Chapter 29
Electronics as a Hobby
Many people enjoy electronics as a hobby. They enjoy the creative outlet that electronics offers—you imag-
ine some kind of electronic device or gadget, you design it yourself, and build it. Designing and building
something yourself gives you a sense of satisfaction that you simply don’t get from buying something ready-
made — plus you can design it to work just the way you want. Sometimes hobbyists skip the design stage,
and just enjoy building devices from kits.
An extensive electronics textbook,Lessons in Electric Circuits, is available on-line at:
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/.
Here we’ll look at a few of the kinds of projects that electronics hobbyists get involved in. Maybe you’ll
decide you’d like to try some of these things yourself.
29.1 Analog Electronics.
Analog electronics involves building things from parts like resistors, capacitors, inductor, transistors, etc.
You can design analog electronic circuits to do any number of things: build your own light-activated burglar
alarm, a radio receiver, remote weather station, metal detector, electronic organ, computer light pen, electronic
measuring equipment, devices for your car, etc. — you’re limited only by your imagination.
One place to start with analog electronics might be to build a simple crystal radio receiver; see:
http://www.midnightscience.com/.
29.2 Digital Electronics
Digital electronics typically involves components like microprocessors, microcomputer chips, and field-
programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). These components are are available as integrated circuits that are con-
nected to other digital and analog components to make useful devices. Microprocessor and FPGA training
kits are available to help you learn microprocessor and FPGA programming, and how to interface these de-
vices to external displays or other devices. You might even like to try something like building your own
calculator or computer completely from scratch.
Microcontrollersare very popular nowadays. These are small computers, typically designed to interact
with hardware like motors, sensors, robotic arms, etc. They’re surprisingly low cost (typically less than $50),
and can also be configured to work like a a small desktop computer. Some popular microcontrollers are:
- Arduino:http://www.arduino.cc
- Raspberry Pi:http://www.raspberrypi.org