Transistor circuits, book, devices, etc

[Peter Percival]

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?
--
Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain
to me what you really mean.
I think I had better not, Duchess. Nowadays to be intelligible is
to be found out. -- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

 

[Helmut Wabnig]

On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival
<peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

You don't try your own way, you follow what has been prepared
for youngsters to learn. This will save you years.


https://tinyurl.com/gmlf7u8
CONRAD electronics experimenters kits.
Educational electronics kits,


For example this one:
https://tinyurl.com/zqh6kfh

You may have to search for English versions.
Maybe the group knows some.


w.

 

[Benderthe.evilrobot]

"Peter Percival" <peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news7dfev$hlp$1@news.albasani.net...

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?
--
Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain
to me what you really mean.
I think I had better not, Duchess. Nowadays to be intelligible is
to be found out. -- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

You may not have to buy any/many books - there's lots of stuff online, but
make sure your antivirus is up to date - I found a lot of unsafe sites last
time I searched.

Look for Ham radio call signs - searching for those will find many Ham radio
sites with example circuits and tutorials.

Nearly all component manufacturers publish application notes and/or
suggested circuits.

Searching for datasheets for specific components (include PDF in the search
term) will sometimes stumble upon books and circuit collections, you can get
suggestions from the results for more search terms to try. Often datasheets
are in a folder full of them, sometimes you can backspace the URL and use a
download manager to download the lot - its an easy way to build up a data
library.

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival
<peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

Get The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill, preferable the
current (3rd) edition. It's not an experimenter book, but it will give
you a solid background in fundamantals and then details.

The plastic breadboards are iccky. It's more fun to solder stuff up.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/HV_Proto_2.JPG

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/LDP2.JPG

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/Z338_PCB.JPG

Electronics is not trivial, but can be learned, and can be fun, if you
take it seriously.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 02/08/2017 03:56 PM, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival
peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

Get The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill, preferable the
current (3rd) edition. It's not an experimenter book, but it will give
you a solid background in fundamantals and then details.

The plastic breadboards are iccky. It's more fun to solder stuff up.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/HV_Proto_2.JPG

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/LDP2.JPG

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/Z338_PCB.JPG

Electronics is not trivial, but can be learned, and can be fun, if you
take it seriously.

It's super encouraging to build something that works right away, so the
OP might check out the Evil Genius series. I second your emotion about
white solderless breadboards.

Anyway, learning to solder is fun.

To the OP:

The first thing is to get some fine-but-not-too-fine Kester 44 solder
(21 AWG is good). A pound of it costs $40 from Digikey but will last
you for years.
<http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/kester-solder/24-6337-0027/KE1102-ND/101926>.
K44 has a nice RA (rosin activated) flux that does a good job of
cleaning the oxide off even ancient junkbox parts, which is a big deal.
You may be able to find it cheaper on eBay.

The next is a temperature-controlled soldering station. Hakko, Weller,
and Oki Metcal are good name, but a bit pricey for hobby use. Some of
the cheap-and-cheerful Chinese ones are OK too--look for iron-plated
tips and some sort of temperature readout. I have one like that that I
got from Jameco 30 years ago and still use occasionally. Works fine.
If you get a noname iron, be sure to buy extra tips because they may not
be findable later. Avoid the long skinny ones--the most useful are
conical tips with small flats on the sides.

Run the iron around 750F (400C) to start with, and then play with it
once you've got the basics down. This is a bit on the hot side for some
things (especially fine-pitch parts) and the iron gums up a bit faster,
but it avoids cooking things by leaving the iron on them too long.
(Yes, a hotter iron makes you _less_ likely to cook things, because the
solder melts before too much heat gets conducted into the package.)

The key piece of advice is to use the iron to heat the component lead,
and then melt the solder _on the lead_, not on the iron. This is
because the hot iron will boil the flux away before it has a chance to
clean the leads, leading to problem #2.

One nice thing about lead-tin solder is that it's easy to tell a good
joint: it's nice and shiny. Any joint that isn't is either a cold joint
or a dirty one.

The usual problems people have with learning to solder are:

1. Dirty tips. Use a wet cellulose sponge or some brass wool every time
you pick up the iron. (The soldering station will come with one or the
other. Both work OK.) Ignoring this discipline causes dirty joints,
which are horribly unreliable and may not actually be a connection at all.

2. Cold solder joints. Caused by not heating long enough, or by poor
technique (see above).

Try it out on some DIP packaged op amps or 555s or something else that's
super cheap so you don't have to care about killing them.

Other advice: Perf board (the stuff with the array of holes on 0.100"
centres) is hard to use. The easy way is _dead_bug_, for which you can
find advice online or in the archives of this newsgroup.

Have fun!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs
(Who also started out as a hobbyist long ago.)

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

[Benderthe.evilrobot]

"Phil Hobbs" <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote in message
news:g-ydnQJt59xADAbFnZ2dnUU7-THNnZ2d@supernews.com...

On 02/08/2017 03:56 PM, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival
peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

Get The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill, preferable the
current (3rd) edition. It's not an experimenter book, but it will give
you a solid background in fundamantals and then details.

The plastic breadboards are iccky. It's more fun to solder stuff up.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/HV_Proto_2.JPG

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/LDP2.JPG

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/53724080/Protos/Z338_PCB.JPG

Electronics is not trivial, but can be learned, and can be fun, if you
take it seriously.


It's super encouraging to build something that works right away, so the OP
might check out the Evil Genius series. I second your emotion about white
solderless breadboards.

Anyway, learning to solder is fun.

EPE published a soldering guide that can be found online.

 

[Tim Wescott]

On Wed, 08 Feb 2017 12:56:05 -0800, John Larkin wrote:

> The plastic breadboards are iccky. It's more fun to solder stuff up.

The plastic breadboards are dead reliable, as long as you treat them
right and don't ask more of them than they can provide.

For experimenting with low power stuff at audio frequencies they're just
fine. For high power stuff, anything above 100kHz or so, or anything
that needs to be really precise you'll be spending more effort fighting
the breadboard than learning -- so, solder stuff up.

Come to think of it, I think everything John does comes under at least
one of those three categories of "don't do this on a breadboard", so I
guess he's provisionally allowed to consider them icky.

I've had a number of circuits that I've designed for customers that have
been prototyped on the plastic breadboards and then transferred to a
Radio Shack solder-on breadboard. As mentioned, if you know what works
and what doesn't, they work splendidly.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

I'm looking for work -- see my website!

 

[Tim Wescott]

On Tue, 07 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

"Getting Started in Electronics" by Forrest M. Mims. Experienced
engineers might gag -- but when I was first learning, I found his books
clear and informative. He will NOT teach you how to be an engineer, but
his books WILL have circuits that you can build and that will work (on
breadboards, no less).

If you run through that book and want more, _then_ get "The Art of
Electronics".

I'm in the US, but I understand that Farnell is the place to go in the
UK. Take that for what it's worth.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

I'm looking for work -- see my website!

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2017-02-07, Peter Percival <peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

Farnell has a very good reputation but they required me to supply a
company name to open a cash account here (NZ). I'm not sure how they
play in the UK, but I know they are big there.

Sparkfun and Adafruit sell electronic parts to anyone, their offerings
are targeted to beginners and intermediate level, so far as I know they
sell genuine parts at a reasonable price.


There may be some place local to you that will sell parts retail.
This city of 350,000 has four, two in strip malls and two in light
industrial districts the one with the best range of parts keeps
business hours, the other three retail hours.

--
This email has not been checked by half-arsed antivirus software

 

[George Herold]

On Thursday, February 9, 2017 at 7:56:21 AM UTC-5, Peter Percival wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival
peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

Get The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill, preferable the
current (3rd) edition. It's not an experimenter book, but it will give
you a solid background in fundamantals and then details.

May I ask what you think of /Learning the art of electronics, a hands-on
lab course/ by Thomas C. Hayes?

I think that is the lab book that goes along with Art of Electronics (AoE).
Very good for what you want.

In my opinion AoE can be a bit advanced for someone starting out.
I have a the third edition of this,
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541
which is more basic.

George H.

--
Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain
to me what you really mean.
I think I had better not, Duchess. Nowadays to be intelligible is
to be found out. -- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

 

[Peter Percival]

John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival
peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

Get The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill, preferable the
current (3rd) edition. It's not an experimenter book, but it will give
you a solid background in fundamantals and then details.

May I ask what you think of /Learning the art of electronics, a hands-on
lab course/ by Thomas C. Hayes?

--
Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain
to me what you really mean.
I think I had better not, Duchess. Nowadays to be intelligible is
to be found out. -- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 9 Feb 2017 12:56:16 +0000, Peter Percival
<peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival
peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

Get The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill, preferable the
current (3rd) edition. It's not an experimenter book, but it will give
you a solid background in fundamantals and then details.

May I ask what you think of /Learning the art of electronics, a hands-on
lab course/ by Thomas C. Hayes?

I haven't seen that. I like AoE for some great parts, but I'm not
"learning" electronics any more.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 08 Feb 2017 17:58:30 -0600, Tim Wescott
<seemywebsite@myfooter.really> wrote:

On Wed, 08 Feb 2017 12:56:05 -0800, John Larkin wrote:

The plastic breadboards are iccky. It's more fun to solder stuff up.

The plastic breadboards are dead reliable, as long as you treat them
right and don't ask more of them than they can provide.

For experimenting with low power stuff at audio frequencies they're just
fine. For high power stuff, anything above 100kHz or so, or anything
that needs to be really precise you'll be spending more effort fighting
the breadboard than learning -- so, solder stuff up.

Come to think of it, I think everything John does comes under at least
one of those three categories of "don't do this on a breadboard", so I
guess he's provisionally allowed to consider them icky.

Another nice thing about soldering a circuit on a slab of FR4 is that
you can label it and keep it for future reference.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[George Herold]

On Thursday, February 9, 2017 at 11:59:30 PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 9 Feb 2017 12:56:16 +0000, Peter Percival
peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival
peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

Get The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill, preferable the
current (3rd) edition. It's not an experimenter book, but it will give
you a solid background in fundamantals and then details.

May I ask what you think of /Learning the art of electronics, a hands-on
lab course/ by Thomas C. Hayes?

I haven't seen that. I like AoE for some great parts, but I'm not
"learning" electronics any more.

I assume it's this he is talking about,
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Student-Manual/dp/0521377099

Hayes and Horowitz...
(I'm sensing a pattern in the first letter of last names)

George H.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[Tim Wescott]

On Thu, 09 Feb 2017 20:57:50 -0800, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 08 Feb 2017 17:58:30 -0600, Tim Wescott
seemywebsite@myfooter.really> wrote:

On Wed, 08 Feb 2017 12:56:05 -0800, John Larkin wrote:

The plastic breadboards are iccky. It's more fun to solder stuff up.

The plastic breadboards are dead reliable, as long as you treat them
right and don't ask more of them than they can provide.

For experimenting with low power stuff at audio frequencies they're just
fine. For high power stuff, anything above 100kHz or so, or anything
that needs to be really precise you'll be spending more effort fighting
the breadboard than learning -- so, solder stuff up.

Come to think of it, I think everything John does comes under at least
one of those three categories of "don't do this on a breadboard", so I
guess he's provisionally allowed to consider them icky.

Another nice thing about soldering a circuit on a slab of FR4 is that
you can label it and keep it for future reference.

True. That doesn't work for me unless it goes into a customer-specific
box (and gawd, but my office is getting overrun with customer-specific
boxes these days!) -- but yes, and a better-organized person that I might
do better.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

I'm looking for work -- see my website!

 

[Tim Wescott]

On Fri, 10 Feb 2017 14:14:44 -0600, Tim Wescott wrote:

On Thu, 09 Feb 2017 20:57:50 -0800, John Larkin wrote:

On Wed, 08 Feb 2017 17:58:30 -0600, Tim Wescott
seemywebsite@myfooter.really> wrote:

On Wed, 08 Feb 2017 12:56:05 -0800, John Larkin wrote:

The plastic breadboards are iccky. It's more fun to solder stuff up.

The plastic breadboards are dead reliable, as long as you treat them
right and don't ask more of them than they can provide.

For experimenting with low power stuff at audio frequencies they're
just fine. For high power stuff, anything above 100kHz or so, or
anything that needs to be really precise you'll be spending more effort
fighting the breadboard than learning -- so, solder stuff up.

Come to think of it, I think everything John does comes under at least
one of those three categories of "don't do this on a breadboard", so I
guess he's provisionally allowed to consider them icky.

Another nice thing about soldering a circuit on a slab of FR4 is that
you can label it and keep it for future reference.

True. That doesn't work for me unless it goes into a customer-specific
box (and gawd, but my office is getting overrun with customer-specific
boxes these days!) -- but yes, and a better-organized person that I
might do better.

Actually, I usually end up prototyping circuits with short-run boards --
and it's those that end up in the customer-specific box.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

I'm looking for work -- see my website!

 

[Peter Percival]

George Herold wrote:

On Thursday, February 9, 2017 at 11:59:30 PM UTC-5, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 9 Feb 2017 12:56:16 +0000, Peter Percival
peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 7 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival
peterxpercival@hotmail.com> wrote:

I though I'd like to learn a bit about electronics and to that end I'd
like to buy a book of transistor circuits, a breadboard, and various
components to experiment. Can anyone recommend a book that uses
transistors that I can buy in the UK? Also, who is a good supplier of
components generally?

Get The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill, preferable the
current (3rd) edition. It's not an experimenter book, but it will give
you a solid background in fundamantals and then details.

May I ask what you think of /Learning the art of electronics, a hands-on
lab course/ by Thomas C. Hayes?

I haven't seen that. I like AoE for some great parts, but I'm not
"learning" electronics any more.

I assume it's this he is talking about,
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Student-Manual/dp/0521377099

That's the one. Thank you for posting that particular link since it
offers the "Look inside" feature and I did.

Hayes and Horowitz...
(I'm sensing a pattern in the first letter of last names)

I look forward to seeing Hayes, Herold and Horowitz /The art of .../ on
Amazon some day.

George H.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

--
Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain
to me what you really mean.
I think I had better not, Duchess. Nowadays to be intelligible is
to be found out. -- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

 

[asdf]

On Tue, 07 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival wrote:

... Can anyone recommend a book that uses transistors that
I can buy in the UK? ...

Don't let an obscure component label stop you from adapting the
schematic; I learned a lot by using functional equivalents of
what I found in the books.
A transistor is a transistor, you will find dozens that can be
put in place of the one you can't source locally, just with
different names.
As an example, by trial and error I found that the venerable
BC378 made a really good RF PA for battery operated QRP CB
transmitters back in the day, and afaict there's not a single
book or schematic on the Net showing it used as such.

 

[Benderthe.evilrobot]

"asdf" <asdf@nospam.com> wrote in message
news7qi0r$17l0$1@gioia.aioe.org...

On Tue, 07 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival wrote:

... Can anyone recommend a book that uses transistors that
I can buy in the UK? ...

Don't let an obscure component label stop you from adapting the
schematic; I learned a lot by using functional equivalents of
what I found in the books.
A transistor is a transistor, you will find dozens that can be
put in place of the one you can't source locally, just with
different names.
As an example, by trial and error I found that the venerable
BC378 made a really good RF PA for battery operated QRP CB
transmitters back in the day, and afaict there's not a single
book or schematic on the Net showing it used as such.

An RF PA with a low power audio transistor? - sounds like
fun....................

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Sun, 12 Feb 2017 21:03:42 -0000, "Benderthe.evilrobot"
<Benderthe.evilrobot@virginmedia.com> wrote:

"asdf" <asdf@nospam.com> wrote in message
news7qi0r$17l0$1@gioia.aioe.org...
On Tue, 07 Feb 2017 21:50:20 +0000, Peter Percival wrote:

... Can anyone recommend a book that uses transistors that
I can buy in the UK? ...

Don't let an obscure component label stop you from adapting the
schematic; I learned a lot by using functional equivalents of
what I found in the books.
A transistor is a transistor, you will find dozens that can be
put in place of the one you can't source locally, just with
different names.
As an example, by trial and error I found that the venerable
BC378 made a really good RF PA for battery operated QRP CB
transmitters back in the day, and afaict there's not a single
book or schematic on the Net showing it used as such.

An RF PA with a low power audio transistor? - sounds like
fun....................

I did it the other way round... used Motorola RF power transistors in
my first non-class-A audio power amplifier (circa 1964).

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson | mens |
| Analog Innovations | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| STV, Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Skype: skypeanalog | |
| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

Thinking outside the box... producing elegant solutions.