I Found This at a Yard Sale. I'm getting into Electronics now.
It's funny how sometimes, you can get into something just by stumbling into an opportunity. My current employment is like that, and it turned out to be the best thing I have ever done.
I have always been interested in electronics, and I never really had the means to get supplies to start. So, I never did. Yeah, I had one of those experiment kits as a kid with the springy contacts and such, but I never did any real electronics.
In college, I took a class on Electricity and Magnetism and was fascinated by it. they briefly went over circuits and Kirchoff's law an other things, but my interest seemed to lay dormant.
Funny thing is, I seem to have a slight aptitude for it. I used to enjoy taking things apart, trying to figure them out, and I love computers. But stangely, I never got into it. Life just kinda happened.
THEN, I went to a yard sale. For fifty bucks, I got a big ol' suitcase chock full of super cool stuff. A lot of it is retro stuff, things from the 80s and 90s as far as I can tell. I don't know a whole bunch about it, but I knew enough to know I wanted this.
Sometimes, you just stumble into an opportunity:
Awesome. This thing works. I have yet to test the ammeter and voltmeter, but I was surprised that this ancient multimeter with a corroded battery actually seemed to accurately give me a resistance.
I was HYPED. I set to work on getting everything organized. I sorted out all the resistors, caps, diodes, etc and put them into separate labeled bags Here's an example:
Nice. This kit also had a logic probe:
Soldering Tools, and... whatever the gun thingie is, haven't looked that up yet (I'm guessing its for twisting wires?):
AND an electronic dice project:
I'm gonna learn everything I can and put this bad boy together. I looked up the company and they're still around, with an ecommerce site. I'll have to buy kits and such from them in the future.
It also had this really cool template so you can draw out circuit diagrams:
The old suitcase this thing was in had seen better days, and was beyond repair. SO, after getting everything organized I put everything in this laptop case I had laying around:
You can also see it came with various screwdrivers, pliers, and other stuff that will definitely come in handy.
This is just a temporary home for all this. The long term plan is to get myself a nice little shophouse or shed and get everything set up in it. I have also been collecting other tools as such as a dremel, knife sharpener, and some other goodies.
In the meantime, I'm learning about every bit and piece of this. I enjoy the retro electronics, and it would seem that another guy's passion is my springboard into a passion of my own.
Hope you enjoyed this!
I have always been interested in electronics, and I never really had the means to get supplies to start. So, I never did. Yeah, I had one of those experiment kits as a kid with the springy contacts and such, but I never did any real electronics.
In college, I took a class on Electricity and Magnetism and was fascinated by it. they briefly went over circuits and Kirchoff's law an other things, but my interest seemed to lay dormant.
Funny thing is, I seem to have a slight aptitude for it. I used to enjoy taking things apart, trying to figure them out, and I love computers. But stangely, I never got into it. Life just kinda happened.
THEN, I went to a yard sale. For fifty bucks, I got a big ol' suitcase chock full of super cool stuff. A lot of it is retro stuff, things from the 80s and 90s as far as I can tell. I don't know a whole bunch about it, but I knew enough to know I wanted this.
Sometimes, you just stumble into an opportunity:
Sorry for the bad picture, it happened to be the only one I took before I started giving this thing the TLC it needed to find life again. Whoever owned this kit apparently worked for SW Bell back in the day. I don't know if he passed, but the owners took my offer immediately. I told them it was pretty cool stuff and that it would be going to a good home. When I went through it I was floored. The first thing that caught my attention was this:
This is a Fluke 8024A Multimeter. This was literally the coolest thing I had seen all year. I turned it on and it didn't work and I got a bit discouraged. Hell, maybe it needs a new battery. I was right, the 9V battery was "best used by Jan. 1992". I laughed.
The damn thing was corroded onto the 9V connector, and it took some doing to get it off. I added a fresh battery and it didn't work.
Discouraged again. Then I remembered something. If I'm gonna do electronics, I gotta learn to fix stuff.
I noticed that there was a spare 9V connector in the box, so I clipped off the bad one, replaced the new one, and BOOM it worked. I was elated.
My next question was, did it work? I read up on how to use this thing, turned it on to test resistance, and tested a few resistors. Wow. I was surprised to learn that it worked well. That was also a milestone; I learned quickly how to read the color coding online and got to work.
Here's a 10Kohm resistor that was in the kit:
And here's what the multimeter showed me:
I was HYPED. I set to work on getting everything organized. I sorted out all the resistors, caps, diodes, etc and put them into separate labeled bags Here's an example:
Nice. This kit also had a logic probe:
Soldering Tools, and... whatever the gun thingie is, haven't looked that up yet (I'm guessing its for twisting wires?):
AND an electronic dice project:
I'm gonna learn everything I can and put this bad boy together. I looked up the company and they're still around, with an ecommerce site. I'll have to buy kits and such from them in the future.
It also had this really cool template so you can draw out circuit diagrams:
The old suitcase this thing was in had seen better days, and was beyond repair. SO, after getting everything organized I put everything in this laptop case I had laying around:
You can also see it came with various screwdrivers, pliers, and other stuff that will definitely come in handy.
This is just a temporary home for all this. The long term plan is to get myself a nice little shophouse or shed and get everything set up in it. I have also been collecting other tools as such as a dremel, knife sharpener, and some other goodies.
In the meantime, I'm learning about every bit and piece of this. I enjoy the retro electronics, and it would seem that another guy's passion is my springboard into a passion of my own.
Hope you enjoyed this!
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