A couple of great products for learning basic analog electronics

I came across these two products and wanted to share.


http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/762


http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/652

For less money, you can get just the pcb and build with a few dollars in parts from Tanner’s
http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/761
http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/partsmenu/655

I have just received the two pcb’s from EMSL and they are very high quality boards about 0.100" thick.

The beauty of these two kits is that you can build just about any circuit for a LM555 timer IC or an LM741 Op Amp and replace the IC in the circuit with these board by just wiring them in as if they were the IC. This will then allow you to use our oscilliscopes, signal generators, and power supplies, to actually trace out the signals that are normally hidden within the tiny black box that is an IC. You can really learn how these devices work. The operational amplifier (LM741) is the most basic analog chip around and understanding it is vital to understanding analog electronics. Even before these chips (or even solid state devices) existed vacuum tubes were being used to build up operational amplifiers in much the same way this board uses 3904 and 3906 transistors to build up a working clone of the LM741 op amp.

Before the days of a $0.5 microcontroller, the LM555 timer was the most popular chip for DIY experimenters. It is truly amazing what you can create with just this chip, and a few capacitors and resisters.

@artg_dms I think these kits make great learning tools for you to teach a few classes at DMS!


http://shop.emscdn.com/KitInstrux/741/741_datasheet_revB.pdf
http://shop.emscdn.com/KitInstrux/741/741_principles_RevA104.pdf


http://shop.emscdn.com/catalog/emskits/555/kitv2/555_datasheet_revB.pdf
http://shop.emscdn.com/KitInstrux/555/555_principles_revB3.pdf
http://www.talkingelectronics.com/projects/50%20-%20555%20Circuits/50%20-%20555%20Circuits.html

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One thing that would have been nice is if everything was socketed. But that would have likely increased the cost a lot. I am very guilty of having blown a device or two by inadvertently exceed an ABSMAX. :slight_smile:

With the quality of the board replacing a transistor or resistor is easy. And those are the only types of components on the board. Besides, the complete pcb and components are only about $14

I saw these, and some other crazy cool products from this madman scientist and microcenter. In fact, it seems you can roll up the functionality already compartmentalized in some of the chips for sale out there, make sure there are interfaces to arduino, Pi and the others, and you have yourself a product.

I could think of a number of chips that could be quite useful like this. For example, how about a high speed ADC board? How about a track and hold board? Or a delay line board? How about a board that integrates the three? OK, while we are at it, how about a DSP filtering board? Or FPGA board? CPLD board? The list goes on and on.

How is that board mill doing?

The 555 and 741 boards are pretty cool!

While attending the Bay Area Maker Faire in May, I came across a guy that was selling a 6502 (original microprocessor in the Apple II) discrete logic board. The board would run 6502 code! It looked pretty cool!

http://monster6502.com

Thanks for sharing this. In my early days as a programmer I worked for Harris Corp. I and some EE types plugged an HP in-circuit-emulator (ICE) into the Atari controller like the one in the picture below and essentially copied the games on the ROMs in the game cartridges. We also genned up a little floppy drive to capture and load the games from.

Loved the 6502 instruction set. It was easy to figure out what was going on and hack to put in higher point limits, game cheats etc.

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Another great analog tool is the servenger programmable analog module.
It uses the Anadigm FPAA (Field programmable analog array) to make a board that you can use with the Anadigm designer software to make filters pid loops and custom signal generators.
FPAA link http://www.anadigm.com/fpaa.asp
Servenger PAM http://servenger.com/products/index.htm

The Anadigm designer software is free, so you can download and try it before you decide to spend 200$.