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

  • Chemistry – ChatGPT made me do it. Part 1

    I have many hobbies and interests. Electronics, computers (vintage and new), engineering, wood work (which I’m terrible at), anything science and chemistry in particular. Like many a young person, I really wanted a chemistry set. I wanted to make smoke bombs, stink bombs, blow stuff up, showers of exciting sparks and possibly invent a new…

  • Restoring Electronic Project Kits – Part 3

    There wasn’t going to be a part 3, but now I’ve completed the refurbishment of the 6 kits that I’ve recently obtained, I thought it worth a summary. The kits all came from different sources and are of different ages and conditions. The one thing that was constant throughout all the kits however was corrosion.…

  • Restoring Electronic Project Kits – Part 2

    In the first part of this thrilling saga, I dropped a cliff-hanger and warned that whilst these kits often look in pretty good condition, trouble lies underneath.. underneath the cardboard panel as it happens. Today, I have a 160 in 1 kit from Science Fair on the bench that I’m going to restore. Due to…

  • Restoring Electronic Project Kits – Part 1

    At some point in the mid 1970’s I was presented with an electronics kit from Tandy/Radio Shack/Archer/Science Fair whoever you want to call them. Actually, lets try and clear this name thing up right now. The Tandy Corporation bought Radio Shack in 1963 and used it as their retail brand in the US so Radio…

  • Printronix 5000 Printer

    I’m working on a new project; implementing a NMEA 2000 stack on a PIC. NMEA is a protocol that sits on-top of CAN bus, and allows devices on-board boats to communicate. Anyway, this task is producing lots of audit printouts, and I mean, pages and pages of 132 column wide listing paper print-outs. It’s much…

  • KIM-1s Progress

    So the Christmas break is over and it’s back to the grind. I did however manage to get most of my KIM-1 activities completed. I’ve now got seven KIM-1 machines in various states of completeness and am just waiting on parts to arrive from the four corners of the globe. The original machine is fully…