ready to learn....

[starlifter]

when it comes to lighting and LED's, i'm a novice. I've used some pre-built kits, they work great and i have no regrets. what i want though, is to actually learn myself. to take the initiative and invest the time to be able to design LED circuits, work with timing chips, have some fun.

so short of going back to school, any suggestions on where to start? or maybe the only way to do it right IS to go back to school. hey, i have some free evenings!

[en'til Zog]

This hobby needs a good 'Blinkification for Beginners' book. Forest Mims has some books and booklets for beginners, and "Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius" has some good information.

You've read all the "announcement"s in this forum, right? Maybe copied and pasted them so you have 'em all handy? Those are a good place to start. Then read other threads in this forum for more ideas.

You might start by getting a handful of LEDs ( www.goldmine-elec.com has bunches of assorted ones for fairly cheap ), an "experimenter's breadboard" (a plastic block with a lot of holes to stuff circuit bits into), and an assortment of resistors. Oh, and a few 9 volt battery connectors. Then look up the schematics and .jpg's in the "announcements" and start experimenting.

[jwrjr]

I thought about writing such a book. Problem is that while I know the subject, I can't write for beans. (sigh)

[en'til Zog]

I have a 26 page version - "Things that go BLINK in the Night" but it needs updating and expansion.

I've written some books on alternative (green) technology, and being clear and getting the ideas across simply is not easy.

[jwrjr]

To me the problem is taking something so familiar that it seems "intuitive" and explaining it to somebody to whom it seems like a foreign language.

[Sparky]

I started with the SAM's books and circuits. If you can find them at the library they should get you started with basic Ohm's law and that's the basic lighting. When you move onto animitronics (timed light actions) then you'll need some more, but then you won't be worried about power and resistors cause that all comes from the basics.

[starmanmm]

jwrjr wrote:

To me the problem is taking something so familiar that it seems "intuitive" and explaining it to somebody to whom it seems like a foreign language.

Maybe the approach is to have someone write it for you that is unfamilar with doing electronics.

Meaning.... you find someone to write the book for you.... but that person writes it in a way that they would (as a novice) would understand based on your explaination.

So, you would have an expert explaining to a novice who in turns writes in such a way that another novice will understand. For the novice will include things that the expert may take for granted for they know that already and would assume that everyone would know.

Just my take on this.

[Madman Lighting]

Question for the poster: How much electronics do you actually know?

None, Some, The Basics?

Try going to a local tech college and take a course or two on Basic Electronics or visit Amazon.com and buy a text on the subject.

The basics aren't that hard, its learning how to use them can be tricky and then there's the subtlties like tolerances that too many schools dont cover.

How about this: To get started you really need to know "The Basics", which I would list as:

Ohm's Law, how to calculate Power, Battery Basics, and Basic Tools like multi-meters and of course, soldering. That should get you up and running.

Good luck!

-John C.

[jwrjr]

Unless you plan to get exotic with lighting effects, the basics (leds, ohm's law, etc.) are all you really need to do model lighting.