Bowden's Hobby Circuits

http://www.bowdenshobbycircuits.info/

by _Microft • 4 years ago

107 12 4 years ago

bowdenshobbycircuits.info

souptonuts• 4 years ago

love that wonton soup recipe

eternityforest• 4 years ago

Wow!! I love this so much!

I don't even like building this kind of pure analog stuff, but this retro site is just such a wonderful thing. Just like the days when tech was still exciting, despite being so much more primitive.

Kaibeezy3• 4 years ago

You’ll love this one too. If you look at in on your phone, make sure to see the wide view with all the buttons.

https://www.newmodellersshop.co.uk/

I’ve had the tab open for years, can’t bear to close it. I should get a big printout and hang it up.

_Microft• 4 years ago

You can easily build some of these circuits with very low investment. The ICs (555; 4017; ...) for circuits like the "LED sequencers" are very cheap (less than $1/1€ each). With ICs in DIP packages [0], the circuits can be built on breadboards [1] since the pins can be inserted directly into the holes of the breadboards. If you are new to this then you can find an overview of electronic symbols in Wikipedia [2] for example - this is helpful because it gives you names and terms to search for.

Having even a cheap multimeter to measure voltages, resistances or the polarity of diodes is better than nothing btw (but better don't use these to measure line/mains power - even if they claim to be able to do that).

Have fun!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_in-line_package

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breadboard

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_symbol

kragen3• 4 years ago

According to https://yaqwsx.github.io/jlcparts/ the NE555DR costs 11.98¢ but of course not in a DIP. That's about as much as four Padauk microcontrollers these days—if you can find those in stock somewhere. JLCPCB doesn't include the CD4017 in their "basic parts" list; Digi-Key has them for 52¢ but doesn't have a DIP version in stock, just an SOIC.

The other night I took apart my cheap multimeter which claims "1000 V" and found no creepage clearance between the traces on the board. So far I haven't died measuring mains power with it but I don't think I'll do that anymore...

buescher2• 4 years ago

555 timer is a sub-10-cent part in quantity. Digi-key even has the NE555P in stock for 40 cents onesies and 11 cents in 2500 unit orders. And there's a parts shortage on, if you haven't looked lately.

Yeah, don't use cheap tools when your life is on the line.

Kaibeezy3• 4 years ago

Would look smashing in Papyrus.

Kaibeezy3• 4 years ago

OK, I only said that because it displays in Comic Sans on my Windows desktop (Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Edge), but now I see it looks fine in Times on iOS (Safari, Opera).

Bowden's Hobby Circuits

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