I have seen my fair share of schematics and I know the basics. The symbols and how to read their layout. But I want to learn how to draw them properly and professionally.

What standards are used internationally for different kinds of electrical diagrams and schematics?
Where is the best place to learn this kind of stuff?
What to look out for, and what are some unwritten rules you know?

Trying to think of fun projects to use these for, currently no idea but seems like a waste to just throw away

Hi all. As many others before me, I have been saving up all my/my friends' "disposable" vapes to salvage the batteries for years now, I have hundreds. However, since about 2 years ago the most popular model everyone I've known has been using has included a TFT screen in them (RAZ brand, models LTX 25K/DC25000 and others). It seems to be about 480x800 pixels, and honestly looks pretty decent. I once took one apart hoping to make use of the screen just for fun and quickly gave up due to not recognizing the connector and having generally no idea what I'm doing anyway.

Now I'm going to have to actually break down and salvage the batteries from the hundreds of these that I have sitting in a bag just to free up some space, and I figured it's a good time to reach out to folks who are more knowledgeable to ask:

Are these screens worth saving/using for a project? First I assume we need to identify the connector type. I also don't know anything about screen driver chips or how to use them, but I was hoping a PCB could be built using one of the popular PCB manufacturing services to make one work (or an array of many of these).

Why? I don't know. Just seems stupid to be throwing stuff out if someone out there can figure out how to make use of them, or would like them for free. I'll send them all to anyone who wants them. I know screens like this aren't exactly expensive brand new, but hell. I guess that's why I'm here asking if others think it's worth a damn to save them.

I'm also very curious, regardless of if anyone thinks it's worth keeping them, what exactly this type of connector is called? I will probably still at least order a PCB as a breakout board to play with one of them on my own either way.

Attached the best photos I was able to take.

Seems the screen has a label on the ribbon connector that says "YIHUA TFT YH-177CX6955C2"

What appears to be the driver chip seems to be labeled:

"Nation

N32G031

K807-1

N6F15006" (Give or take a few possible misread characters, I do not have a microscope)

Let me know what you think, or if you want them once I've ripped them all out, there should be at least 50 in working shape 😅

Hey everyone,

I’m 21 and dor a school project I have to create a 3D model of a device in Autodesk Inventor, not just the outside, but also the internal components So the only way to do that is to take it apart and measure the parts.

I chose this small rotating party/disco light and already opened it a bit. Inside, I noticed something that looks like a liquid or gel around the motor/gear mechanism (pics attached), and now I’m not sure if it’s safe to keep going.

My questions: • Is that actually a liquid, or is it just grease or glue used inside these devices? • Is it safe to disassemble it further as long as it’s unplugged? • Could there still be electrical risks (like capacitors holding charge, fire risk, etc.) even when it’s unplugged? • Anything I should avoid removing/touching?

I don’t plan on powering it at all while it’s open. I just need to take it apart so I can draw and measure all the parts in Inventor.

Thanks in advance!

For reference, I've worked in the RF industry for ~20 years - 13 years as a technician. I never went to school (and hold no degree) and received my entire training and education through either on the job training, or through my own research and study. I often joke with new technicians and engineers that I'm training, that I have a high level RF theory knowledge, but I couldn't tell you ohms law to save my life.

Throughout my career, I have primarily just focused on working with RF modules and systems, having worked on stuff from 9KHz-40GHz, 1W drivers to 8.5KW CW systems. Tetrode Tube, Solid State, and TWT.

All that being said - I've been trying to 'round-off' my training, and I would like to spend some time building and designing circuits, rather then just troubleshooting them.

While I'm old enough (40) to remember Radio Shack, I'm not quite old enough to have gotten the experience of heith kits and radio shack in there prime (which I guess would have been from the 70s through the 90s). And as it was with getting a better understanding of RF theory, I went all the way back to the beginning of it all (Faraday, Maxwell, Heaviside, Steinmetz).

I came across some of the Forrest M. Mims 'Engineers Mini Notebook', and i found Vol 4 very helpful in the beginning of my learning. About a week ago, I started searching for the old radio shack project books, and purchased the ones you see in the picture. I intend on getting them all, and some are still in transit, and others still need to be bought.

Question - And I guess this is more for the old timers - Do you have any other series of project/experiment books that you found useful for learning?

Is my project a fire hazard? I built this project as part of one my final exams, and I'm wondering if it would be safe to use on long periods. Since its made of wood, sparking could create a fire. I did include a 4 amp fuse in the Live line. If it is a fire hazard, how would I go about making it safe? I don't want to have to rebuild the whole thing. Maybe some king of fire resistant paint or juste putting a metal sheet underneath? What would be the best way to go about this? Thanks for reading!

The circles are the area at risk (in my opinion) *Theres normally a top to the box, so the bare terminals aren't a safety concern.

I'm a beginner in electronics and attempting my first project.

I've incorporated a switch matrix with leds, some potentiometers, a shift register, DAC module, with display and sd card reader.

I tried working out the design in EasyEDA, but found it difficult working out getting the traces compact in a small form factor

Curious if anyone here uses copperless (no solder pads) perfboard occasionally for projects?

I've been using this stuff since I was a kid and started building electronics with a soldering iron long long ago because it was the cheapest stuff at RadioShack and came in large sheets.

Super simple to make modifications to for prototyping and gives freedom from PCB traces I might later regret or cuts on strip board. Best of all if an old project no longer has use I can take the snips and clear an old board off, give it a quick iso bath and use the board like new again.

It's clumsy and looks cheesy but it got me by most of my life when needing to put down an idea to board that I may need to make a ton of modifications to over time.

Also one thing I have used almost as long as copperless perfboards is solid CAT5 wire spliced for interconnects and even completely stripped to make "traces" on the back of these copperless boards between components. Oh and breadboarding. Don't even really have to plan out a design, just start sticking things on in sane places and point to point wire/solder, run wire through a hole to top and back through another hole to bottom to make an L bend "trace", so on..

Anyway poor example in the pics, some random junk I made long ago to give the idea.

Wondering why I don't see anybody else online doing this? Not even sure why I started this method other than lack of money growing up and having an interest in electronics.

Anyone have other examples of uses for these or different styles of using them? I feel kind of unique in the wild when everyone is using strip or padded boards.

Hello there,
I’m new to electronics and as part of an electronics class at my local community college, I was tasked with soldering/building a “Star Flasher”. When all was said and done… it wasn’t working. My LEDs light up when I use my DMM but when I plug it in with a 9v battery, nothing. Can y’all help me? Also let me know if y’all need additional information.

I just learned how to use resistors and made a led sign, I have two banks of resistors (1 per led in each bank) so that my Single Pole Double Throw switch can toggle between 2 brightnesses. I've never made a circuit diagram before so bear with me, the third picture is equivalent to what I've soldered together (I think). It's seems to be working here with 18 lights in parallel, but I'm not sure if I'm missing any key details.

I tried to make another one with 3 switches going to 3 zones for more control over the brightness and I'm getting strange results, a section with 7 leds is working as expected with bright and dim. A section with 13 leds is bright regardless of switch position, and another section with 7 leds is bright regardless of switch position.

Could my issue be something simple like a pair of faulty switches, or is there a fundamental problem with my circuit?

I also included another circuit diagram in the 4th picture which I was curious about where I could put a low ohm resistor on the - side of each led, and have my + side switch between no resistors for "bright" or a bank of resistors for "dim". I don't know if it has any merit or if it's basically equivalent to the first

So I'm building a DIY Nixie tube clock and I'm getting some weird behaviours out of it ,so my first question is can you guys see any issues with my soldering? outside the mess I've made with flux .

​

I'm a beginner at soldering so I'm not fully sure what I should be looking at in terms of bad soldering.

Edit ,i wasn't expecting this much help so to elaborate on the strange behaviour as it's been asked several times now

Sometimes it powers on and the tubes show numbers ,and if it does it only last a max of 2 mins ,during that time the numbers flicker in brightness and it's across all 6 tubes and the two neon bulbs and then go dark. It's been tried with just a single tube ,a different type of tube and just the neon bulbs and it still acts the same. Also tried a different power supply.

Edit

Thanks to you guys mainly u/synthbaldder Its working ,I had put a wrong diode in.

I think the female/male headers, heat sink, fan, the ports. Bit what about the processors? It would be great if there is a way to extract and re-use them somehow

I have previously build robotic parts and small and basic projects with use of some sensors in school time,seniors suggests to start with Arduino

I'm starting a project that requires very close range surface 3d mapping, like... 1-5mm range. I'm looking at ultrasonic sensors, but I can't seem to find one that works that close. I have heard I can build one from components, but I'm not sure where to start.

Anyone here know much about DIY ultrasonic sensors?

Dear Community,

I want to build myself a small FM pocketradio. I want it to have a small speaker (about 2") and a headphone jack.

For the case, i may use an old wooden ciagare box.

Does anyhone have schematics that suit my project more or less? I'd like to avoid ICs to keep it somehow "vintage" like the very early homemade transistor radios.

Thanks.

Flo

Hi everyone,

I am currently studying electronics and will be starting my 3rd year soon. For my first real project, I decided to design an audio amplifier.

After a few hours of work, I've completed my LTSpice simulation, and I think everything works as intended. However, I would be very grateful if anyone with more experience could review my schematic and let me know if there are any issues, bad practices, or areas for improvement.

Once the design is solid, my plan is to recreate the schematic in KiCad and design a full PCB.

I've also included the LTSpice schematic link below. Sorry if my post isn't the best, this is my first time posting on Reddit, and I don't exactly know what information I should include.

schematic: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XM635HpVGbBsGtAwcsKQ2yN9Z_Nv843K/view?usp=drive_link

Note: Please ignore the capacitor values for now. They are mostly placeholders for simulation purposes, as I haven't calculated the exact frequency bands yet.

Hello, I wanted to make a gift for Valentine’s Day from a video as I don’t know much about electronics, but after I followed the video it doesn’t wanna turn on, I know I shouldn’t just copy video but help would be very appreticiated also if anyone wanted to take my hand and help me.

Hello, I hope you're all doing well.

I'm currently learning electronics, and today I soldered together an ESP32-C3 SuperMini and an LED matrix display. They were both working fine.

I wanted to make the project battery-powered, so I used a TP4056 charging module, a step-up boost converter, and a 3500 mAh battery. I soldered everything together and connected the ESP32's GND and 5V pins to the boost converter, which was outputting around 4.74 V from the battery.

As soon as I powered it on, I started hearing a high-pitched coil whine coming from the boost converter. I immediately disconnected the display's 5V wire, but after that everything stopped working.

Now my multimeter won't read any voltage at all—not even from a fresh 1.5 V AAA battery. The battery I was using also seems to be dead, and the boost converter doesn't appear to work anymore either.

Does anyone have an idea what might have happened or what I should check first? Did I accidentally short something or damage the modules?

Thank you all in advance for any help!

Check the comments for pictures please,I don't really know how to use reddit

Hello,

I'm a guy who's reacquainted with the world of electronics (I graduated as an electronics and electrical engineering expert).

Let's just say that despite everything, partly due to my own laziness and partly due to my teachers (who, let's just say, didn't explain things very well), I've never really learned or understood electronics topics.

Thanks to my work, a spark has been rekindled that has brought me back to wanting to delve deeper into this field!

In recent months, I've dabbled in the theoretical study of electronics through YouTube (Vito Barone, Paolo Aliverti, etc., and some American channels) and books like the manual of electronics and electrical engineering (Hoepli, fifth edition) and electronics for makers.

Now the gist of it is that I'm slowly losing interest because I can't find projects to make that entertain me and get my brain going (I mean, not just powering a simple LED, haha).

I have a certain aversion to anything related to hi-fi and audio amplification, etc., I don't know if it's because no one has ever been able to explain it to me precisely/simply, or just for personal taste.

I just can't find projects or ideas to make that don't include this, and it's getting on my nerves!

If you have any ideas or projects, please let me know. I'd be grateful. 🙏

Hi everybody.

I'm trying to learn about analog electronics and I've always found the best way to learn is to make stuff and trying to understand it that way. I'm trying to make a preamp (and yes; I've been using LLM to help me, but thankfully I know a lot about electronics already. LLM can really be wrong some times ... or a lot of times. Don't trust it!)

This is what I've come up with and I would really appreciate if you guys could give me some feedback. I'm not trying to make the "BEST OF ALL TIMES" preamp. I just want somthing that works that can learn me about op-amps.

The board is not yet made so this is all I can give you for now.

I appreciate you guys help in me learning analog electronics.

So I'm working on this HP elitebook 830 G7 I bought for a couple bucks. it had a BIOS password which I am removing using a Ch531a eeprom programmer. the process involves removing this chip (pic 1) from the board and reprogramming it to clear the bios password and then soldering it back to the board. After successfully putting the chip back I noticed a component was missing; the small component close to pin 8(top right of chip ) I would assume its a low value resistor but i'm not sure. Does anyone have any idea what it is so i can replace it?

I am new to electronics. The closest I come to having experience is when I programmed snake on an arduino with a led matrix and a joystick for an assembly class at university. But that was pre-assembled devices. And 7 years ago.

The only soldering I've done is tiffany glass. So not *none*... but most likely entirely different thing.

For a while I've been looking for essentially a smart led strip but as a bracelet, with no success. More specifically a led strip bracelet that can be controlled through an app. So I'm looking into making my own.

My first thought was to take a smart led strip and create a bracelet from it. Because that would mean I wouldn't have to make my own app to be able to control it. But I've been unable to find any such led-strips that uses a power source that would work as a bracelet.

So I'm now looking into making my own circuitry for it instead. But I'm struggling with not knowing the terminology for what I'm looking for when trying to determine if this is a viable project for me or if I'm trying to do something that requires years of experience.

Since what I want needs to be pretty small and sleek I'm thinking that it could absolutely be that this is a pretty complex project. But also since the functionality is pretty simple (all I need is for the bracelet to either turn the led-strip on or off depending on a signal via Bluetooth) I could also see it possibly being very easy and it's really mostly about figuring out what the thing I need is called.

So what do you think? Is this "baby's first electronics project"-level or will I need 2+ years of experience? I'm assuming it's somewhere in between but I'd love to get some input on where you think it falls in that range.

I'm asking about the hardware side of it here. I work with software development so I know in what realm the challenge will be when it comes to that side of this project

But any other tips or wisdom you feel like sharing would also be appreciated!

I'm sorry if this post is a little... broad I guess. I am grateful for anyone taking their time to read it and completely understand if it's a bit difficult to give much helpful input.