[sdiy] hardcore DIY

[Dave Krooshof]

Paul wrote:
>Designing circuits is DIY, building kits is DIY, buying modules
>readymade and making a polished cabinet for them is DIY.

On the "risk" of stirring up the "memories" thread 4/5/00 - 4/7/00*

My grandfather talked vividly on how he made radiotransmitters
before and during the 2nd world war. His function was Radio operator,
and he had to be able to build his gear from scratch if it
got demolished.
He made transformators by rolling copperwire through the hot
wax in a pan, while carefully rolling it onto a 'weak-iron' core.
a mistake (short circuit) ment rolling it of and start again.
He made elcos (caps, he called them "Leidse flessen" like Van Der
Graaf seems to have done) by rolling greasy paper and metal foil
and putting that in a jar with an acid.
He made vacuum tubes (he called them "lamps") by cutting pieces
of metal foil and put those in a glas bowl he blew, then filling it
with mercury ("Hg, kwik") then holding it upsidedown in the mercury
bath (yuk!) and pulling it up, thus creating a vacuum. Then he'd
close the lamp with a gas flame. "The often didn't work" he said,
"but they produced a beautiful light."
He also made speakers: The paper cone was the easy part. Then
the made a cilinder of paper the magnet just fit into. Around
that cilinder copperwire was rolled, with the same procedure
as with the trafo....

Good old memories.

> ^ v < Krooshof



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* from an old thread Harry (I'm so fond of that guy, realy)
pointed me to a while ago....
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Veroboard was unreachable for me as well. I made my first
PCBs with thick enamel paint and a tiny brush on the raw copper,
and got the right chemicals somewhere to etch the boards.
(After getting *very bad* results with nitric acid - which I
stupidly thought the only acid to bite copper (;->)  )

And then I remember I had the whole layout in mirror image
rather than right. Helped myself by bending all the opamp's
pins upward and soldering the ICs in bottom up. (Ouuuch - not
recommended !)

Those were the times in a little German town without a proper
electronics shop ...
- Juergen Haible.

Awww, you kids were spoiled.... back in MY day, we didn't even have
solder -- had to melt two components together over an open fire.
Tools?  WE couldn't afford tools;  had to bite pieces of metal with our
teeth.  And WIRE??? WE had to stretch our OWN wire from old bits of junk
copper.....
- Greg Montalbano

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This thread did not end here. Some people, obviously, had it worse...
check the archives for it....
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PS: Ever diyed an opamp by soldering the discrete parts, as shown in
datasheets, onto a breadboard? :-)