Category: Electronics

Explorations in things electronic

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Where to find electronic components, bits and pieces

As I get more into building electronic things, I’ve come across schematics for various other things that seem like they’d be interesting to build. It’s a progression from assembling kits on boards where everything is laid out already, to building circuits.  Maybe I’ll even get to the point where I’m laying out my own circuits and etching boards. Probably not for a while though.

All this leads to the question: Where do I go to find boards, components, connectors, wire, cables and other bits locally?

In this day and age of “disposable electronics”, scavenging parts from the trash pile is an option. However, you’re getting kind of a grab bag of bits that may or may not be immediately useful.

There are online sources like Digikey and Mouser, but then you have to wait for the part to arrive. Normally not a problem, but there might be times when i want/need something soon.

I have the good fortune to have a nearby Radio Shack that still has a decent electronics hobby/DIY section. They’ve been able to supply me with most of the components I’ve needed so far. The selection isn’t huge, but the fact they even have one is impressive. Just about everything I used for the breadboard version of the Morse code oscillator came from there (except for the button)

I’ve had a few people suggest Wholesale Industrial Electronics on the peninsula on East Bay St. Will have to go check them out and see. I wonder if there are any other places for me to go shopping at.

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Scanning manuals

Now that I’ve finally got my scanner to work under Fedora, I thought I’d use the opportunity to scan the manuals I got with the Heathkit IG-102 signal generator I picked up a while ago. I was also lucky enough to find an assembly manual on eBay for the HD-10 keyer I picked up at Hamcation so I scanned that as well and converted them both to PDF files.

There’s another manual for the IG-102 that’s quite a bit larger (168 pages) that will take me a while to scan and convert, but I’ll get that done eventually.

Heathkit IG-102 manual cover
Heathkit HD-10 manual cover


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7 segment LED adventures

One of the items I picked up in the tailgating/bone yard area of Hamcation was this bag of 7 segment LEDs. Out of the 10 in the bag, 8 of them are marked CSS-3115RJ, one is marked MTN1130-ASR and the other is marked MTN1130-CSR. 

7 segment LED modules
7 segment LED modules
Side view of some 7 segment LED modules

A bit of Google-ing turned up data sheets for the MTN1130 modules, but very little on the CSS-3115RJ modules. Of the three types, it appears that only the MTN113-ASR is the odd ball.

Adafruit has a great tutorial when it comes to learning about LEDs and how to use them in circuits. I’ve got power supplies that will give me 3.3, 5 and 12V. Will work out the resistor values to use for these modules at those voltages, then have a bit of fun testing them out and making the segments light up (I hope). Then I’ll have to find something that I can use to control them and make them display something useful.

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Hamcation acquisitions

Day 2 at Orlando Hamcation was spent looking for antenna things and CW keys. Lots more people at Hamcation today than there were yesterday, which was expected. After wandering around to the different tables in the swaps area and wandering around the bone yard, I had a better idea of what I wanted to get.

Picked up some stranded copper wire, coax and ladder line for antenna projects, and then it was out to the swaps building.

First acquisition was this J-38 straight key. It’s a little dusty, the flat knob is a bit chipped and the shorting switch is missing, but it had the best action of the other J-38 keys the guy was selling. It needs some cleaning, but I’m looking forward to learning more about this style of key and wiring up to play with.

J-38 straight key

Wandering around the bone yard, I came across a few other things that I thought would be nice to have. One of the benefits of cruising through the bone yard towards the end of the day is that people are looking to get rid of their stuff (so they don’t have to haul it back), so sometimes pretty good deals can be had. The flip side is that by then, most of the good stuff is probably gone.

A breadboard, some 7 segment LED modules and some kind of metering panel that I’ll use for parts.

Parts

The next acquisition was this Heathkit HD-10 keyer. The guy selling it had it in his shack gathering dust for years and wasn’t getting too many bites at the price he was initially looking for, so I managed to pick it up for a great price. Plugged it in and it works pretty well. 

Heathkit HD-10

Toward the end of my bone yard wanderings I spotted these variable plate capacitors on the table and scored them for $2. Some of them are a bit oxidized and need a bit of TLC, but I think I’ll be able to put them to work doing something.

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blog.AB4UG.net

In preparation for archiving this blog to start fresh, I started up a new blog over at http://blog.ab4ug.net/ where I think I’ll post most of my electronics and amateur radio adventures.

It’s a vanilla MovableType 5.2 set up right now. Nothing fancy, but functional. The archives here at Imablog will stay and I’ll probably start over with a new MT5.2 install and database. Still mulling something Drupal-y though. Haven’t quite decided yet.

I’ll probably cross-post material at the AB4UG blog here also so that nobody feels left out.