Does anyone want to build anything these days?

I don’t have a SG so the last item I built on a piece of veroboard was a simple Xtal osc, I wanted to check alignment of some radios so 10.7Mhz was useful and a couple of frequencies on MW were good. 465Khz would have been nice but I couldn’t find a xtal.

It was a ‘Lash up’, just enough to do the job.

Building something yourself can be a very exciting experience, to end up with an item you have created and got working is very rewarding. It has been a while since I have made anything, but I can certainly recommend it to anyone. Whether it is a simple device or something more complex, the fun to be had is amazing. I built my own valve amplifiers a while back and it became an all consuming project....

http://www.forum.radios-tv.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=10686

I wonder if the lack of enthusiasm for construction is due to the changes in availability?

Back in the day purchasing ready made test equipment was beyond most folks pockets, so needs must, get Practical Wireless/Television etc find a circuit, order the parts and build. Now with access to the internet and companies like Banggood and e-bay, what was once highly expensive kit can be had for pennies, well not quite but certainly just a few pounds.

The only homebrew thing I've built was a function generator (see here). It worked but I ended up buying a Chinese one which was way better with more bells and whistles. It arrived with a broken LCD display (see here) but I fixed that.

So for me personally I would only be really interested in constructing something that cannot be easily bought. Perhaps a wrong attitude but maybe not an isolated one. Now if there was a circuit available to build a Tripler tester, I would be encouraged to have a go at that as you can't readily buy one. I'm also tempted after reading Tony's recent project, to build a dedicated cap reformer, though I've never bothered thus far as the HUNTS CRB-3 has served me well in that function for over 8 years. I do have enough bits to make a start but as ever making the start is the hurdle and knowing where to make the start, especially if homebrew is not a field you've dabbled in before.  So mostly I just quietly stick to my TV repairs.

Will be interesting to read other members views, on the questions you pose. 

There used to be loads of ad's in magazines and many kit's in Maplin that could be bought, but now it's all PC stuff and raspberry pie's.  ☹️ 

I remember as a youngster we always built things from go carts made from old wood and pram wheels to cranes and many other things from  Meccano sets. Then when older and radio became interesting making an AM transmitter for Top Band using 807's etc. Most amateurs built there own gear back then.

I do not make much now, I recently built a transistor Pantry transmitter and and over voltage protection circuit for my rigs powers supplies.

Young people seem to be only interested in the latest smart telephones.

John

I had a spell of building things, from simple DC receivers and CW transmitters, a 80M SSB transceiver, various types of simple test equipment, two tone audio gen,  broadband noise gen, FET volt  meter and RF probe, probably many other items I have forgotten about.

Enjoyed the work, must be 25 years ago though.

Interest change so unless it is something to do a quick test with I don’t see me building anything else.

 But (I should not start a sentence with but) as my dad would say, never is a very long time so who knows things change.

Kits used to be popular from the very start of radio, later on with names such as Heathkit, where almost anything electronic could be assembled. With a kit, such as provided by Heathkit, almost anyone who could hold a soldering iron would be able to assemble it. Trade magazines were awash with kit's for decades. Sadly almost all gone now. I think Maplin was the last, up until fairly recently of course. They used to have pages of interesting items from Vellemen....   http://www.velleman.co.uk/contents/en-uk/d2_kits.html  

Posted by: PYE625

Kits used to be popular from the very start of radio, later on with names such as Heathkit, where almost anything electronic could be assembled. 

Indeed and just some of those HeathKit possibilities are shown here

The last two things I built from kits were a DDS function generator and a basic oscilloscope. Neither are going to win prizes for waveform purity or accuracy, but the 'scope was always intended to be 'disposable' - i.e. if it came to grief with a car's ignition system it was no biggie.

Besides which, I built so many Dinosaurs and its FM-AM predecessor I view that as a 'get out of jail free' card!

Biggest hurdle for me to building kits these days is my wonky eyesight, and I guess, my rather shaky hands - tiny components on tiny PCBs don't stand a chance, but I do remember the days when I would order kits from Doram Electronics, and Josty Kit. The simplest was a wideband RF amplifier kit that I assembled (Josty Kit) to allow me to explore far away VHF television stations. The crowning glory was a pretty good pattern generator by Doram Electronics - Blank raster, white raster, dot matrix, cross hatch and grey scale. Used it extensively during the "G6 years".

One of the most satisfying 'kit builds' was a junkbox audio amplifier. It would not impress anyone, but from a diagram sketched out by my granddad and his mate Bob on the back of an envelope, it was aimed at a troublesome record player (one valve wonder) with an incurable buzz. The amplifier I/we built was at least a proper triode - pentode effort with a basic tone control. I found the diagram some months ago and planned to bring it to the forum with a view to offering it up and see if we could develop it into something a tad more advanced. In about 1972 I built my own version of it from used parts, all pinched from scrap TV and radio sets - even built it on a small section of used PCB from a scrapped Bush TV80. It was thoroughly enjoyable thing, and very educational to experiment with - it had one useful bonus, it would work at 24V HT, though it was intended to run at around 100V - moreover, the 90V tapping of a BSR record player motor!

Neither Doram, nor Josty seem to exist today, nor the hosts of others that once graced the pages of a myriad electronics magazines. Trouble is, in part, I fear, that it's also partly down to today's desire for instant gratitude, and the throw away mentality - no one wants to make the effort in the first place, and then throw it away a few weeks later. And afterall, if they're all busily recording six TV programmes whilst watching a seventh, when would anyone ever find the time?

Mind you, googling "electronic kits" brings up quite a number of hobbyist items so there must be a market with people out there who do build things. Otherwise I'm sure the maker's (eg Velleman) would not bother with kits. True, there is nothing quite like Heathkit, but there are still small projects to be bought and built.

And some more pricey ones too, if you fancy building your own Hifi valve amplifier for instance.....

http://www.audion.co.uk/Kits/kits.html

Having got a new multimeter to play about with it struck me it might have been nice to have a voltage reference source to check it against and my other meters and scopes come to that. 

I then remembered this thread about building. Of course these little reference source modules can be had for a few quid from e-bay.  That defeats the object of Rich trying to encourage folk to build. I suspect there's a few out in Vrat land that might find a voltage reference source useful, so how difficult would it be to build something from parts we all might have in stock? Can it be achieved with a 9V battery, a few resistors, Zeners and transistors? As I mentioned above, homebrew is not my strong point and I was just wondering, if its a lame idea fair enough.

Always building things ....

Here's my latest. A Hifi preamp with full digital control... just assembling the main PWB..

If you want to build something to check the calibration of a meter, you are going to need a voltage source that is orders of magnitude more precise than a zener diode; luckily, there are precision voltage references cheaply available from the main suppliers. One thing that has never been made clear to me is how much current they can source - it might be enough for an AVO 8, but I doubt it would be enough for an AVO 7. Luckily, a Wheatstone Bridge will help here 🙂 

Mark Hennessy has written up details on various DVM voltage reference projects here

http://www.markhennessy.co.uk/dvm_reference/

John

The last thing I built was this to generate 405 line sync pulses. I can't say I'm very proud of designing with monostables and I'm certainly not proud of how it looks so it's hidden in a metal box.

Peter

Posted by: Katie Bush

Trouble is, in part, I fear, that it's also partly down to today's desire for instant gratitude, and the throw away mentality - no one wants to make the effort in the first place, and then throw it away a few weeks later. And afterall, if they're all busily recording six TV programmes whilst watching a seventh, when would anyone ever find the time?

I used to build things because 'off the shelf' items were way out of reach and it was an achievement to make something, however crude, that did the job of something costing many many pounds. My three transistor TRF gave us hours of entertainment during school lunch breaks. It was rare for kids to have a radio of their own though a few had crystal sets in their bedrooms.

When I got my amateur licence it was build or modify surplus gear because the commercial gear that had started to dominate was way out of my range. I got a bit of (mostly) friendly stick for what I used to run but I learned a heck of a lot from it.

Contrast this with the last transceiver (mobile phone) I bought new for sub £30 which does loads of useful things and the element of 'needs must' (not to mention the kudos of building something exotic that worked) has gone.

I like making things. I find it very therapeutic,  often as not though what I've made doesn't work for one reason or another but when something does its great. I tend to stick with valves but a couple of years ago I made up a little board with a video amp/inverter, 555 frame scan oscillator and a 1881 sync separator,  this was to drive a scope with Z mod and resolve some of the older lower scan standards from 120 lines upward,  in fact I was able to get as low as 60 lines and even record Coronation Street on a Minidisc! I've also made pantry transmitters,  a FM single Russian Rod pentode super regen,  now I'm working on a simple monitor using a little MW6-2 projection tube running at 6kv hopefully,  its on hold though as I'm getting my Ekco TSC30A completed. 

I built many things when I was young and some of the better items are still in use.

I have a transistor tester created to enable me to recreate the graphs in data sheets. I have recently found that adding a bench power supply adds even more functionality.

My go to function generator was made from an article in the old ETI magazine and has been improved.

I did a thread on the old site and it is almost certainly still in the archive.

These days you just buy a ready populated printed circuit and box it up.

Variac power supplies are still worth building though.