastic board with metal clips that components and
wires can be inserted into. If you get a breadboard, also buy the
precut wire jumper kit to go with it - it will save lots of time.

A "lead cutting shear" can help when trimming a just-soldered board.
Basically it's a pair of wire cutters with a bent tip that allows you to
get very close to the circuit board. It can also be used to shave off
solder joints that are too tall above the board, plus as a general-purpose
wire cutter. I got an Xcelite 170M in a kit with an Xcelite 378M long-
nosed pliers at the hardware store.

The least reliable thing will be the connectors. As you have already
found, soldering up multi-pin connectors is usually a PITA. Whenever
possible, buy a standard cable with the connector already soldered, cut
the cable in the middle, and solder the wires to your project there.
Digi-Key sells cable assemblies that have DB-9 or DB-25 plugs on one
end, a ribbon cable, and a DIP plug on the other end, which can be handy
for breadboarding without wires falling out all the time.

You might buy or build a variable DC power supply. From 0 to a couple
of dozen volts at zero to a few amps is about right. In a class at
Ma Bell in ~1987, I built one, along with the obligatory LED blinker
and a Heathkit analog voltmeter, at a total cost to me of $7. All three
items are still in use.

As far as vendors, All Electronics (above) is a surplus place that will
have interesting components and subassemblies from time to time, usually
at rock-bottom prices. However, there's no guarantee that any given
part will still be available next week. The standard vendors are Digi-
Key and Mouser, who will send you voluminous paper catalogs. There are
bigger places like Allied and Newark, who you will call when you want
good prices on quantity 500,000. They also handle neater hardware, but
be prepared for stupid lead-times on some of it. At $ORK[-1], there
was a near-total ban on components that did not appear in Digi-Key or
Mouser, because if it didn't come from those two places, it was a
toss-up if anybody would have production quantities of stock on hand.
Rat Shock is a vendor of last resort; since you have succesfully picked
up the correct end of a hot soldering iron more than once, you know
infinitely more about the components they sell than anyone working there
will.

You can acquire some parts from dead electronics gear. Small resistors
and capacitors are usually not worth salvaging, but big capacitors,
power resistors, motors, solenoids, displays, switches, power cords, etc
can be.

Matt Roberds

.

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