What was your First PCB jobs

[ChrisUnionNJ]

After reading this thread I started thinking about how I first got interested in
electronics..
https://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=20655

I use to pick up radio's from the trash and just started messing with them
but what taught me were the one's that looked like somebody used a
bomb on them PCB broke in half some would be in 5 pieces or more
this is were I learned about jumping traces and using 2 part epoxy glue
to resemble the board and start jumping the traces and when I got the
radio working move onto the case..
And I have to thank Loyd's electronics for really getting me started I found
a AM/FM 8 track that was thrown out of a third story window of a house
that had caught on fire so I took it home I was about 13 then called loyds
trying to get a new PCB for it and the tech said we don't really just sell the
PCB for it but would see what he could do took my number and about
a week later called me back and said he found one so I asked how much
and he said it's free but I had to call him back and let him here it and send
a picture and he said don't ever stop learning.
So I moved over every part to the new PCB and after 3 weeks it was done
I had to use a 5 inch car speaker with the huge magnet with long bolts
and washers for stand off's I used this radio till I was 20 years old and I
think I still have it somewhere and if I ever find it i'll add a pic of it to this
thread..

Chris

 

[Zetr0]

Thats awesome!

I had a strange "nack" for electronics from a very VERY young age, I would build experiments from my scalectrix and trainsets - most of them involving electrocuting my younger brother =)

but thats how I learend series and parallel DC systems.... although 16volts (x2) at 2 amps, certainly wans't that much fun for my younger brother... but it was in the name of science =D

It was about half between my 9th and 10th year on this plannet that My soldering skills were learned - the hardway of course with burnt fingers and burnt dinner table and a scolding mother telling my father off for making me solder on the dinning room table again...

I while I nursed plasterd fingers and a few heat blisters I reveled in my POWAH to build my first computer.... the ZX80.... not gona lie it took a few attempts... and a couple of components were replaced..... but it got there.... and it worked!!!!

So that was it really... I should of know then I wouldn't be an Astronaught or PornStar.... nor would I become an Architect (another one of my passions)... no.... I should of realized and perhaps seized more of it younger.

By the time I was 13 I was repairing circuits in Ghetto Blasters and boom boxes, fixing tape induction heads and radios.... then I found girls.... well they found me .... and I have to admit.... I wasn't botherd with most other things for a while LOL.

At about 15 I had already built my own amplifier to drive 4 more 80 watt RMS Speakers from my Binatone Stereo Cabinet... yeah... got told of for turning that puppy up past 3 on the volume controll...

LOL I remember retro-fitting a slip-belt and motor on that so that I could mix / scratch records..... alas the scratching was REAL scratching.... theres an art to learn there... I have fond memorys of this sampling lots of records and tapes to my Amiga!!! good days....

I got into micro electornics in the first place I worked after school, I started off building small central heating pumps (dumb domestic ones at first) and then moved on to massive ones that had some pretty clever inteligence - with sensors for flow, pressure viscocsity etc.... lots of cleverness... I would make these things from basic componets - from start to finish... building a batch PCB's, Winding motors, Building impellors, motor housings, pressure test them, electrically test them, and eventually I would spray them.


It was a very poorly paid job, something like £2.55 an hour - I was very young at the time, 17 years old so I really didin't appreciate it... I enjoyed the learning.... Ironically I was talking with my friend Yorkie4 about this the other day... and I have a lot to thank (in terms of experience)


wow... lots more I suppose I could go on - but I am sure it would bore you lol!

 

[rkauer]

I started very early, too.

IIRC, with electronic magazines teaching how construct small and simple circuits, from dimmers to pre-amplifiers, then some digital electronic. From there to my first computer (NEZ8000, a ZX81 clone) was a little step.

 

[ChrisUnionNJ]

My main tools back then was my nose and a jewelers eye..

 

[salaxi54]

I started with a friend from school (elementary), whereas we intentionally would connect a cable over components on various pcbs we found dumped, and gaze amazed at how caps and resistors would either explode or crack once plugged directly to 220v.. Our parents had a new expense to cover, ceramic fuzes! There weren't any "auto protect" fuzes here at the time!
From there on, the rest is history

 

[robinsonb5]

Awesome stuff

When I was a kid I loved playing with batteries, bulbs, paper clips and drawing pins to make makeshift switches, that sort of thing, but didn't get interested in actual electronics (as opposed to merely electrical circuits) until my late teens; in the intervening years I was just into programming!

 

[storhemulen]

Well I took some classes in electronics when I was at the university but that was a long time ago. I really started messing with electronics last year and it's great fun. So far I've only done small things. The first thing I did was to repair a broken keyboard on a Atari 800XL by just inspecting the PCB and using a multimeter for continuity checking. Found a handfull of broken tracks and jumpered with thin wires. Simple thing but really got me going!

 

[ChrisUnionNJ]

Awesome stuff

When I was a kid I loved playing with batteries, bulbs, paper clips and drawing pins to make makeshift switches, that sort of thing, but didn't get interested in actual electronics (as opposed to merely electrical circuits) until my late teens; in the intervening years I was just into programming!

I had a teacher in 6th grade gave me a bunch of parts from a science kit
and said do something with it for a grade the parts here some wire,2 mini
ceramic light fixtures a battery holder and 1 throw switch he said I could
mount it on a board or cardboard so I had to do one better and mounted
it in a Action figure camper to show off a lighting system I got a +A for
it I also found A pic of the camper not mine put just want I used..



Also the Action figure was called Big Jim he was 10 inch's tall so the camper was pretty big..

 

[Gouldin]

The air-con switch on my '93 supra turbo was my 1st attempt at soldering about 9 years ago. Wow I miss that car

 

[tokyoracer]

Thats awesome!

I had a strange "nack" for electronics from a very VERY young age, I would build experiments from my scalectrix and trainsets - most of them involving electrocuting my younger brother =)

My first soldering jobs where on Scalextric motors though that wasn't at a really young age. Alot of soldering is still alien to me and got a long way to go, mostly thanks to rather standard hardware.

 

[jvdbossc]

I never was very good at it, though I improved thanks to amibay member ideas.

I really made teasing devices early like drive a tape deck motor with some AA batteries as source and make it spin a 220 v an old scool vinyl motor and tie that to a metal framed bed Great fun... Good morning...

Or hook the bed up to the animal fence Stuff like that made me happy, I really liked those tape deck motors also to drive lego cars around etc..

I had an Amiga 500 in my first car ex -12 v somehow it failed... 19 years old.... I remember first job in Brussels without degree then, driving to Brussels early, playing some games in the car to avoid busy trafic, 15 minutes early of game play meant 30 minutes of traffic avoided

 

[Sonny_Jim]

That reminds me..

That reminds me..

Back when I were a lad, a friend of mine had a Dad who used to fix a lot of valve radios, so there was plenty of stuff to tinker with.

We found out that if you took a plank of wood, nailed 4 diodes on to convert 220 ac into DC and put two springs on to hook up capacitors backwards you could blow up capacitors to your hearts content.

That summer we spent with yellow dye all over hands, iodine from the dead caps. Happy times....