Chips for Chapter 4

In anticipation of Chapter 4, I've begun my search for the various chips used in Chapter 4. You can spend hours at Mouser.com or AllElectronics.com scanning through all their chips. One frustrating thing at AE was that in some instances, typing in the shortcut name such as 74HCXX wouldn't pull up anything... other times it did. I had better luck with Mouser but in some instances the picture was wrong - it would show a non-DIP switch for the thumbnail but the description/part# was what I wanted... OR... the picture was right but the description didn't match.

Rather than take a risk of ordering this stuff and not getting EXACTLY what I wanted, I chose to shop locally and pay a little more per chip. I was able to visually inspect every chip for the ID# and make sure it was of the DIP type. I also got all the chips inserted into two long plastic tubes that protect the chips legs/prongs from bending... not sure how Mouser.com and AE ship the chips, so please let us know if you order any and how they are shipped.

I got all my chips at ACK Supply here in Atlanta... definitely higher in price per chip but after looking at the shipping costs at Mouser and AE, it'll just about even out...

If you want to order from ACK, call 1-800-282-7954 and ask for Scott - just the 20 minutes he spent talking to me about the differences in chips, explaining the other letters not covered in the book (such as low voltage chips or military grade), and showing me some other chips I'll likely want to buy a few of later... totally worth the drive and extra cost. He was even able to help me find a replacement for the protoboard required in Exercise 15 that RadioShack no longer carries. I was able to fill my entire chip order with one visit and learn some more stuff to boot... nice guy.

Chapter 3 - Exercise 14 Completed

Well, it took forever and I burned out a couple of red LEDs in the process, but the thing is working. I ended up soldering some longer strands of wire to the shorter pieces and used shrink tubing to cover up the joints.

Somehow I managed to fit it all into that little box -what a pain! But a flip of the switch and it takes a few seconds to charge up and then the red LED starts its pulsing. Very cool.

I've had enough of this project, so here's a final video of the box in action... I'll probably get a red Sharpie and draw a heart around the LED and write something cheezy on it... "My heart beats for you!" - that sounds good.

Anyway, on to the Exercise 15... it's a long section and looks like a handful. No idea how many parts I'll break that up into but I know it'll be more than one.

Welcome to New Readers

My blog traffic just took a major jump... I usually see this when Makezine.com has a small blurb about my writeups, but nothing like that happened yesterday. Hmmm....

Anyway, I just wanted to welcome new readers to the blog - I'm still fully committed to completing all 36 experiments, but if you're keeping up with me in the book (or have read ahead) you know that the experiments are getting a bit more complex, the chapters and experiment writeups a bit longer... all this means is that completing all 36 experiments may take a bit longer... but we'll get there!

I'll have my Exercise 14 creation completed today and will try and jump into Exercise 15...

Again, thanks to all my readers for joining me here... and for your comments.

Chapter 3 - Exercise 14 Part 3

Oops... I was wrong. Exercise 14 will be four-part series... sorry. I'm THHIIIIISSS close to finishing it.

Okay, so I've done some more with the small circuit. Yesterday I mentioned that I was adding in a switch and two 3V coin battery holders. The hard part is just keeping track of what is soldered to what... so I've been drawing a LOT of schematics and sketches.

One thing I learned from an earlier troubleshooting job (and one that got me some jabs from some commenters about not testing my circuit with the multimeter - all worthy jabs, I might add) was to test your circuit often... don't build the entire thing and then flip the switch and hope it works. So, I took their advice and hooked up the unfinished circuit at various points... one of the videos below shows a whole bunch of patch cables that I needed to test the wiring... it worked, but it's a real rats nest of wiring. (Another thing I learned from this - you can never have too many patch cords - I'm going to buy another 4 or 8.)

Now, please be kind and realize that I'm new to putting a circuit together with a soldering iron AND I'm new to laying out circuits AND I'm not 100% sure of how to wire the LED and Switch up since they won't be connected to the actual perfboard... I'm learning as I go. I think I'm going to have to use some of my braided wire (that's more flexible) so I can make all the connections. We'll see.

Anyway, here's a lot of photos and a few videos of today's work. The second video is where I've almost got the circuit 100% completed. The three solid copper wires you see poking up from underneath the perfboard - one is the + voltage, another the - voltage, and the other the R5 wire that will connect to the Anode of the LED. Hope this is making sense. You can see in the 2nd video that I've reduced the number of patch wires used in the first video and have added the switch into the mix... it works! Woo Hoo!

I've drilled the holes (side and top) and had to trim the box's left side a little so I could close the top (the switch kept it from completely closing). Another photo shows me testing that voltage is flowing - a little over 6V.

Now, hopefully no mistakes as I finish up connecting the LED and Switch wiring and close up the little box. But first, a paint job for the little box...

Chapter 3 - Exercise 14 Part 2

It's looking like Exercise 14 may take three posts... I'm not quite done with the circuit yet.

As you can see from one of the photos, I had to draw it out to understand it - I'm going to add in a small switch and I needed to figure out where it fit in the circuit. Because I'm using two CR2032 batteries to power this thing (6V), I also needed to put them in series. I think I've got the drawing done correctly...

I started by soldering the two battery holders to the small perf board. I arranged them in such a way that I could solder a small strip of wire between the positive and negative terminals, leaving a positive and negative terminal un-soldered for later. I added in the two capacitors because they share a soldered joint and this would help hold them in place.

Next, I added in R4... it shares a single joint with the positive wire on C1. Then came the 2N6027 PUT. The only tricky part here was trimming down the wires so I didn't create any shorts... some of my joints are spikey little things and I just can't seem to trim them much closer without possibly damaging the soldering I've done. Luckily, I think most of my soldered joints are well clear of one another... my photos should show what I've done (sorry for that one blurry one)...

Next, I've got to drill a hole in the side of my project box where I'll mount the switch. I thought about putting it on top but there's not a lot of room for the lower portion with the terminal posts... plus I like the look of it on the side. Flip it up, the circuit will turn on... flip it down, the circuit turns off. The LED will be the only thing mounted in the top, and I've got to drill a hole for that, too... probably tonight or tomorrow. After drilling the holes, I want to paint the box white, maybe add a mushy Valentine's Day message somewhere on the contraption, and I'll add this to the stuff for my wife on V-Day. Silly... cheap... turns on, turns off... worth a few Husband Points.

Contest Winners - and a New Contest

Back on January 13th, I created a small contest asking readers to help me understand better the circuit seen in Figure 2-60 on page 59. I was having difficulty understanding how the circuit was working... mainly because my limited training in electronics was always about closing a circuit. I could NOT, for the life of me, see how the circuit was closed in Figure 2-60. With the pushbutton open, I saw no closed loop.

But the circuit in Figure 2-60 isn't drawn like a typical circuit. The positive and negative voltage terminals are not drawn together. That's what took me a bit to see... and once I did, I saw the loop. See, in most circuits I'd seen or drawn, the battery (or power) was always drawn with the same symbol... current came out one end and went back in the other... there's your loop.

But with 2-60, the closed loop is there... it's just not drawn that way. You can, for all practical purposes, consider the small black dot just to the right of the big red + sign and the other black dot to the left of the big - sign as touching... if you do that, the circuit is closed.

Okay, enough of that... to the winners. Well, I only had two submissions... so this is an easy one. Both Brian and Nick will each get a Maker's Notebook.

Brian and Nick: I need you to email me at jktechwriter *at* gmail dot com with your mailing addresses... in order to confirm you are who you say you are, I'll email you instructions for confirming you were the person who posted the item. I wouldn't want to send a book to another Brian or Nick!

And now another contest - for this one, I'll be picking two winners - each will receive a Maker's Notebook. This contest is about helping out Charles Platt, author of the Make: Electronics book, and MakerSHED. Here's all that you need to do:

1. Add a comment to THIS post - January 31, 2010 "Contest Winners - and a New Contest."
2. Your comment should be between 50 and 100 words.
3. Let Charles and/or MakerSHED know your thoughts on the book - tell them what you like, what you dislike, or what other books/projects you'd like to see from MakerSHED.

That's it - I'll pick two winners randomly on Feb 13, 2010 so I can award two Maker's Notebooks on Valentine's Day. I'll number all the comments, write down each number on a paper chit, and have my wife pull two numbers randomly from a hat. Two minutes of your time for a chance to win a $20 Maker's Notebook. USA residents only, please.

Chapter 3 - Exercise 14 Part 1

I'm breaking the post for Exercise 14 into two posts. For this first part, I've breadboarded the circuits found on page 118 (Figures 3-75 and 3-76). I initially tried to substitute the 220 microfarad capacitor for C1 because I didn't have a 100 microfarad capacitor... the LED just stayed lit... no blinking. So, yesterday while I was out running errands, I swung in and picked up a few things from Radio Shack. More on that later.

This is the first time we're given a schematic without a matching breadboard drawing - I tried to build the circuit without glancing back to page 85 for help... my first attempt worked, but even with the proper 100 microfarad capacitor, the LED stayed lit... so I knew something was wrong. After checking my circuit again, I found I'd made a few connections wrong with the 2N6027. A quick glance back to page 85 also helped me make sure I'd wired it up correctly. I highly encourage you to try and wire it up without looking at page 85... but if you get stuck, the photo to the left is a closeup of my circuit that works.

After testing that circuit, I moved on to Figure 3-76 and added in C2 and the 330 ohm resistor. I got it correct on the first try... again, try to do this yourself... but if you get stuck, my photo shows a closeup of the breadboard layout that I used successfully.

I'm including two videos here - the first shows the single C1 circuit... the second shows the circuit with C1 and C2. The red LED pulses nicely. After reading ahead in Exercise 14, I found the author is suggesting mounting the LED in some acrylic to make it all look pretty. I think I'm going to try something different... let me explain.

I switched the voltage from 9V to 6V because I found two small watch battery holders (solderable) at Radio Shack for $0.99 each... I also purchased a small project box and a perf board that can be broken in half - one half will fit nicely in the box after I trim the edges a bit. Doing this will also require that I rearrange the layout of the components found in Figure 3-79. I'm okay with that, and I think Mr. Platt would be, too. We're supposed to be experimenting and trying new things, right? I'm including a photo here of the parts - and I'll also provide a parts list and pricing below. No guarantee it'll work, but it should be fun to try.

Up next, I'm going to start the soldering... as you can see, my soldering will differ a bit from Figure 3-79 but I'll try and do my best to photo and explain my layout in the next post.

Coin battery holder CR2032 - Part 270-009 $0.99 each
220 microfarad - Part 272-1029 $1.29
100 microfarad - Part 272-1028 $1.29
PC Board - Part 276-150 $1.99
Project Box Small - Part 270-1801 $2.29

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Chapter 3 - Exercise 13

For this experiment, I used a green LED and a yellow LED. The green one got the 15W treatment followed by 30W. The yellow got 30W but I added in the small copper alligator clip.

As the chapter states, the 15W was a piece of cake - the green LED was still lit well after 2 minutes of holding the iron to it. I even moved the iron's tip very close to the plastic of the LED but it had no negative effect.

Then I switched over the pencil iron to 30W... and held the tip to the wire. After 40 seconds I was a little worried that maybe I'd selected the Super-LED... or that my pencil iron was defective. But near 1m 30sec, the green LED gave its last performance.

So, I threw away the green LED and replaced it with the yellow... plus I added the little copper clip as seen in one of the photos. I held the 30W iron to it for over 2 minutes, but it just kept on shining.

It's always fun to smoke electronic components - we were promised that in the book's sales sheet, right? The green LED sacrificed itself and I will never forget the lesson it taught me - too much heat can be a bad thing. Use the copper clips whenever possible.

RIP Green LED. You will not be forgotten.

Chapter 3 - Exercise 12

Finally... soldering! Something that can be dangerous - yeah! (Just kidding - I was wearing my eyeshields like a pro and all about safety.)

So, we get to solder some wires. I've actually done soldering in the past, but it's been a while, so this was a nice way to ease back into it. As you can see from my photos, I dutifully soldered two wires cross-wise... then two more parallel to one another. My joints were perfect if I might add...

I broke down and went and purchased a 15/30 switchable pencil iron... works very well. It's not super heavy but doesn't feel like I'm at risk of shock or burning myself from mishandling. It's also not that fancy, but at this poing I'm not wanting to drop loads of cash on a fancy soldering machine until I get a little more training... then I'll likely donate one or both of my used ones to a high school.

My final task for this exercise was to solder some solid core wire onto the frayed ends of my AC adapter... as you can see from one of the photos, screwing the braided ends into my breaboard really tore them up... so I snipped a red wire and black wire, stripped the ends, and soldered them to the frayed ends of the adapter. I don't have a heat gun (yet) so I went the cheapy route and used my gas grille lighter. I know... I know... not a good way to do it, but I kept the flame away from the wire, away from the tubing, and did quick little waves over the flame. I plugged in the adapter and checked all the voltages I was receiving to make sure I had a good solder joint on both wires. As you can see from my photo, the multimeter probe clips really came in handy here... allowing me to take the photo without juggling one or two probes and trying to hold them to the wires. A good purchase there...

I didn't have a spare power cord available to do the last exercise (shortening a cord)... and I'm hesitant to actually do it... if anyone does do it and takes a few photos, please email me and let me see if I can grab a few of my readers' photos as examples.

Tomorrow... ruining more LEDs. Glad I bought more than 3 or 4...

Dremel

I mentioned in the previous post that I own a Dremel... if you've been considering purchasing one, check this out... a factory reconditioned one for less than 1/2 the full price - this deal is only for today and, at the time I post this, will last for 16 hours, 35 minutes... and counting.

I've purchased MANY tools from Tooliday.com and can vouch for their service... fast delivery, too.

http://tooliday.com/

Chapter 3 - Shopping List

We're up to Chapter 3! If you've looked over pages 95 to 104, you're likely overwhelmed at the stuff you need to gather. Don't be - the author does a good job of telling you what he feels are "Essential" versus "Recommended" versus "Optional" - pay attention to that and buy what you can, but some of this stuff is obviously very specialized and I'll likely wait until I need it before I purchase. Most of the stuff on page 99 I don't yet have... some of it can be pricey depending on where you look, but I have such an assortment of tools (including a Dremel) that I'll hold off on these until I discover it's a must have item.

That said, I did already own quite a few things here, so I apologize that I cannot give you a true cost for Chapter 3. Instead, below I'll tell you what I bought (including part numbers), where I bought it, and what I paid... Chapter 3 was another doozy of a bill, but I can already see a lot of this stuff getting used in later chapters and for future projects.

So, I'll start out by saying I already own a 30watt soldering iron, soldering iron stand, and a helping hand. I've had these for a while and cannot remember what I paid for them, but I got the helping hand at ACK for, I think, around $10.00. No memory of cost of iron and stand. I have lots of solder and wire already (page 100).

Okay, here's the list - I had 3 different sources - Mouser (M), Radio Shack Store (RS) and the online RadioShack.com (RSO) - source is listed after the name:

Clip-on meter test leads - RS - $3.49 Part 270-334

Solder pump (bulb) - RS - $4.99 - Part 640-2086

Desoldering wick/braid - RS - $3.99 - Part 640-2090

Heat Shrink Tubing - RS - $3.99 - Part 278-1610

Copper Alligator clips (pack of 10) - RS - $2.99 - Part 270-373

Perforated Board (small) - RS - $1.99 - Part 276-150

Perforated Board (medium) - RS - $1.99 - Part 276-148 (276-147 in book)

Perforated Board (large) - RSO - $x.xx - Part 276-170 (discontinued item)

Project Box - RS - $3.79 - Part 270-1805

Components

Binding Posts (4 in pack) - RS - $3.99 - Part 274-661

Panel-mount jack - size N - RS - $3.29 - Part 274-1583

DC Power plug - size N - RS - $3.29 - Part 274-1573

Boardmount Socket - M - $2.04 - Part 517-929974-01-36-RK

50 Pin Socket - M - $7.87 - Part 801-93-050-10-001000

DPDT pushbutton ON-(ON) - M - $5.85 - Part 633-MB206101-RO

Magnetic Switches - not obtained yet

5mm Red LED (2 per bag) - 2.5 volt - RSO - $1.49 (x3) - Part 276-041

5mm Green LED (2/bag) - 2.5 volt - RSO - $1.49 (x3) - Part 276-022

Signal Diode 1N4001 (2/bag) - RS - $0.99 (x3) - Part 276-1101

100ohm Loudspeaker - M - $3.90 - Part 25SP008