shKit Electronics

Hi Δs, I started going through an intro electronics book. I already had a bunch of capacitors, trimmers, resistors, LEDS, and other supplies from my classes, but I thought I'd go ahead and buy a kit so I wouldn't be stuck waiting on orders. I paid $90 for the first third of my book. Yeah, it's a lot, but I figured compared to tuition I was getting a pretty good deal on my education. So of course I was wrong and it's soykaf. >Barely includes any extra parts. The people who made the kit counted out the minimum amount of supplies. There were tiny baggies with two small 1/2 Watt resistors. >The battery clip wires aren't solid. Sticking the clip wires into the breadboard is like sticking a thread of yarn into an audio jack. >Doesn't include all the parts. Some parts were just missing. >No batteries. >Provides electrolytic capacitors instead of mylar for an experiment that assumes the capacitors aren't polarized. Luckily I already had some mylar ones with a similar capacitance, so I didn't have to stink up my room with molten capacitors from guessing. Oh well, I guess I'm an idiot for trying to do the things the easy way. Has anyone else been burned on this? I'm sure these guys are making a fortune off of STEM programs for schools. Pic related.

It's unfortunate that you had to spend ¥¥¥ on a shítty kit. For 90USD you

>>430 (continued, accidently hit post button) For 90USD you could buy a ton of components. As general rule, I don't buy kits because they are always more expensive - kit maker must profit off it somehow, plus education & industry run hype waves that drive prices higher. Anyway, I'd suggest buying from chinese directly. For example, I found 10 pots for 2$, which is a great deal.

This whole hobbyist electronics craze that started with soykafrduino is absolutely absurd in my opinion. Electronics is dead end right now. Everything already got minituarized with those ICs and now there is no job for usual EEer but only if you're into digital electronics. Need an arduino? buy serial programmer and a chip with a crystal oscillator. Want to learn things? download a book or two from internet and go to nearest electronics parts store. Or go online to Mouser >I'm sure these guys are making a fortune off of STEM programs for schools. Most of their revenue comes from idiots who have no idea in what they are getting into, not STEM. For future: Just go online and see what kit gives in relation to what you can buy yourself alone online on Mouser (or even overpriced resistor/capacitor bundles on ebay).

>>430 Thanks for your sympathy, lain. I have bought supplies from China before, but it always takes so long. I just ordered some stuff from Mouser. Now I only have to wait a week or two instead of a month or two. I'm excited; I got some 74xx chips on the way. >>432 >This whole hobbyist electronics craze that started with soykafrduino is absolutely absurd in my opinion. >Electronics is dead end right now. Everything already got minituarized with those ICs and now there is no job for usual EEer but only if you're into digital electronics. What are the alternatives for hobbyists? Buy a FPGA for every project? DIP and programmable chips still seem to have a niche. I guess Arduino is pretty overpriced and bulky compared to something like the MSP430.

>>434 74xx is neat, got some projects in mind? Also, I suggest looking into 4000 series ICs too (CD4011, CD4001, CD4017 to name a few), they have wider operational voltage range than TTLs. Uploading a book you might like. >What are the alternatives for hobbyists? Buy a FPGA for every project? DIP and programmable chips still seem to have a niche. I guess Arduino is pretty overpriced and bulky compared to something like the MSP430. FPGA is a bit too pricey - $20 for a single unit. Personally, I want to try simple AVR chips, for example ATTiny85 and ATMega2320. Each costs around $1.50 plus big variety of $1 programming beds. Although their functionality is limited, it might be just enough for my needs. Community is thriving too. Then there's these STM microcontrollers with ARM Cortex CPUs in them. IIRC, they are popular in IoT projects.

>>435 Nothing planned too far ahead. I'll finish the portion of the book I'm working on them and then build a binary clock. I should try and work with ARM Cortex in the future, since I was missing with ARM last week. Thanks for the book. Getting examples of uses is very helpful.