Is anyone here into experimenter electronics?

I used to be really interested in building stuff from discrete components such as digital clocks and power supplies. Seven segment LED displays.

A lot of the stuff now is all based on microprocessors where most of the work is in programming a Raspberry Pi and I’m not interested in that at all. Want to get back to discrete pieces and parts.

Anyone into this or is it a dead end?

Yes- I'm planning on fixing a Marantz 2215B this year, resurrecting my tube headphone amplifier and with luck producing a custom headphone amp using the EL86.

A Nixie Tube Clock would be a nice project too.

I also need to proper crossover fo my speakers.

I really enjoyed work with discrete components, I learned this before we started on microcontrollers and programming it was all passive and barebones. It's funny that you mentioned the seven segments LEDs I remember the first thing I ever built was a decimal to binary converison display using switches and several seven segments LEDs. It was so simple but I think I had so much fun doing it maybe because it was the first thing I ever built on my own.

I think it needs to be something that everybody learns although it might not be practical anymore it is a good starting point. I'm going to have to go break out my old breadboard and components and build something.

I've built a bunch of solid-state audio equipment (DACs and amplifiers) and several vacuum tube guitar amplifiers.

For a long time, you could built something equivalent to a very high-end piece of equipment for a fraction the cost. These days with so much direct-from-China stuff available, you can get extremely high performance stuff for very little money (e.g., I recently bought a Topping D70 DAC, which is a $500 direct-from-China unit that tests as good as or better than every multi-thousand-dollar boutique DAC on the market).

Not dead.

I've made a few Nixie tube clocks myself. Single IN-18 tube models and some 568 tubes. I was able to get a deal on the tubes from Ukraine. There was a guy in the UK who could print round circuit boards for a good price. He could print boards up to 12 layers, but I only had a two layer budget.

It takes a steady hand and a good flux pen to get modern SMD components where I want them to be. Sourcing supercapacitors and chipsets was part of the fun. Calibrating transformer output and compensating for meter loading isn't that bad. Later on I was able to get a proper antenna to sync with the US Atomic Clock frequency.

Explaining to others that the tubes are driven by 174.5 volts and will kill them if they try to take it apart is a good enough deterrent for most.

The worst part of it all was the logistics while my job would send me out of state.

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:
Explaining to others that the tubes are driven by 174.5 volts and will kill them if they try to take it apart is a good enough deterrent for most.

Same issue with guitar amps - typical operating voltages are anywhere from 300 VDC to 500 VDC with sizeable power supply capacitors.

I built a 2-manual concert organ from kits back in the 1960s and around 1985 began a modification to it that I've never finished. I really should finish it.

flashguy

One project I have in mind is a count down timer using Nixie tubes. I’d like to make the time variable (to within limits) but I don’t want to resort to an Arduino module and programming.

I’d like to even build the power supplies using transformers, bridge rectifiers, caps and an IC regulator.

Can it even find a good working circuit on the net.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
One project I have in mind is a count down timer using Nixie tubes. I’d like to make the time variable (to within limits) but I don’t want to resort to an Arduino module and programming.

I’d like to even build the power supplies using transformers, bridge rectifiers, caps and an IC regulator.

Can it even find a good working circuit on the net.

Part of the reason you can't find a good circuit is that the job you are trying to do is about 100 times easier with a microcontroller.

In the non-programmable realm, you're talking about a big ugly complicated circuit (by home hobbyist through-hole perfboard standards, anyway) even IF you can find a timer IC that pretty much has everything you want already built in. If you try to do it at the 555 timer and discrete logic chip level it will be a nightmare.

With a microcontroller (assuming very basic programming knowledge) it's almost trivial, the code is tiny and the circuit is much simpler.

(A LOT of the complexity in the non-programmable circuit comes with the digital display and duration setting. A circuit with a potentiometer to set a non-specific duration that buzzes when the time is up is relatively easy.)

if you got into Ham Radio, you'd find hundreds if not thousands of little circuits you could build, from the very simple to the extremely complex. Help and documentation is very easy to find, either on the web or printed, and most of the parts are easy to find too.

In all seriousness, there's 100 years worth of material to look through.