16 Mar 2008, 2:04 pm
as much as I like electronics I never have had any time to assemble any circuits from kits before despite the fact I can easily buy the needed kits from Maplin Electronics (we don't have RadioShack here)
maybe I should look in the catalogue and see what they have in there, I always have a catalogue 
alienesque
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 27 Feb 2008
Age: 59
Gender: Male
Posts: 67
Location: Houston, TX
25 Mar 2008, 8:19 am
Forget the Radio Shack kits and buy an S-Dec prototype board, and the components you need to experiment on that. Come to think of it forget over-priced Radio Shack and order your components online for dirt cheap (always check the shipping costs though). There's also strip board which is dead easy to use and make real soldered circuits, tools needed are a cheap soldering bolt (King Dollar for $1) and a braddle (or old philips) to break particular shorts on the strip board. Loads of free and simple interesting circuits can be downloaded online. Great thing about strip board is that you can box your simple projects and that's that. Also check out magazines which have projects (not as good as they used to be) often though you can order the pcb from the magazine and build on it from there.
Trust me I did Electronic Engineering at University... That was before I went off and learned something useful. 
alienesque
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 27 Feb 2008
Age: 59
Gender: Male
Posts: 67
Location: Houston, TX
25 Mar 2008, 8:38 am
maybe I should look in the catalogue and see what they have in there, I always have a catalogue
Look also at the IC's some of them come with little suggested printed circuits in the Maplins catalogues, which if you buy the other components can be easily built into useful things like eg. Stereo FM IPOD Transmitters etc.. etc.. Fun projects.
