.TT<P=3 .TD<C=top .IMG,/RSFLIP-Breadboard_300.jpg
.IMG,/MotorBrushComparison_300.jpg .TD<C=top I have been an electronics hobbyist since the early sixties and a computer programmer since the late sixties. I've been involved with what we now call PCs since the earliest days of IMSAI and Altair microcomputer kits. Back then you had to be pretty serious to to get involved. You didn't have to be an engineer, but it helped. At minimum you had to be committed to thinking and learning like an engineer and be willing to invest significant amounts of time and money to do anything. Boy, things have changed.
Anyone who remembers the old days recognizes that computers have become amazingly powerful, cheap and easy to use. Heck, they have become amazingly more capable just in the last few years, let alone the last few decades. The vast majority of intense computer users today have just about no engineering focus.
I started Hobby Engineering to help people get involved in the electronics and robotics hobbies. As the name implies, I was mainly interested in engineering focused activities. The business got off to a pretty healthy start during the growth spurt of hobby robotics. Times change, technology changes and people's interests change. The business and market today are much different than they were nine years ago when I started. The number of people in electronics hobbies seems to be growing rapidly for the first time in decades, but what they are creating for the most part is not conventional technology. While there are still numbers of people involved to build their engineering expertise, lots of other are just involved to have fun and make things happen. They are looking for modules to snap together quickly rather than components to master. Engineering is a necessary part of the process, but many newcomers care primarily about the final product they are building rather than the technology they are using.
I was slow to recognize the shift but I think its finally sunk through my thick skull and that I still have some unique contributions to make to this new market. On the other hand, I started Hobby Engineering to encourage science learning and I am not sure that all this building helps that. There is some significant value in getting people to play with this technology, but tinkering with circuits is not the same as engineering or understanding them. I don't intend to loose sight of the engineering part of this business. Hopefully I can find a balance that keeps this a viable business, which requires a certain level of mass market success, while also encouraging people to dig into the hard engineering needed to advance the technology.
The first picture on the left is a motor control circuit for simple applications where you want things to go back and forth. It can be wired either for continuous back and forth operation or to require a button press to start each pass. It is a handy function for interactive dioramas or model railroading animations as well as simple industrial automation. I will soon have it on the site with a working scissor-lift model.
A lot of my business has to do with motors. At one level they seem so simple, but the farther in you dig, the more complex they can seem. I am working on a little motor tutorial, so I've been digging. The second picture on the left shows some of what I've dug up. The details of interest are the brushes. They vary significantly. The first has dainty little brushes. It might not be clear in this picture, but a good part of the apparent thickness is lubricant. The last looks pretty industrial. There is a difference! I'll post more later.
Please check back and please shop at Hobby Engineering.
Thanks for reading. -- Al