Building Your Own Electronics Lab

What should an electronics hackerspace look like? Is it in your bedroom, garage, a classroom, or even a suitcase? And where do you start? What parts are essential, and which are just nice to have? And how do you organize it all? Dale Wheat, the author of Arduino Internals, will show you how to build your own electronics lab complete with tools, parts, and power sources. You'll learn how to create a portable lab, a small lab to save space, and even a lab for small groups and classrooms. You'll learn which parts and tools are indispensable no matter what type projects you're working on: which soldering irons are best, which tools, cables, and testing equipment you'll need. You'll also learn about different chips, boards, sensors, power sources, and which ones you'll want to keep on hand. Finally, you'll learn how to assemble everything for the type of lab best suited to your needs. If you need to carry everything to your local makerspace, you can build the Portable Lab. If you plan to tinker at home or in the garage, there is the Corner Lab. If you're going to run your own local makerspace or you need to set up a lab to teach others, there is the Small-Group Lab. No matter what your gadgeteering needs may be, Building Your Own Electronics Lab will show you exactly how to put it all together so you have what you need to get started.

Whether electronics is a hobby or an avocation, this resource covers everything you need to know to create a personal electronic workbench. The author includes essential yet difficult to find information such as whether to buy or build test equipment, how to solder, how to make circuit boards, how to troubleshoot, how to test components and systems, and how to build your own test equipment. Building on a budget Sources for equipment

This introduction to circuit design is unusual in several respects. First, it offers not just explanations, but a full course. Each of the twenty-five sessions begins with a discussion of a particular sort of circuit followed by the chance to try it out and see how it actually behaves. Accordingly, students understand the circuit's operation in a way that is deeper and much more satisfying than the manipulation of formulas. Second, it describes circuits that more traditional engineering introductions would postpone: on the third day, we build a radio receiver; on the fifth day, we build an operational amplifier from an array of transistors. The digital half of the course centers on applying microcontrollers, but gives exposure to Verilog, a powerful Hardware Description Language. Third, it proceeds at a rapid pace but requires no prior knowledge of electronics. Students gain intuitive understanding through immersion in good circuit design.

This book shows you how to assemble an efficient working home lab inexpensively and how to make it pay for itself through years of growth and use. Includes many projects for creating your own instruments, including a multichannel oscilloscope switch and a 100-minute timer/stopwatch.

Arduino Internals guides you to the heart of the Arduino board. Author Dale Wheat shares his intimate knowledge of the Arduino board—its secrets, its strengths and possible alternatives to its constituent parts are laid open to scrutiny in this book. You'll learn to build new, improved Arduino boards and peripherals, while conforming to the Arduino reference design. Arduino Internals begins by reviewing the current Arduino hardware and software landscape. In particular, it offers a clear analysis of how the ATmega8 board works and when and where to use its derivatives. The chapter on the "hardware heart" is vital for the rest of the book and should be studied in some detail. Furthermore, Arduino Internals offers important information about the CPU running the Arduino board, the memory contained within it and the peripherals mounted on it. To be able to write software that runs optimally on what is a fairly small embedded board, one must understand how the different parts interact. Later in the book, you'll learn how to replace certain parts with more powerful alternatives and how to design Arduino peripherals and shields. Since Arduino Internals addresses both sides of the Arduino hardware-software boundary, the author analyzes the compiler toolchain and again provides suggestions on how to replace it with something more suitable for your own purposes. You'll also learn about how libraries enable you to change the way Arduino and software interact, and how to write your own library implementing algorithms you've devised yourself. Arduino Internals also suggests alternative programming environments, since many Arduino hackers have a background language other than C or Java. Of course, it is possible to optimize the way in which hardware and software interact—an entire chapter is dedicated to this field. Arduino Internals doesn't just focus on the different parts of Arduino architecture, but also on the ways in which example projects can take advantage of the new and improved Arduino board. Wheat employs example projects to exemplify the hacks and algorithms taught throughout the book. Arduino projects straddling the hardware-software boundary often require collaboration between people of different talents and skills which cannot be taken for granted. For this reason, Arduino Internals contains a whole chapter dedicated to collaboration and open source cooperation to make those tools and skills explicit. One of the crowning achievements of an Arduino hacker is to design a shield or peripheral residing on the Arduino board, which is the focus of the following chapter. A later chapter takes specialization further by examining Arduino protocols and communications, a field immediately relevant to shields and the communication between peripherals and the board. Finally, Arduino Internals integrates different skills and design techniques by presenting several projects that challenge you to put your newly-acquired skills to the test! Please note: the print version of this title is black & white; the eBook is full color.

Read it cover to cover or use it as a go-to reference manual on electronics and hardware design—either way, this book is an indispensable compendium of all the practical stuff they don’t teach in engineering school. Put your entry-level electrical knowledge to use and build elegant hardware that works on the first try. A uniquely practical guide, this book teaches you the things most engineers learn only through experience—with an emphasis on explaining the reasoning behind each method in order to ensure your designs are driven by insight, not blind rule-following. It’s also packed with hundreds of highly useful tricks and techniques that speed up workflow and save hardware designers time and money. You’ll learn the entire process for developing a device—from conceiving an idea to the final schematic, including prototyping, selecting components, layout, fabrication, assembly, working with suppliers, cost-engineering, regulatory testing, and even troubleshooting when things go wrong.

"A hands-on primer for the new electronics enthusiast"--Cover.