Electronics
I have always been fascinated by electronics, but I'm not one of those people to whom it comes naturally. Many years ago I got a job as an electronic engineer, and I got pretty used to the smell of burnt-out transistors. I didn't seem to have the same mental rigour that allowed my colleagues to track down faults to their root cause. Eventually I abandoned my career in practical electronics, opting for the more clinical world of software. But the fascination has remained with me.
So recently I went back to it in my spare time, and re-learned a lot of the stuff I had forgotten or never bothered to learn first time. I found a world that has changed significantly in the twelve years I've been away. Chief among these changes is the following dichotomy:
- It is now much easier and cheaper to build your own electronics than it used to be. You can get cheap microcontrollers which are much friendlier and more powerful than their 1996 counterparts. Also, information itself is easier to find, with the growth of the web, and the open-source movement.
- Sometimes it seems like all the most interesting components are only available in BGA packages, which are to the best of my knowledge impossible to home-solder to home-made PCBs. But though it's difficult to build home-brew electronics using 0.5mm pitch TQFP components, it is at least possible, with the right tools.
So far on my electronic renaissance, I have managed to avoid the all-too-familiar smell of burnt-out transistors...hopefully you'll avoid it too!
Here are a few of my projects:
