KIts vs Scratch-Built
erco
Posts: 20,259
I almost posted this in the thread about the new dual relay board kit, but decided to start this new thread/rant:
I gotta be honest... I'm flabbergasted how many positive responses are to the new relay board kit. First, I'm sure it's a wonderful product and a great first kit. Hey, I love & use relays more than anyone here. They are simple and bulletproof. Are there actually Forumistas who have been wanting/needing a relay board but couldn't build it themselves? You guys are all much smarter than me. Mechanical relays are as simple as it gets, and there is no shortage of info in this forum and online elsewhere.
I'm a scratch builder. Mechanical and electronic. I'd much rather make my own things by hand. Homemade is ALWAYS better IMHO. You've seen my work: drippy superglue and ugly handwired point to point wiring is a plus. Cheaper better faster custom, etc. I know I'm in the minority, but I much prefer digging up the necessary info online and/or from old paper books (Forrest Mims rocks) and scrounging up the parts. The thrill of the Ebay hunt. And learning.
It seems that when most people say they like DIY and "building things", they actually mean they like building a kit. A sealed box containing beautifully etched PC boards, neatly bagged parts and detailed instructions. I understand that convenience has its place, but I really encourage people to dive in, get their hands dirty. And FAIL. That's how you learn. This forum is the perfect place to ask questions and figure out how to do something, anything. Geniuses prowl these forums, that's why I keep coming back!
EOF (end of flabbergastedness)
PS: If & when Ken, Chris, and Matt ever give me a relay board, I might take it but I REFUSE TO LOVE IT! I really hate eating my own words.
I gotta be honest... I'm flabbergasted how many positive responses are to the new relay board kit. First, I'm sure it's a wonderful product and a great first kit. Hey, I love & use relays more than anyone here. They are simple and bulletproof. Are there actually Forumistas who have been wanting/needing a relay board but couldn't build it themselves? You guys are all much smarter than me. Mechanical relays are as simple as it gets, and there is no shortage of info in this forum and online elsewhere.
I'm a scratch builder. Mechanical and electronic. I'd much rather make my own things by hand. Homemade is ALWAYS better IMHO. You've seen my work: drippy superglue and ugly handwired point to point wiring is a plus. Cheaper better faster custom, etc. I know I'm in the minority, but I much prefer digging up the necessary info online and/or from old paper books (Forrest Mims rocks) and scrounging up the parts. The thrill of the Ebay hunt. And learning.
It seems that when most people say they like DIY and "building things", they actually mean they like building a kit. A sealed box containing beautifully etched PC boards, neatly bagged parts and detailed instructions. I understand that convenience has its place, but I really encourage people to dive in, get their hands dirty. And FAIL. That's how you learn. This forum is the perfect place to ask questions and figure out how to do something, anything. Geniuses prowl these forums, that's why I keep coming back!
EOF (end of flabbergastedness)
PS: If & when Ken, Chris, and Matt ever give me a relay board, I might take it but I REFUSE TO LOVE IT! I really hate eating my own words.
Comments
How much I buy pre-built versus what I DIY depends upon my goal. Sometimes the learning is in the doing, sometimes it is a subordinate step to a large goal and I just want to move past it. For example do I want to learn about building encoders or do some odometry?
Real men do BOTH!
And that board's a beaut! Well done.
OBC
I think builders should learn the basics by doing, but that doesn't mean everything can or should always be home built. Young kids shouldn't be using the table saw to make their projects, and mom or dad isn't always available to help. As I've gotten older my eyesight and dexterity have gotten worse. I can no longer solder as well as I could in my youth, and anything but simple hookups usually end in frustration. So I find myself looking for proven and reliable circuit boards I can just snap in place. That allows me to concentrate on things I didn't have used to have time for.
Do keep in mind Parallax and other companies like them cater to professional prototypers. Time is money, and all that. It's usually cheaper for someone to buy a $50 or $100 board than do it themselves, and then have to charge their client more money for a less "respectable" end product.
-- Gordon
Just for fun, I'm thinking of a Stamp triggering a 20 mA reed relay directly, which turns on a larger intermediate relay, which turns on a starter relay, and so on and so on...
Is this "scratch" enough for you?
:cool:
Bring it on, Forumistas! What have YOU built from scratch?
I will reference an earlier thread of mine about building your own Stamp board & cable, and by golly there are 6 of my favorite RELAYS on the board! : http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?125692-BYO-Board-amp-Cable
...and Sir - did you notice the only pre-built item in the foreground?
That's where I opted to not build it from scratch and buy a known-working item!
So what does that thing DO?
Now for something that I need more than one of, I am a Cupric Chloride junkie and etch my own. If it is something production level, I will use a board house. Other than that, nothing beats a hot soldering iron, and using nipped leads from parts to wire traces. It is not the easiest way to do things, but again.. pride and bragging rights.
I got my start when I was about 8 years old, and with my meager allowance I picked up just about every book by Mr. Mims III that I could find. "Getting Started in Electronics" was my bible. Radio Shack was my candy store. That along with a handful of parts, I had relay timers, 4017 10 LED chasers, all of that working in no time. And I am not afraid to admit that I have let the magic smoke out of many, many parts in my day, but I learn from it, and that is something that you cannot get from a kit. You may see that you fried that transistor you just put in the PCB wrong, but knowing why comes with the build it yourself technique so much better.
And that is the best part. It gave me a real understanding of the things that are going on, and the experience has been crucial to what I do for a living now. I never finished college, but experience is sometimes much better than learning something in a classroom setting that you are going to forget. And for the most part, that is just something you cannot get from a kit.
One time I bought a Graymark Kit.. it was a little robot that had a keypad that you could program. I built it up, and was bored with it. I right away tried to figure out how I could make it better, and began re-wiring the motor outputs, adding bigger motors from toys I ripped apart.. and used it in a science fair project. Yep. I did get an award for that one.
But I am done rambling... sorry guys. I am just really passionate about this topic. There is no better way to learn in my opinion, and my hat comes off to those that still stick to the "hard way".
That's true, but in perspective, things like relay boards are very unsexy to hand-build -- I rank them only slightly above homebrew audio amplifier circuits, which I HATE building -- and they've been offered commercially for years. I think Velleman has had a couple for the last 20 years or so. (They're kits, so it's home brew to a point, but also really little more than soldering exercises.)
I'll still prefer to build my own robots over buying a ready-made one, but I wouldn't want to have to wire up my own Z80 (or whatever) CPU board like we used to have to. Buying a ready-made BS board, or Propeller, or whatever is now the accepted standard. I don't miss all the wire-wrapping, and instead I use the time to construct projects I never thought I'd be able to do. My own MIDI-enabled musical instruments made from Goodwill housewares junk? Who'dathunkit? The MCU, MIDI board, amp, and speakers are all commercially made. I don't think that detracts from the learning experience.
-- Gordon
HAHAHAHAHA!!!! I did that one for a HiPot tester! Ran a BS2 to a transistor, to a relay, to another VERY high isolation relay, and VIOLA! 3000 VAC 5 channel switching station! AND it controls the HiPot tester to the level of loading set voltage programs and delay, switching it all correctly, and stopping when pass or fail flags are hit. The biggest problem was operators were getting bored because there was nothing for them to do, and they were falling asleep.
...... and I built it by hand.
I have learned a lot from these forums and from a few individuals in particular - for that I am grateful. I am still a member of the "kit crowd" I suppose.
Paul
I respectfully disagree. I love the lights & sound shows of relays (and their indicator LEDs) tinkling in the night. Especially this one:
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?137835-Wood-Relays-and-a-BS2
Speaking of strange applications, I wonder if anyone has purposely, intentionally set out to create a "magic smoke releaser"...!
Maybe it's the fear of releasing magic smoke which stops many DIYers in their tracks.
Got in trouble as a kid cutting xmas lights off of the string, plugging them into a switched outlet in the garage of a friend of mine, hitting the switch just to watch them explode. Was fun till his dad noticed we were popping breakers in the house panel. Does that count?
But that's USING the relays, not building the thing. There are far more videos of the finished product than the construction process.
The ultimate DIYer here is MattG, who's nearly single-handedly built some half-dozen houses, including (as I understand it) the one he and his family live in now. I applaud his skill -- and strong back and knees -- but I'm not sure we should all build our own houses. Some people are just better at doing different things, and so that's why we have pre-built products. I was happy to buy my house from a professional home builder. That in turn freed my time to make something someone else bought. And so the cycle goes.
-- Gordon
I'm still amazed by those who really start from basics ... there's one YouTube video out there showing a hobbyist making his own vacuum tubes ... rare craftmanship there.
We were contractors on our house, designed it (had a draftsman draw up the plans), did a bunch of the work ourselves...I guess that's more like a kit....a BIG kit with lots of pieces!
Brother E, I don't like to buy manufactured pens or pencils either!
The great thing today is that there is a wide variety of powerful but low cost micro controller boards out there for under a $100 and many under $50 or even $30.
BTW, I don't do SMT work, so maybe I'm not as good as I thunked. But for 0.100" perfboard & DIP sockets, I'm yer huckleberry!
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?131537-Propeller-Material-Control-and-Data-Collections
This I had the pcbs made(it had alot of smt parts)
I prefer to do it all myself; that way I only have myself to blame.
Haha. Not refuting actually (or is that refuting your claim of refuting??), as there's certainly value in learning by doing. No question.
But I try to steer away from making these kinds of endeavors into "clubs of acceptance" -- if you don't do X a certain way, then you can't really be enjoying it. I'm sure that's was not what you meant to say, but I wanted to point out everyone comes into this with different skills, expectations, and goals. I like to encourage involvement no matter what the level.
I'll point out RBB is very much like this, in fact. It makes no demands or assumptions that you're going to approach the subject in any particular way. The funnel is pretty wide at the top, to scoop up as many people as possible. Small nets catch fewer fish, knowwhatimean?
-- Gordon
Fantastic point. I sympathize with those out there that have the failing hands, eyes that can no longer do the fine pitch stuff, and other ailments that come with age. I know for a fact that someday I will be in the same boat. I am only in my early 30's now, so It is coming... just not yet (I really hope). But if one has the ability and the time to do some things the hard way, the experience cannot be beat. Kind of like a "rite of passage". Gotta run your laps before you get your scooter.
I typically prototype circuits on solderless breadboards. But since I like for my final creations to look nice ("Seriously, THIS came out of THAT messy shop?") as well as to function, I tend to shun point-to-point wiring when I can and anything that has to be hacksawn, filed, nibbled, sheared, or punched, in favor of having my PCB designs fabbed and doing the mechanical work on my CNC mill or laser cutter. I realize that that's trading craft for technology, but I'd much rather do the design work onscreen with a CAD system that on the workbench with pencil, combination square, and hole punch. There's probably a mercenary incentive to this preference, in that I'm always thinking towards making something I build into a product. It works out that way in a minority of cases, though.
-Phil
Whilst I am very sympathetic to the idea that everyone should have have some basic idea about physics, electronics, chemistry, biology etc etc and, importantly, how stuff is made I have to ask "where do you draw the line?"
In this case you are complaining that people would rather buy a ready made relay board rather than assemble one out of parts. But what about the relay itself? I might propose that you are rather lazy if you are not winding your own solenoid coils, on solenoids you have hand forged yourself with wire drawn by your own home made machine from copper you have dug from the ground an purified yourself. And so on, and so on....
You see where I am going with this.
There are a billion and one processes involved in making even the simplest things. I would like everyone living in this modern world and enjoying it's benefits to have some idea of how these things come to be. An appreciation of the scale of the problem, the work involved. That does not mean I expect them to be able to build everything from the ground up whenever they need it.
Which touches a nerve with me, on a side issue. From time to time I have met intelligent and educated people who start to talk to me about some famous literary work or other. Eventually I have to admit I have never read such a thing or perhaps never heard of it. At that point they get very shocked at my astounding level of ignorance.
Turn the situation around though and ask them to describe what it takes to make the light come on when they press the light switch and it seems that their total ignorance of how the world works is quite acceptable.
Shocking.
In conclusion, if some relay kit, somewhere, opens the eyes of one child of the intelligentsia to the workings of the real world, I am all for it. But I don't expect them to be digging for copper any time soon:)
Point taken. If my OP sounded like a complaint, I apologize. Wasn't trying to offend or put down kit building. I love Heathkits! My intent was actually to stir up confidence and creativity in order to encourage more people to strike out on their own. Someone said they had been "waiting for such a relay board" and I just think that the "American way" (start National Anthem at low volume, and slowly build to a crescendo) of invention and entrepreneurial spirit might need a jump start (or kick in the pants) on occasion. I actually get ideas by digging through the parts drawers at Radio Shack, wondering "what can I use this for". I'd die a slow, painful death waiting for someone to make kits for all the crazy stuff I want to build.
I guess it's my personal affliction...