Fig. 1 EMB-75B mother board test setup.

Electronics and Technology Built at Home

I have for years dealt in electronics and technology starting far back with vacuum tubes.

I design and build circuits for hobbyists and students and taught electricity, etc. in a local community college.

This was an outgrowth of my interest in applied science. When I say "applied" I mean real world not hypothetical computer modeling.

Over the years I have repaired, salvaged, and repurposed thousands of consumer products, circuit boards, computer gear/scrap, etc. I'm a master scrounger and proud of it.

Fig. 2 IR2110 MOSFET driver based H-bridge DC motor control.

Fig. 3 PC printer port breakout board for robotics.

Fig. 4 Home built Arduino Nano breakout board.

Fig. 5 Home built coil winder with stepper motor, Arduino microcontroller.

Fig. 6 Home built H-bridge DC motor control with PICAXE microcontroller.

Fig. 7 Home built Vacuum tube radio.

See You Tube Channel for more on electronics construction projects. Also see my website Electronics Hobby Projects.

(Above) reusing surplus PC power supplies. They produce high currents at 12V, 3.3V, 5V.

Issues on Connecting MOSFETs in Parallel
Solar Panel Battery Charge Controller Switching Circuit
Design 10-Amp 2N3055 Based Power Switch
H-Bridge Motor Control with Power MOSFETS

Here is a list of my recent videos. I have 252. Some sample videos shown above.

See You Tube Channel for more on electronics construction projects. Also see my website Electronics Hobby Projects.

Issues on Connecting MOSFETs in Parallel
Solar Panel Battery Charge Controller Switching Circuit
Design 10-Amp 2N3055 Based Power Switch
H-Bridge Motor Control with Power MOSFETS

Quick navigation of my homepage:

Exploring Digital Computer Electronics

by Lewis Loflin

This is an offshoot of my website Hobby Electronics. That site was oriented towards building hardware projects such as H-Bridge motor controls or microcontroller circuits with Arduino, Picaxe, and Microchip PICs.

While touched on at my other site, this is dedicated to computers and related electronics. Reusing older computers or what I call "upcycle". What software to use and when. Learning computer hardware. Connecting computers to actual hardware. To use an old computer as a super microcontroller.

A computer as I define it is a complete system usually consisting of a motherboard and attached peripherals - printer ports, serial ports, plug-in cards such as wireless and video, USB ports, external memory, etc. It is a system.

Review older computer mother boards and explain aspects of software and hardware - how they come together.

What can I do with them? Running lite versions of Linux, we can learn programming - python, C/C++, bash files, set up various desktops such as Openbox, Fluxbox, PEKwm, and JWM.

Compile and create C programs to operate hardware connected to printer ports or build a complete plug-in card.

These subjects were touched upon with Raspberry Pi on my electronics website. They apply equally here. See the following:

Example PIC microcontroller on carrier board.
Fig.

A microcontroller often refers today to single board controllers built around a single integrated circuit with internal memory, IO, etc. An example is the control panel on your microwave oven.

Fig. 1 shows an example PIC microcontroller from Microchip Corporations. There are likely hundreds of variations. See my earlier projects. These are done in assembly.

The above video at the top of the page is an example. Learn about computer hardware and how it has changed. To fix, salvage, program vintage machines. Reusing an older system means less e-waste, easier learning curb, and low cost. A lot of us can't afford the latest and greatest.

That 20-year-old Presario still does a lot even with some versions of more modern Linux. I used it for streaming audio, word processing, software design, etc. Yes, it can even operate a CNC machine. The one in the video I got for free.

Linux Videos

Live Linux Distro for Using Printer Port with Electronics
Using the powerful Rox-Filer system in Linux
Use FEH under Linux for a Wallpaper Setter
How to create Symbolic links in Linux

View all of my You Tube Videos
Also visit and subscribe to My YouTube Channel

PuTTY terminal program for Linux, Windows

KIM-1 my first computer in 1977