Is the age of Electronics as a hobby falling down?!

[electroyas]

I like electronics than anything else and I don't know why , may be i like the shapes of the electronic components may be their smell. But every time i make a circuit for hobby I feel happy like never before..

 

[fezder]

same here....hmm, the smell of COOKED components? ;D just kidding....

 

[Val Gretchev]

Ion Deposition Printing Process

No one’s asked the question “What in the world is Ion Deposition and why do you need it for printing?”.

Let me explain. In order to understand how Ion Deposition works, you have to know a bit about how laser printers work. Briefly, a metal drum is coated with silicone so that it makes a diode between the drum and an electric charge placed evenly on the surface. The diode blocks the charge from flowing to the metal drum which can be at ground potential. When a laser is made to shine on the surface of the drum, the diode breaks down and the charge at that laser spot is bled off to ground. The toner, which is kept at the same charge potential as the unaffected regions of the drum, transfers to the areas that were discharged forming an image of the text or picture. As the drum turns, the toner is then transferred with another charge to the paper that is going through the printer. The paper continues on to a fuser which melts the toner into the paper fibers making the image. The drum is then cleaned of the excess toner and recharged in preparation for another image.

In ion deposition printers the drum is also made of an aluminum extrusion but has a much thicker wall. The drum surface is not coated with silicone but is anodized forming a layer of oxide that is very resistant to abrasion. It is treated with wax to seal any pores in the crystalline structure of the oxide layer.

The “head” which generates the ions is a laminated structure similar to a multi-layer printed circuit board. Starting off with an insulator, the metal layer is made of stainless steel and etched into parallel control tracks (16 or more) along the length of the printed circuit board which can be 15” long. Next, a mica layer of precise thickness is glued down onto the control tracks. Another layer of stainless steel is etched and deposited on top of the mica layer in the shape of small tuning forks (call them fingers) and brought out to the sides of the printed circuit board where contacts with the electronics can me made. Then another insulating layer is applied and the final stainless steel layer is glued on that has small holes at the intersection of the control tracks with the fingers (call it the grid layer). When a high voltage and high frequency AC (around 2000 V) is applied to a control line (one at a time) a corona discharge is created along the length of the control line and fingers and just below the small holes of the grid layer. The grid layer is held at a potential that prevents the ions from escaping through the holes. The electronics then biases the fingers to the same potential as the grid layer and allows the ions to project through the holes depositing them on the drum that is rotating closely to the head. The ions stick to the drum. The scanning of the control lines and the fingers is performed by the electronics to form a charge image on the drum as it rotates below the head.

The toner roll is also an aluminum cylinder that has a permanent magnet inside. A hopper holds the toner which is in a powder form above the roll. A gate shaves off the precise thickness of the toner that is held to the drum by magnetic attraction and forms a bristle-like brush. The toner particles flip many times as the aluminum drum rotates over the fixed magnet inside and encounters north and south poles. The “brush” is located almost touching the drum. When charged areas on the drum pass close to the toner brush, particles of toner are adhered to the charge. The drum then has an image of the text or picture in toner as it revolves further toward the paper.

Since the drum is very hard and impervious to abrasion, it can be used effectively to transfer the toner to the paper by cold pressure fusing. A plastic roll below the imaging drum is made to bear on it at high pressure. The paper is fed into the “nip” between the two rollers. The plastic drum (a little secret) is skewed just slightly to the center line of the imaging roller causing it to bend, like two pieces of rope twisted together and, create a uniform pressure along the contact zone. The toner is transferred and fused at the same time by the generated heat of the pressure applied and the sliding that goes on between the two rollers due to the skew. Very little toner remains on the drum. The drum is cleaned by a knife scraping the remains into a little removable bucket for cleaning. Then the drum is erased of any remaining charge by a corona discharge wire and is ready for the next image.

You might ask what are the advantages and disadvantages of the two competing technologies. Ion deposition imaging quality is slightly lower than laser due to the many sources of ion “jets” making the image. They make dots of slightly different size and deteriorate unevenly. The laser uses a single source of light for every part of the drum placing precisely the same size dot across the entire image. As the laser degrades, the image fades as a whole and is not noticeable. However, the image quality of ion deposition is still acceptable for uses where impact printers were once the only technology available. The speed of imaging far exceeds that of the laser and the simplicity of the mechanism and the robustness of the printing engine makes it a good choice in these applications. The printing head uses the same manufacturing processes used in printed circuit manufacturing and is well understood. It is made such that the user can easily replace it when the print quality degrades sufficiently usually after a hundred thousand sheets of paper have gone through the printer. The drum lasts over a million sheets. When you calculate the cost per page including all of the consumables and compare them against the laser, you find that the cost of ion deposition is one tenth the cost of the laser. This is a significant cost saving for a large volume printing company.

The engine, however, is not the complete story in making a high speed printer. You also need to feed a large quantity of cut sheet paper into it and stack the paper into a neat pile as it comes out.

What has this to do with electronics? I say don’t limit yourself to one discipline… electronics and mechanics are closely linked in industry. You must be able to speak the language of both to make it in the industrial world.

 

[fezder]

wov val....you really saw some effort writing that! i have to read it couple times before i fully understand it (if even then...)
you said that electronics and mechanics are close together? we have indeed at school this ''automation'' which combines well both sides, at least i think so.

 

[Val Gretchev]

It’s time to get back on topic: electronics as a hobby.

From the time I was born in 1942 until about 1955, the only “electronics” in the house was a telephone and a tube radio. In 1955 we added a tube television (a Sylvania TV with fluorescent light surrounding the picture tube). It broke down often and I remember having to replace the picture tube and the many vacuum tubes located in the chassis. The local drug store carried all the vacuum tube types and had a self service tube tester where you could check them yourself.

I began my interest in electronics as a hobby around 1955 when I acquired a tube amplifier and a speaker in a primitive cabinet. I went to Electro Sonic (a local electronics store) and bought a simple record player turntable with an automatic changer. I connected all of these components together learning about the requirements for coaxial cable and other necessities. Very quickly afterwards the transistor took over and eventually completely eliminated the vacuum tube.

At that time in history, I was able to buy a magazine called Popular Electronics that had many DIY articles in it. I started to tinker with those construction plans and carried on building projects throughout my high-school days. I remember building a megaphone to use at football games and make my shouts heard over everyone else. At University of Toronto where I studied Electrical Engineering, we had a physics professor named John Bird (https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2013/07/bio_John20Bird.pdf). He was the national car rally champion having won the Canadian Winter Rally a number of times. Some of the guys and I set up a car rally of our own and got John Bird to check it out for accuracy. I surprised everyone in the class one day by bringing in a computer I had built to help my driver and I in winning the rally. It was an analog computer that had 3 rotary switches where you could enter the miles per hour you were supposed to drive to 1 decimal point (i.e. – 36.6 mph). When the computer was started, it would advance a mechanical counter every 1/10 of a mile. All the driver had to do was keep the car’s odometer in step with the counter on the computer and the car was on time. When you entered a check point with your score card, you had to be no more than +/- one minute out from the calculated time or lose a point for each minute over or under. John Bird navigated across Canada from coast to coast and only had 6 points against him. On the actual rally the computer made no difference. My driver got stuck in a snow bank that was as high as the roof of the car and we lost the rally. Cost me a case of beer on a bet that we would win.

Electronics as a hobby is nowhere near dead! You can still get DIY magazines such as Circuit Cellar and Elektor although they are heavily geared to digital electronics and microprocessors.

Why not start where it all began: vacuum tubes. A friend of mine in Florida restored an old car from the late 1940s and drove a group of us to lunch in it. He turned on the car radio and out came music from the 1940s. I was thinking at the time “What station would be playing this kind of music in this day and age”? I then figured out that my friend had made a radio transmitter and had it hidden in the trunk of the car that played pre-recorded music from that era.

One of my favorite songs is Radio Ga Ga by Queen. Radio still intrigues me since it’s like fishing for a weak signal in an environment polluted by radio noise. When you can select the signal you are interested in, it’s like having hooked a large fish on your line.

There are many articles on the Internet showing how to construct a vacuum tube radio transmitter for the AM band. Why not start with a project like that and enjoy some history in the process. You can load your iPod with old shows from an era gone by such as Abbott and Costello and The Shadow and amaze your friends when you play them on your AM radio. You can get into restoring old tube radios as a hobby. Check out the Internet. There are many people already doing this and making a huge profit by selling these restored radios. I bought one myself for $300.

If you prefer a kit, you can construct a guitar amplifier from the following vendor:
https://tubedepot.com/

 

[Bob Scott]

In BBC channel I saw a guy who invented a new thing which scientists were thinking about for more than 40 years, He could solve the problem by a small trick which other scientists did not think about! (I think creativity is like solving a puzzle, you should think to find the right way, that's all!)! He has his own small company now.

Hi Wizard. The above quote hits me "close to home". Could you please elaborate if possible
You see I also have "invented" a small analog design trick someone else should have thought up years ago. It makes any garden variety op-amp do something almost unbelievable. It is so simple, most of you advanced designers will probably respond: "Doh! That is so simple. I wonder why nobody ever did that before!"

I plan to start a thread about this in the Electronics Design section of this board, but I'll wait for your reply first. I have absolutely no idea how I could possibly profit from this idea, let alone start a company.

 

[wizard]

I remember reading about a year or so ago, A retired engineer that spends his time making "one off" mouth operated devices that are used by persons that have been paralyzed or such that they are able to play video-games otherwise they could not. Hats off to that guy, he keeps himself busy helping less fortunate persons have some joy in there existence He does not get paid and does it for free Sometimes ones own self-worth helping others is just as good, if not better then any monetary gain. just thought I'd throw that out there.

Thanks Joe For your input,

Well, Good job.
It is very good if somebody could try to use his hobby to create new things. I think the hobby would be much more interesting if it happens to be beneficial forothers.

 

[wizard]

Fixing current stuff is nearly impossible. Primarily, because of the lack of information and lack of replacement parts.

Yes that's right. But I think We have BOMBED with new stuff/devices. As I told in my first post a DIY FM transmitter or a walkie talkie is not in favor like past. Nowadays Almost all of people have a mobile phones in their hands, and it is something more than just a Mobile phone. So why they should try to make a transmiiter? It is not interesting like past to do so, But several of us have put our life in learning/teaching/ designing/ implementing such things. We should not try to do something against it? we should not let the time and the technology to eat us somehow!!!

 

[fezder]

i'd love to make some cind of transmitter/receiver, just lacking the info :S......
also, you know that system what is used in car radios to keep frequency in good value so it is clear? i'm not sure did i describe it right, but also known as AVC (automatic frequency control) which i saw in one old radio. that would be cool to make....because so many radios at market lack this feature. is it just left out from specifications, or is it that hard to put in modern radios?

 

[wizard]

Interesting question, Wizard.

It just happens that today I saw this on slashdot: https://slashdot.org/story/13/07/12/0334244/electrical-engineering-labor-pool-shrinking

I wonder if by "electrical engineers" they also include electronic engineers? Kind of relevant, don't you think?

I would speculate that this shrinking pool of EE's is a direct result of electronics declining as a hobby - as someone else mentioned, kids get into programming now - maybe it's more "glamorous" whereas electronics was where the glamour was when I was a kid. I dunno. Not to mention, programming is a lot more accessible

I also read this - don't know if it's relevant: https://news.slashdot.org/story/13/...-with-students-until-they-realize-theyre-hard

When I went to college years ago, I did a City & Guilds course in electronic servicing (though I didn't finish). You could also do HNC and HND college courses in electronics. I presume there were also degree level courses. I was looking to possibly re-educate myself and go back to college if I could find a suitable electronics course - but they don't exist anymore! What we have now are general engineering courses, which also include electronics. To my mind that means you have to go to college for a lot longer and study things which you aren't necessarily interested in if you want to gain a formal qualification which /includes/ electronics. Crazy - but I suppose the people who design the courses know what they are doing, since what I trained to do (domestic TV/radio repairs) doesn't exist anymore. It's all board swaps now, unless you are working on specialist stuff I suppose.

Someone else mentioned Radio Shack. Long gone from the UK - I think they shut up their shops here about 1999. A sad loss - they may have been expensive but they were certainly convenient.

Also, take Maplin. They started out as a mail order business which primarily supplied components to hobbyists. Now everyone has a Maplin shop within easy reach, and they sell mainly gadgets. Don't ask a Maplin sales monkey for advice about a component, they just don't know.

In today's world, sadly, electronics = gadgets and appliances in most peoples minds, and these devices tend to pretty much monolithic slabs with most of the functionality in a single slab of silicon, not really things you can tinker with unless you are far more knowledgeable than the average hobbyist.

Then you get the wannabes who think they can hack their gadgets Disney style without even the basic knowledge, then get discouraged because they discover it's hard - another loss to the hobbyist community. Though credit where it's due, some of them succeed.

Anyway, rant over. Thanks for the interesting question

Hello throbscottle,

Thanks for your input and of course for your links.

Well, those links bring even more disappointment to me.

I think that electrical and electronics are so relevant to each other. we had a lot of common classes/courses with electric students in univirsitey .

And yes I am agreed that electronics = gadgets nowadays and I think that it is not a good news for us here! We can connect th ecomponnents to create something, But we almost are not able to do the same job with the electronic gadgets for several reasons!!
Well, maybe I start my M.S degree 2 other months, But to be honest I am also thinking about changing my life and my future by going to university and satrt another branch like say dentistry!!
Anyway I am pretty sure that there should be better solution for us as electronics hobbies/fans
to decrease the bad effects of technology If we try to gather and think about a what to do against it! I think that we should TARGET our efforts in electronics somehow nd focus on one thing in this field to be able to challenge with technology and so on....

 

[wizard]

My entire career was in electronics and it has been and still is one of my hobbies.
I design electronic circuits, improve other people's circuits and fix some.

I am happy audioguru of hearning that. You are a very helpful man, and I have seen a lot of posts from you in several electronics forums. But I am afraid of when I reach to your age, what to do if the 'situations" of that time prevent me to do what you are doing (Ie designing/Fixing and so on).
Furthermore, I have seen an electronics engineer who would like to change his interest and go to university and study law/lawyering to earn good money in the future (as he says)! because he has seen several electronics engineers who could not earn enough money for their agedness, He said: "I want to GIVE my life and what do I will GET instead' And I had no response for him, I even couldn't say him that electronics is a good hobby because it seems to be in decline!!!. you know, Those kind of news are not so promising!

 

[cowboybob]

Wizard,

Off topic message.

Pls check your PMs.

CBB

 

[steveB]

... I even couldn't say him that electronics is a good hobby because it seems to be in decline!!!. you know, Those kind of news are not so promising!

Good hobbies are good because they give the participant enjoyment, not because they are popular. A decline (assuming that it is truly happening) in electronics would be no different that various other activities that have seen decline, but still have a solid base of loyal enthusiasts. Let's use the example of traditional archery as a hobby. The bow and arrow has long been replaced by guns, and even archery has had advancements with compound bows that are far superior to the old traditional longbows and recurve-bows of the past. Yet, there are avid participants in traditional archery that prefer to do things in the old style.

Similarly, you can still find musicians that specialize in old instruments like the harpsichord and the lute, which have long been replaced and are no longer popular.

How long has it been since the longbow and the lute were at their peak? It's been hundreds and hundreds of years, but the hobbies are still alive and well.

There will always be people making crystal radios for the same reasons that people study ancient weapons and music. There is no better way to understand a highly advanced field than by tracing back to it's roots, and simplicity is often more enjoyable than complexity when you are trying to relax with a hobby. There is also the element of traveling back in time, in some sense, when you do these types of activities. There are still people working with tubes, although tubes are almost obsolete now. Even if tubes become unavailable, I think people would make their own and still experiment. It will be a long time before any person can't buy a few resistors, caps, coils and transistors and make a basic audio amplifier or AM transmitter with receiver.

Believe me, things will decline, if not now then someday, but it will never die.

 

[throbscottle]

I agree with everything steveB said

 

[davenn]

like AG and many others on here, my entire working career has also been in the electronics game.
and in the 40+ years I have been at it there's been many changes. In most service tech jobs these days we are primarily "board jockeys"
the days of component level repairing is almost a thing of the past ( some exceptions). In my current employ, I don't even need to know how the board works
I just need to be able to prove that its faulty and swap it.

At least my home activities with amateur radio etc keep my component level work alive

Dave

 

[wizard]

I think you are asking me how my career went after the era of big computers.

I was lucky. In 1970 they asked me to join a team of engineers at the IBM Laboratory to work on the Bank of Montreal project. This was long before the Internet and if you put money into a bank branch, you had to go to that branch to take money out. We take it for granted today that a bank’s branches are all connected together and you can deal with any branch no matter where in the country it is located. The bank of Montreal started the ball rolling and asked IBM to supply the system and implement a country-wide network. IBM had the computers but they didn’t have the bank terminals. I ended up taking over the design of the terminal control unit and implemented all of the logic circuits.

I then stayed in the lab until 1980 designing more systems. I did an off-track betting terminal and control unit for Australia, ticket terminal for Brazilian Airlines, did microcode speed improvements for the System 370 Model 155 mainframe, and designed a small computer for controlling machines used in silicon wafer processing of integrated circuits for logic and memory chips (picture below) in IBM’s own manufacturing facilities.

I worked my way up through the ranks of engineering from Associate Engineer to Advisory Engineer. In 1980 I started to feel institutionalized (knowing how to navigate in only one company and ignoring the greater world outside). An opportunity came up for me to participate in a management role to start up a new company using a large sum of government money. I became a manager of a team of engineers engaged in the design and manufacturing of high speed non-impact printers based on ion deposition technology.

In 1990 I moved to another company where I managed a team of engineers and scientists in designing an elemental mass spectrometer. This was probably the most exotic piece of equipment I have ever worked on. I managed the budget, schedule and company resources and I performed all the personnel functions for the engineers such as skills development, performance reviews, education and training, and I attended all the trade shows and assisted in the sales of the product.
In 1999 I moved to Vancouver to manage a team of engineers engaged in the development of printers that made master printing plates for the newspaper industry.

After 20 years in management, I decided to get back into hardware design. Luckily, while I did my management job during the day, I stayed current in electronics development on my own time and was able to switch horses in mid stream.

I retired in 2004 and moved back to Ontario where I am still designing custom products for small volume production.

Thanks for your post and for letting us know your story Val,

So it seems that you were in a "Transition point" on those days, and that point was helpful for you as a genius and a lucky man. SO you had to update yourself very fast to be matched with those changes, right?

 

[wizard]

Many years back I used to see tons of electronic hobby kits sold. Mini DIY-clocks, seven-segment counters, mini-games, mini LED roulette and stuff. My father used to fix radios and TVs (he has that certificates, earned them by taking night classes many years before I was born) and saw him doing that. Plus, my curious mind made me check out on those Life Sciences books where I could construct those astable multivibrator circuits using a plastic terminal block, and the electronic components left by my uncle after his radio repair store got razed down.

I did a lot of messing around with those, but in a limited time due to the demands of an Asian family (studies come first). However, I still managed to make time learning programming and electronics.

When I have that Pickit 2 for my birthday gift, there the spark went, I experiment more with electronics and programming. I admit it isn't a long way, but I'm still learning and reading tons of stuff despite not being in EE background (I'm from Biomed Engineering).

Thanks Brian For your input,

Well To be honest I think Most of the Kits are the same as what they used to be in say 20 years ago. And most of kids are BOMBED by very new ready devices, so most of them seem to not be eager to go and say make something like avery simple FM/AM radio while they have a modern ones in their homes. Even some of them do not like to use a radio nowadays.

 

[wizard]

Hello, thanks for that.

Back in the late 90s, we have a lot of good stuff hanging around in nearby electronic stores. Those days the fascination with astable multivibrators, 555s and logic gates were the thing. I was quite obsessed with electronics during the younger days, back then even I was found drawing myself cool gadgets like personal organizers. (My pa bought a Casio Digital Diary back in his training days in US, runs off from three CR2032, and that was the wow-factor back then). How could a small thing with a QWERTY keyboard, a reminder, world clock, phone-book were all inside? Iomega Zip was cool, but never owned it. I used to day dream about having that Pentium 233 with MMX back then too, which in there was something like that premium-grade Alienware PC. As a kid, growing up in a very strict parenthood is kinda tough, so I kept myself mostly out of trouble. A phone call from a teacher from school is no good news, so I have to keep my standards - at least no breaking stuff at school.

Plus, my interest of electronics fuelled by one of my friend who is my neighbour too. On times I would visit his home, and play PC games on it, and saw his storeroom chock-full of circuit boards, and a table full of electronic components. His pa was a service technician, repairing computers, arcade games, TVs and stuff. He was knowledgeable and he thinks quick. I was wanting to have all his knowledge, and I was pretty amazed by his desk (up to that part Diablo on PC wasn't interesting anymore) Sadly, they were having a lot of family problems, and their inter-family turmoil was neverending. 12 years later, I have never seen them anymore.

Some years later, when I got my K6-2 PC (all my pa could afford, I apologize to him if I was a jerk in front of him begging to replace that clunky 486 PC that won't play 240p movies), I got into programming. That time Counter-Strike was the thing on that planet, and again, strict parenthood had reminded me not to hang out in cybercafes, so I used to play with bots (artificially controlled players) in that game. Guess what? I was intrigued. I wanted to write my own bots, and gave me more reason to learn up stuff. I didn't care much if my friends were calling me a jerk for not joining them. It wasn't important anyway.

So, my pa got me a book in C++. That 24-days one. Yep, I cruised to where I got stuck - Pointers. I was 14 when I did learn C++ by my own. I kept on experimenting on making my own program to work, stack overflow, blue screens, stack underflow, crash and crash and crash. Then again, academic obligations kept me out from learning programming, for another 5-7 years. My study life didn't go too well during that time (don't want to explain it here), therefore I had to put off that obsession.

Much later when I finally got into an engineering faculty, my parents have stopped monitoring me too much as I was already 21. As usual, I'm not a brightest kid in the college, but I have to struggle. It was rewarding, whatever I learned in my teenage days, I didn't have to struggle in the programming semesters. I spent my semester breaks rereading the electronic books, the op-amps, and experimenting it. That time, finally, more of these electronics are available to be purchased on the 'net, and I have my first bank card. So, I ordered a bag of components and proceed to knock myself out experiemnting.

In late 2008 I got a Pickit 2 and some other stuff for my birthday. There it went again, how I could be so much excited writing in assembly, and have the first blinking LED. Then, how to change the blinking speed, how to read buttons and how to make the microcontroller to sing its first Christmas tune. Plus my music education for 11 years had drove me to write microcontroller programs which... plays music.

I did wrote a tutorial in a local electronic magazine and it was the last publication, sadly. But I did still publish some more of it at the online site.

I was never that satisfied until now. I had experimented with HC11, PIC16-18F, PIC24-33 and PIC32. Later if I have the time, it's assembly on the Cortex M3.

Sorry for the lengthy explaination. It was the age of electronics, but only in the late 90s. I don't see much of it now - except tablets, tablets and more Angry Birds. Not much imagination left, so I have to think hard how to get these days back.

Thanks Brian for your time and for your expantion.
I would like we here try to see if we can find any solution so that we macth ourselves with the fast changing Electronics technology or not.
I will speak about my ideas which I think might be helpful tomorrow.

 

[wizard]

The age of repairing electronics (TV VCRs Microwave ovens) for me here in Australia is prety mutch over. Since Digital TV is here & replacement items are so cheap. Currently in the process of throwing out nearly 40 yrs of workshop manuals & parts that will now nolonger be of any use. Its time to move on, but still very interested in electronics so will be keeping all the acumulated test equipment.

Thanks for your input dbe,

it's very good that you are intersetd in the field yet.
I can remembr more than 20 years ago in my place people tend to say that in the modern countries nobody tries to give his/her electronic stuff for repair anymore! The benefit-cost ratio or price-to-earnings ratio for electronics stuff in the modern countries is somehow that most people tend to buy new stuff instead of taking their stuff for repair, furthermore as I said before due to this fact that today the rate of growth of the technology is exponential, so the new stuffs have more options than the previous ones (their fathers!), so it may be another reason for why people tend to buy new stuff when their own stuff are broken!

 

[wizard]

too bad if this hobby is dying out, just found this hobby, very entertaining and educating!

Hi fezder,

I will try to start a new thread in this section to see if we can contribute to do something against it (at least for ourselves!)!!!