Best self-assembly electronics kits for beginners?

I would say look out for a collection of old electronics mags... something like the Maplin mag used to publish loads of projects for which they supplied kits, but crucially also published the PCB layouts etc, so even with the demise of Maplin they should sill be buildable.

Failing that get a pile of components, and some breadboards, and small PSU, and some books - just have a mess about getting circuits working on the breadboard.

Was there not a recent attempt to bring them back...?

Yup, still there:

Brian Gaff submitted this idea :

I thought that was one of Sinclair's (of Cambridge) kits?

S Viemeister formulated on Sunday :

I did wonder how long before someone mentioned them, they were absolutely brilliant kits, though quite expensive. Extremely well written manuals and well designed kits.

charles was thinking very hard :

Its a reincarnation.

In a small way:

Then I actually bought a Heathkit stereo amplifier and a tuner. Used those for a long time too.

Are you for real?

Someone getting into electronics, PCB kits?

I really do get sick of people that know damn all trying to give advice on this NG.

PCB manufacture is a subject in itself, for amateur use it is only employed after the CCT has been built and tested, even then it is pointless, as the "breadboarding" on Veroboard or similar will be perfectly functional and can be as neat as a PCB.

Supplied kits are able to use a PCB, simply because the dimensions of the components are known, they have been bought in bulk.

There are hundreds or even thousands of these circuits built, so a PCB is a cost effective approach. Buying parts from other suppliers will invariably lead to holes and spaces that dont accommodate the wires or components. On a final note, if you have a female in the house, trays of ferric are about as popular as a beer fuelled rugby reunion.

AB

I agree. If you send the PCB files to China you can have much better PCB than you could make yourself back within a few weeks for not very much money.

I got mine free! My Dad was a consultant for them, and he and I built pre-release versions of masses of them.

I believe the support level was quite exceptional, this probably accounts for the expense and probably the resultant wane in popularity.

It must be a bit soul destroying to man the helpline and the first question of the day from an oscilloscope or Comms receiver kit buyer is "what way in do you solder the resistors" :-)

AB

plenty kits here, for not much money

The tolerance band always goes to the front or right. Neater that way and easier to read the values.

Owain

I haven't looked at this site for a few years now but I'm pleased to see that it is still alive and kicking:

Bookshelf & International/United Kingdom will take you to all those I mentioned above.

I started off with books from Babani press 50 circuits using transistors -zener diodes- 741 - 555ic timers etc in fact the burglar alarm on the workshop is still going and made in the 70s from the books

On the same battery no doubt?

The current through anything made from Babani books must be quite low :-)

I too relied on those, but some time later when I went into industrial electronics, I found that manufacturers application notes were far better and well subsidised too. They had all manner of circuits developed around their components with a liberal sprinkling of test data and maths also.

I often thought of writing a few articles for the electronics comics based on my databooks.

If you use NS databooks to make a circuit, I would reccomend a soak in a strong saline solution first though :-)

AB

I prefer the letter (to the BBC) "I think there should be a book written about Ceefax and how it works and I'm going to write it. Please tell me how itb works."

I've still got my copy of "Mullard - Transistors for the Experimenter" (rather battered) and Mullard -Reference Manual of Transistor Circuits" as well as some "Marston - 110 _____ circuits"

A dammned brilliant company, when Britain did lead the world in technology and engineering.

It didn't last long though :-(

I had the Mullard 5/10 book, never did build the 5/10, but I did knock out a few smaller class "A" lashups using the values from the book.

I think the EF86 was for magnetic pickups anyway. My meager funds only stretched to a crystal cartridge, so I could almost drive the output directly.

AB

snipped-for-privacy@gowanhill.com presented the following explanation :

That is how I always built PCB's up, so much tidier.