Where are the electronics?

[Martin Shoebridge]

LOL , no, it was after that.( I think) ........cluck cluck... sorry, I meant click click.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Johan Bach 1]

Hi Guys

                I,m a new sign up for this thread which is old, but I must comment. I have been in the electronics business all my life, and the comments that everything is so cheap just is not the point. The main point here for sure is the fact that guys do enjoy making gismos and getting a kick out of just seeing the thing work!  Ok, accept the fact that we can't actually build the radio link any more because of the licence of acceptance standards won't allow it, but come on!! surely a few good men can come up with ciruits and programmes for things like "pic" controllers to help with , say retract sequencers, voltage detectors, flap deployment, Electric motor controllers and so on and so on.  Where has all the good thinking gone? There are producers of plain circuit boards in small economic batches that comply to the new Rhos requirements, so there's no real excuse, is there. Yesteryear, I built a few Harry Brooks proportional radio kits for folks, Digi Trios etc etc, and they all sold well. I believe the only firm left selling gismo kits now is Micro Radio, it's good stuff too! 

             Well, that's my ramble for today, so cheereo, Johan

[Tim Mackey]

hi Johan, and welcome to the forum

I think you make an excellent point, and as you are in the business... how's about you get the ball rolling and send me something which I could put up on the forum - if it gets appro - then it might ndeed make the magazine too

[Richard Sharman]

Johan has beat me to the punchline -- nobody in the electronics world actually solders components together anymore! Yes, like others, I've done it in the past - built calculators, a computer, control devices etc, but it's just not on these days - the complexity and miniaturisation needed is beyond anything achievable in the home.

However, there is one saving grace -- electronic device building is all about programming these days, and programming a PIC is a cottage industry.  You need to go to a readily available package system (e.g. a BASIC STAMP) which you plug into your laptop and re-program.  Then a few natty connections and hey presto a new device is up and running.  This particular device specialises in servo control related tasks (for use in Animatronics toys/gadgets).  I've programmed these to do servo sequencing, fancy servo control functions,  even a throttle-balancer for synchonising engines in a twin (BN Islander).

For my money RCME could re-invigorate the E with some articles on measuring/monitoring/controlling devices using programmable controllers - with the emphasis on swapping/selling programs not solder boards!

[Johan Bach 1]

Hi Timbo,

                 Nows there's a flinging down of the gauntlet if ever I saw one! I will have a go at something over the next few months, pour more claret into the grey matter and THINK about it, but something should emerge. Never thought of doing it myself but I'll give it a go(hunting around looking for that electronic CAD disk). You might ask some other guys as well, and perhaps we can come up with an ideas pool or something, maybe an expertise exchange too! What a good idea you have there Timbo.

 All the best for now , Johan 

[Tim Mackey]

look forward to it Johan

[Johan Bach 1]

Hi Guys,

              Just read Richards email, and he right on the button. individual soldering is OUT. The new regulations outlaw any solder containing LEAD. This has resulted in newer jointing compounds that require extremely high temperatures for very short shots in order not to damage the internals of the device being put into service. We can design the boards around the components, use "slot in" chips, so only the carriers are mounted on the board. The fun then comes from Richards comments that you then do your own program around a basic building block. You see Timbo, you have started the "exchange" going already!

 That really is the last of my epistles for today! All the best, Johan

[Martin McIntosh]

Leaded solder is only outlawed for commercial use and is otherwise freely available.

[Johan Bach 1]

Hi guys,

               I just love one liner smart alecs, again, the point is missed! we can't make up minature intellegent PC boards by hand, so the point is????    Come on Martin,  Nuff said. 

                                                  All the best, Johan

[Tim Mackey]

I think Martin was only pointing out the fact that lead free solder does not in itself preclude the opportunity for people to still have a good 'ol tinker with the veroboard and soldering iron!

I didnt see it as a "smart alec" comment, and feel thats a rather harsh criticsm there Johan

[Martin Shoebridge]

 I can design and make boards..... soldering SM chips is no big deal.Leaded or unleaded is no problem. Unleaded is nowhere near as bad as stated above. It just needs a slightly higher temperature to melt, not a welding gun.....

Personally I favour Atmel AVrs...... but PICs are ok is you're a software sadist

If anyone has ideas/projects, I'm happy to design PCBs and make production runs etc on a semi commercial basis. 

[Johan Bach 1]

Hi Guys,

               Ok point taken Timbo, I'll just slink away and think some more, did'nt mean to offend guv, honest!  Trouble is, I'm caught up in this solder or "attatchement" technology in industrial law now for a while and even domestic soldering will go through some pretty radical changes in the next couple of years. This is due to the powers that be have decreed that what is now considered ok, because of their great fear of toxicity in materials, won't be in their view. Just passing on what I have to do a lot of the time folks. Don't get me wrong, it's not illegal to use certain stuff, it's just outlawed by regulation and as such the manufacturers of Adhering materials are having to instigate some pretty radical research into product.  Nuff waffle, I may just take Martin up on his offerof a few boards etc.  Best wishes on double bended knees, Johan

[Lee Burke]

Hmm,  What are anglers going to use as for their fishing weights if lead becomes a banned substance - and, by extension, what are we going to use as ballast then?  Go to the tyre-fitters for weights, but they won't be allowed to use lead either.  We'll have to use rocks, I guess.   Progress back to the Stone Age 

[Martin McIntosh]

I too am involved with industrial law and thank Timbo for his moderation. I also accept the apology from Johan. You cannot just plug a chip into a socket. Somewhere along the line you have to connect wires to it! If you want to look at a really simple project just google `servo slow`. The slight problem is that you will require a PIC programmer and a little technical knowledge to be able to use it.

 Martin (smart Alec) McIntosh.

[Richard Sharman]

It's great to have a contact like Martin who can make boards up, and I don't want to stop anyone playing around with veroboard and discrete components - but I just re-iterate my comment that it's quite hard (and possiby expensive) to compete with state-of-the-art commercial offerings, whereas plugging together sub-assemblies and providing the programming "glue" is within the scope of your average computer/electronics/physics student at least, and therefore likely to appeal to a wider audience. 

 At our local 6th-form college students are doing this sort of thing for A-level projects, and it's required at some University undergraduate courses,  so it isn't beyond the level of skill that a considerable proportion of the model flying fraternity could aspire to.  Naturally, some(most) won't, but then there are lots of things in the model flying field that I wouldn't dream of doing. We all have our own interests and specialities, and programming is one of mine, so it was natural for me to emphasise that.   

PS, I had to buy some solder today at Maplins and could only get lead-free solder -- sign of the times!

[Martin Shoebridge]

LOL go to B&Q they have ( last time I looked ) 60/40 leaded solder.........  I agree, about 99% of gadgets now need software to make them work.The Electronics /hardware side is the easy part. The 'smartness' comes from the inginuity of the programmer. I also think that most avenues of our hobby are covered by the likes of Hobby City. If they don't do it, there's probably not a lot of demand for it..... so any new ideas are really hard to find for commercial ventures. But there are niche markets ( fishing buzzers) where ther is still a bob or two to be made. Engine synchronisers is another....

Competing with state of the art stuff ( from China) is entirely possible. There are always plenty of patriotic people that would rather buy from a (reputable) UK company , than save a few bucks by buying from China/HK.

[Johan Bach 1]

Hi guys,

             Thanks everone, sackcloth and ashes duly removed, but getting back to the original point before we all fall down this great side issue chute of SOLDER, it's just designing, programming, and just getting a great kick out of that fact that whatever we make just works , and if it works repeatedly and reliably, then that's an even greater bonus. It really does'nt matter if we use plug ins, stuck on chips and bitsor whatever, the real thing is heres something a bit different, we knocked it up ourselves and look, I've got one in my kite! I also think before we all get distracted is the fact that we need good ideas from which to go foreward with this kind of exercise, creative stuff etc, that is the real nub of my original thoughts.when I answered the original thread.  Best wishes to you all, Johan 

[Johan Bach 1]

 Hi again guys,

                          Second epistle for this evening, just read Richar Sharmans letter(my isp seems to be a bit behind today) and of course he's right about the wider audience we really ought to be reaching out to. This is just my opinion mind, but I think the mag ought to look at this issue too, as the number of young people now entering the hobby are fewer. I tend to notice that the mag seems to be biased toward the established older readership, which of course is good, and there's alot of very good stuff in it but there is a yawning gap that says that it not successfully reaching the youngsters. Maybe Richards' ideas could be taken further and with projects as proposed, pull em in perhaps. The hobby is slowly becoming like me , toothless and aged and we really need to change all that with electronic projects to get a wider age group interested. Just my opinion as I said, but it needs addressing for sure. Anyone agree?  Best wishes  Johan. 

[Tim Mackey]

I am not sure I agree about the readership profile Johan - there are a LOTof articles and features of what I would call the 3D and fun-fly type of model, and in my experience these are generally flown by the so called younger generation modeller ( IE under 50! ). I think as far as the general profile of R/C modellers as whole, then I agree that it is difficult to attract the younger peeps into it, and this is down to many factors discussed many times over the years......

Anyhow....I am aware that this thread is drifting off topic, so I will stop

[Mike Hawkins]

I think I might belong to the younger generation (I'm 17) and I think the magazine is great. I read pretty much every article before the next issue comes out, it's better than studying and I might learn something interesting that I can use even if the particular article isn't of that much interest to me. I find the building articles a particularly interesting part of the magazine. The Wizard of Oz is excellent - he is an amazing man.

I think more electronics stuff in the magazine would be great, not just because electronics interests me, but because it's something you can put together from something that doesnt really look like much - a number of compenents become something increadibly useful in the same way a pile of balsa can become a beautiful scale warbird. The other day I built a capacitor from alluminium foil and baking paper, it worked, sort of, the charge was held for a few seconds then leaked away, but I felt real happy because I had made something you can buy in the shops from "scratch". Who cares if you can buy it for less and it does more, when someone asks you at the field where you got a particular gadget from you can feel proud when you say you made it.

[Richard Sharman]

Good on you, Mike! That's the spirit, and I think there are more like you -- we see quite a few young(er) fliers at our site as well as the (er) over 50's (like me).  I think the magazine tries very hard to cater for new comers, and younger people as well as old.  I particularly liked the FlyCamOne article, and the FPV article which I think are subjects of separate threads.

So we seem to be agreed that more "electronic-y" articles could be a "good thing", and I detect some support(?) for programming (semi-)intelligent controllers rather than traditional single-purpose circuit builds.  What we need now is a list of topics that might be good projects, and then we focus our grey matter (such as it is) on generic ways to build a gadget that might do something useful.  Here is a starter list (and I am aware that some parts of these already addressed in other products):

1. intelligent failsafe device (doesn't just dump the model somewhere)
2. lost model locator (helps find the dumped model)
3. stall warning indicator to pilot (especially on landing approach)
4. flight advisor to pilot (speed, direction, range, height etc out of limits)
5. intelligent noise meter (detects average, peak, low noise levels, number of models, etc)
6. flight line weather station (gives alerts if wind, gusts, etc exceptional)

I can think of loads more, but what do others think?  I know that loggers, like Eagle Tree, do some of these functions, as I used them, but they could surely be improved on?

Richard

[Martin McIntosh]

An undercarriage door sequencer would be of particular interest to me at the moment. I know that you can buy them, but would get much more satisfaction from making one, perhaps from a couple of simple 555 timers?

[Johan Bach 1]

Hi Guys,

               Thanks Timbo and Richard, Nuff said then, I'll take your good counselling, Best wishes Johan

[Martin Shoebridge]

A sequencer would be a nice project as it has several possible uses, not only undercarriage sequencing...