On 2010-01-19, Frnak McKenney wrote:
Sorry, guys... I couldn't find any clean way to trim this. FAMcK

I put a lot of thought into my response, so I take this as a
complement. :-)

I'll trim out some of these where I don't see the need to
comment farther.

On 18 Jan 2010 21:43:20 GMT, DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2010-01-18, Frnak McKenney wrote:

[ ... ]

Which of the following exercises in electronics, for example, should
be considered "assembling" and which would be "building":

O.K. I'll give my personal opinion of each of these as applied
to me.

o Plugging Arduino "shield" boards onto the processor board and
writing software for the package? (Think VME or S-100 if you're
not familiar with the Arduino grin!)

Having just looked up the "shield" boards, The only part of this
which *I* would consider "building" would be the writing of the
software.

Fair enough, DoN, since I think we're both assuming "boughten"
boards.

Right.

[ ... ]

o Etching your own PC board?

To your own design -- or using a layout from a magazine or other
publication?

I can see three sub-cases he etching a board pre-coated with
resist,

So -- there are sources of boards coated with resist to a
pattern, but not etched? Or do you mean "pre-coated with photoresist", in
which case you have to expose and develop it before etching? I've done
a lot of the latter, usually with my own layout on the boards. I even
set up a facility in the lab at work, using an 8x10" view camera and a
nice trans-illumination box on the wall to do this work. The camera was
mounted on a slide for a lathe-bed style optical bench.

At home, I did similar things, but with less professional
equipment. A 4x5" Crown Graphic camera and a opal Plexiglass backing
clamped to a piano bench type table. :-)

applying resist from a provided pattern,

Yes -- either from a silkscreen, or using photoresist and a
copier or a copier-based resist in today's world.

and applying one's
own circuit pattern generated by (say) Eagle.

Eagle is a computer program for PC layout I presume? I've now
got an open-source one on my unix systems for the same purpose.

Not sure what that
breakdown contributes to the discussion, though.

Well -- if you generate the pattern (other than by typing in a
board descriptor file from the actual source of the design) then I would
call that "building".

[ ... ]

o Screwing wires down on an old bread board instead of soldering
then together?

Almost certainly your own design of circuit, so "building".

But if I were following instructions from (say) the ARRL manual, or
a Boy Scout Merit Badge booklet, you would consider it to be
"assembling", yes?

How close will it look to what is in the book? If the layout is
taken as verbatim as you can manage, then "assembling". Otherwise, a
hint of "building" comes in -- especially if you change things around to
work better for your needs. (E.G. move the RF circuits closer to where
your antenna would come into the room, and the audio circuits closer to
your chair. :-)

o Using only discrete components, e.g. transistors and no ICs?

Duplicating someone else's published design, or your own design?

What confuses the issue is that "designs" come in different forms
and levels of detail. If we assume that a schematic is supplied,
but I select and purchase the component values specified and wire
them together, am I "building" or "assembling"?

Do you feel free to change the components a bit to make it work
better for your needs? An example would be higher power for the audio
output stage (assuming a radio receiver), or increasing the quality (and
type) of the coil and capacitors for higher "Q" for sharper tuning.

For a digital circuit -- things like changing the chip family
from say TTL to CMOS to allow lower power operation gets well into the
"building" side of things. (This would, among other things, translate
to different pin numbers, working purely from the logic diagram to
select the components, and data books to find which pins you need.

If I get a schematic and parts in a kit, but wire the device up on a
"proto" board with my own layout (and _lots_ of jumpers grin!),
does that change the answer/categorization?

It becomes an experimenter's build -- since the prototype board
suggests that you will be wanting to try different modifications to the
circuit. I don't think that you would use the prototype board for
something intended to be used unmodified without at least *trying*
changes. :-)

o Winding your own toroids (transformers), rubbing pencils on
paper to make resistors, and using tinfoil and wax paper for
capacitors? (These all work, by the way.)

Aside from the winding of torroids (or air-core or ferrite core
transformers), these are more a learning experience than a project to
make something for long-term use. But I would still class these as
"building" not "assembling".

Plus being a lot of work. grin!

Indeed so. Note that some circuits were made with resistor
values a bit too high, since the actual value depended on other
components and the luck of the draw, and using a pencil to selectively
lower the resistance value until it worked as desired. :-)

o Drawing your own wire and personally vacuuming your tubes?

*Serious* building. Probably weaving and waxing your own
insulation for the wires as well. :-)

Actually, that sounds like a lot of fun to do. Once or twice,
anyway. grin!

:-)

[ ... ]

I think that my distinction between assembling and building is
whether two or more people doing the same project would result in a
nearly identical final product. When personal creativity comes into
it, so things look different and behave differently, I would consider it
"building". If just following detailed instructions, then it is simply
"assembling".

It has taken me two cups of tea, some aspirin, and a couple of Diet
Cokes, but I think that I'm starting to follow you. (I can't
_believe_ that our current Congress is considering "health care
reform" legislation that doesn't provide funding for critical
treatments like sinus transplants!)

Hmm ... sinus transplants -- that sounds like a "building"
project -- at least for the first few tries. :-)

I think I see what you're getting at, and that means I have to
re-examine my initial comments. My original focus was as much on
what the person doing the building or assembling was accomplishing
for themselves -- the learning aspect -- as it was on the visible
result, what someone else could or would see. If I throw in the
term "construction" to cover both "assembly" and "building", then
perhaps it does make more sense to separate the construction process
from skill acquisition, even though I see it as vital to the
process. (And I guess I owe sparky an apology. grin!)

The skill acquisition may have happened at an earlier stage, and
you simply need this to work -- perhaps to help in another project. :-)

So... if we agree on the distinction between assembling and
building (or perhaps between "following instructions" and "creating
or modifying instructions"), can we use that to address the original
poster's query about inspiring the next generation?

O.K.

You mention building a number of kits. What was it that inspired
you to build your first one? If you saw "listening to the radio" as
something desirable, what made you think of building (okay,
"assembling") the AR-15

Hmm ... what I assembled was an AJ-15 (the stand-alone tuner),
having already designed and made my own amplifier and preamp. The other
two in the family we

AA-15 -- same chassis -- but only amplifier and preamp in the
chassis.

AR-15 -- same chassis but tuner, amplifier and preamp all in the
same chassis.

as a way to accomplish this rather than
buying one already built for you?

I liked assembling, as well as designing and building. And it
got me a higher quality tuner than I could have otherwise afforded.

For that matter, what allowed you
to see yourself as someone who _could_ build a kit, as a person who
could accomplish the leap from a catalog description to the finished
receiver?

Well ... I had assembled quite a few kits some years before --
mostly test equipment kits (multimeter and RF signal generator as
examples). The purpose was to use in assisting designing, building, and
troubleshooting projects of my own.

Examples of projects of my own were transistor testers and
temperature controllers. One of the latter was used to control the
flat heater under my (now long defunct) waterbed to maintain a proper
temperature through variations in environment. (It was in an
concrete-floored apartment on linoleum tiles, so otherwise it would have
changed with the weather.) A second temperature controller cycled Rotron
muffin fans blowing air into the base of the shrouded radiator
assemblies which were mostly blocked by the frame of the waterbed. This
allowed me to control the room temperature as well. Later, after moving
to my own house (and joining with a wife) one of those was repurposed to
control the mix of hot and cold water into a sink to stabilize the
temperature of color slide processing.

Note that one of the characteristics of things I "built" instead
of "assembled" is that they were designed around the used and cheap
parts which I could find at various places, instead of parts selected by
someone else -- probably with the same criteria, but with a different
"junk box" at hand. :-) Also, someone designing a project for
production, as a kit or as a magazine article, is rather constrained to
select parts which are readily available -- and no two junk boxes are
alike. :-)

[ ... ]

Quite a few Heathkits (and other brands, such as Paco for test
equipment) prior to and after that. I had no desire for a TV, which is
probably why I did not build that kit. I still have the Paco RF signal
generator, FWIW -- one of my first kits.

I repaired a few TV sets during my high school years, but I have to
admit that I've never built a TV from the ground up, kit or
otherwise. The Mohican shortwave receiver my father and I built so
my mother could pick up her father's amateur transmitter in New
Jersey is still running back in my "computer lab", albeit with a few
new (socketed!) audio transistors courtesy of NTE (Ge transistors are
_expensive_!).

Now they are. (Hmm ... for that matter, back then they were
too, at the start. I remember my first two transistors (Raytheon
"CK-722"s) cost $7.50 each -- back about 1955 or 1956 I think.) The
prices fell drastically for a while as production ramped up, and then
starting climbing again as they were replaced by Silicon transistors.

[ ... ]

Yes -- but most of the kits were simply a means to an end.
Sometimes that end was building things of my own design.

And these qualities seem to build on one another. The satisfaction
of completing a project makes one more eager to take on a new one,
and learning (say) how to cast metal adds the concept of creating a
new part rather than searching catalogs for it a part of one's
problem-solving repertoire.

Indeed.

Perhaps that's a key, and one I overlooked when I spoke about the
Heath TV set: some people enjoy the feedback they get from others
about what they have accomplished, and some enjoy the feeling they
get from accomplishing something, but if one gets _no_ enjoyment
from a project it's hard to sustain an interest in it.

Understood.

BTW My first acquisition of machine tools was to make nicer looking
projects. Things like a Unimat SL-1000 lathe/mill for cutting
out nice rectangular holes for meters in panels.

And seeing the wonderful sparks one can
create with simple household items such as a screwdriver and a lamp
socket often leads one to a deeper understanding of electricity (and
fuses and circuit breakers grin!).

Reminds me of some fellows in one of the dorms which had thermal
only circuit breakers. As a result, they could arc weld directly from
the line for about fifteen seconds, then let it cool down for a couple
of minutes before the next weld cycle. :-)

Should I ask _what_ they were welding in a dorm room? grin!

I think that they were welding two steel trash cans together. :-)
Base to base, I think, but I did not actually see it, just heard from
others who saw it.

All that said, here's a paradox for you: much, perhaps all, of the
"creativity" I'm describing depends on at least two things: the
"rote assembly" effort required to _provide_ whatever basic building
blocks one happens to be using at any given time, and the time and
other resources needed to study the problem at hand and devise --
and hopefully implement -- a solution.
--snip--

Actually -- my early PC work started with hand painted resist to
draw the circuit -- followed by etching in nitric acid. :-)

Resist pen? Or an actual paintbrush?

Actual paintbrush. The resist came in a wide-mounted small jar,
from Lafayette, IIRC.

Later, the photo-resist allowed me to lay out with tape on
paper, then make a photographic negative (Kodalith Ortho), and expose,
develop and etch the board (using FeCl) -- none of the heat transfer
starting from computer images and photocopies onto special films.

I'm looking at making the move from point-to-point wiring on "proto"
boards to etching my own; too many useful and interesting parts are
only available in SMT packages. Problem is that I need better
eyesight or (and?) a good assembly/inspection scope to begin to
handle the little buggers people use as discretes these days.

Look for one of the B&L or American Optical stereo zoom
microscopes. A 0.7 - 3.0 zoom range, with 10X eyepieces gives you a
7-30X zoom range which is quite nice for the purpose. Get one with a
boom mount.

And
sneezing... _definitely_ have to give up sneezing. grin!

Wear a surgical mask. Or perhaps a dust mask and have plenty of
replacement filters for it. :-0

Enjoy,
DoN.

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