Joe’s Hobby Electronics

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Construction Projects

  • Here you will find details of completed (or as completed as they are going to be) projects. All the related documentation I have for each project is here.

Work In Progress

Like all mad scientists, I’ve got more projects on the go or sitting on the “back burner” than the mind can comfortably comprehend. Some of these are waiting for inspiration, parts, funding, or just the enthusiasm to get on with them. I’ll release technical details as I go along but it goes without saying that you construct, build and ticker with any of my ideas and designs at your own risk, with the additional risk they may not actually work or get completed.

Breadboard Things

I do a lot of prototype work with breadboards and I will list designs and projects that can be built on breadboards. You will also find hints and ideas that can make using breadboards easier.

Reviews

Sometimes I stumble across a tool, component or gizmo that I think is worthy a review.

Help & Tips

In this section I will list any pearls of wisdom, datasheets, advice and information. In fact, anything that I personally don’t want to forget and that I think others may find useful.

Reference Information

Here you will find useful reference information.

Documentation Archive

Here you will find documentation, manuals, instructions and other hobby related documentation that I don’t want to lose.

Software Projects

Some of my projects are more software than hardware related and details of these will be found here.

Total Articles & Blog Posts

  • Stupid things I’ve done this week

    To remind myself that even I can do stupid things 🙂 here’s a list of some of my more stupid things I’ve done this week. I spent a day and a half wondering why an input to a PIC MCU wouldn’t work. It would sometimes change state, but never when I wanted it too. It…

  • Storing components

    I don’t know if this is related to the terrible weather we are having here but I’ve received several questions regarding how I store my electronic components from people who have decided to rearrange and sort their electronic components. Traditionally parts are stored in small storage drawers with a label on the front, so they…

  • The meaning of part numbers

    The other day, a friend had asked me about the difference between a BC108 and BC108C, and this got me wondering about part numbers. The 2N3055, 1N4001, BC108 etc… what do these part numbers actually mean. Well it turns out that these codes aren’t exactly random and do mean something… sort of… JOINT ELECTRON DEVICE…

  • Bi-Colour, Tri-Colour and RGB LEDs

    I was having an argument with ChatGPT today, initially about Bi-Colour LEDs, then it spilled over to Tri-Colour LEDs. Let me explain. A Bi-Colour LED has two different colour LEDs in the one package. In theory any two colours could be used but Red & Green or Red & Yellow are pretty common. Now according…

  • Update on updating the Retro IC Chip-Tester

    Like most engineers I can’t leave something alone for too long if it’s broke and have to keep picking at it. In my previous blog post I talked about wanting to test some suspect ICs I’d bought and the fact that to accomplish this, I would need to update the firmware on my Retro IC…

  • Why is nothing ever simple

    I’ve just bought 100 x 74LS590 IC’s for a project. They came from China and looking at them, I’m not sure they are genuine. They look a bit suspect (the laser etching isn’t quite right) and the packing was terrible with the pins bent all over the place, so it makes sense to test them.…