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23 January 2004
Dirt Cheap Knowledge
by Mark Streitman
I'm starting my own business (yes, it's science related). I wouldn't have done this without the contacts and support from people in the SAS. The three most important ingredients needed to do this are enthusiasm, knowledge, and, of course, money. I've got plenty of enthusiasm. However, the next two are related. I've gained a lot of knowledge from school, my years of working in industry and lots of reading. But for what I'm doing, I need more knowledge, data, info etc.How does one get knowledge?
By paying for it, of
course. Knowledge doesn't come free, right? Well, maybe!
Now of course, the person
doing the learning has to put the effort into it, but let's review the
prime sources of knowledge:
1) Media (book, video, Internet)
2) School
3) Experience
4) Other people (the SAS is good for this too)
1) Media (book, video, Internet)
2) School
3) Experience
4) Other people (the SAS is good for this too)
It used to be that if you
wanted to learn something you either read a book or took a class. Of course,
both of these tried and true methods still work, but they cost money.
And as I said before, I'm starting a business, so I don't have much money
and would prefer to spend as little of it as possible.
For my project I need to
design some electronic circuits and microcontroller software. I'm a software
engineer, but I have an amateur's level of electronics knowledge. With
this in mind, and because I don't have much money, I've managed to design,
test, program and fabricate a microcontroller-based circuit for very little
cost.
As an amateur scientist,
I know that there are a lot of projects these days that use special computer/electronics
systems to control experiments, collect data or communicate. Weather instruments,
magnetometers, seismographs, microscales, telescope controllers and many
other kinds of instruments can benefit from these kinds of special electronics
systems. Some people use general PCs for this purpose. But PCs are not
right for every time and place. I don't want a PC at the top of a tree
for an experiment that's measuring bird calls, for instance. (I just came
up with this, but it's an interesting idea.)
For the next few articles
in this series, I'm going to write about how to create an electronic/computer
circuit very cheaply. A lot of this effort is about how to acquire the
knowledge and tools to do this for next to nothing.
I'm feeling slightly guilty
about writing this because our new editor is Forrest Mims and he's known
for his electronics books (and they're good books, too). However, there
are a lot of sources for electronic info and knowledge available on the
Internet for free. I'm not saying it is better than Forrest's or other
people's books, but it's out there. I'm not even saying that
the Internet resources are a substitute for a book. Sometime it's nice to have a book in front of you and there is plenty of information that's not on the Internet. However, I was able to get all the information for my project just from free Internet sites.
the Internet resources are a substitute for a book. Sometime it's nice to have a book in front of you and there is plenty of information that's not on the Internet. However, I was able to get all the information for my project just from free Internet sites.
You can too.
If you need to start at the
beginning and have almost no electronics knowledge, you can start here
http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/
This seems like a good site to get some basic information, from the very
basic http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/basics/starting-out.htm
to the slightly more advanced discussions about components http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/basics/basic-electronics.htm
Electronics was my first
order of business. I needed information on electronic parts, circuits
and tools to get the job done. The front end of most science experiments
is going to be analog electronics to interface with sensors, cameras or
other science instruments. These could be homemade instruments or purchased
ones. What's important is that the world we live in is an analog one and
analog circuits are needed.
The king of the analog circuit
is the op-amp. I'm not going to go into op-amp theory. Fortunately there
is another source!
Texas
Instruments is an electronics giant that has been around for ages.
You may know them for their calculators.
I still fondly remember my TI-30
which was the first affordable trig calculator using algebraic notation.
Some of you may have children who are using TI's latest generation of
graphing calculators for high school trig and calculus. TI is also known
for their electronic chips. For our purposes, they have a great site for
free electronics information. All of their on-line
training seems to be free. They even have real seminars in different
towns, some are free and some are pretty cheap at $50. They even have
some nice html based design
guides.
Beyond training they have
a lot of great books and documents for download. Here's a list of all
the documents about op-amps. Including a must have book "Handbook
of Operational Amplifier Applications". It contains theory and lots
of examples of circuits.
If your wondering why so
much information is available for free, the answer is that TI sells chips.
If you put a TI chip in a design, they sell more chips. You can even get
some of their chips for free as samples. Tell them you are interested
in putting their chips into a design. If they think you are a serious
user, they will probably send you some.
I have one more link for
you. If you just want a circuit for some specific purpose, try Discover
Circuits. They claim to have over 7000 circuits listed, including
a lot of sensor
circuits.
In part 2, I'll list some
more electronics resources and some free design tools.
Free
is Good. 
Mark Streitman is the president of the New Jersey chapter of the SAS.
You can reach him at president@njsas.org
Mark Streitman is the president of the New Jersey chapter of the SAS.
You can reach him at president@njsas.org