You don’t see them as often as you used to, but it used to be common to see “electronics trainers” which were usually a collection of components and simple equipment combined with a breadboard, often in a little suitcase. We think [Pro Maker_101’s] portable electronics workstation is in the same kind of spirit, and it looks pretty nice.
The device uses a 3D printed case and a custom PC board. There are a number of components, although no breadboard. There is a breakout board for Raspberry Pi GPIO, though. So you could use the screw terminals to connect to an external breadboard. We were thinking you could almost mount one as a sort of lid so it would open up like a book with the breadboard on one side and the electronics on the other. Maybe version two?
One thing we never saw on the old units? An HDMI flat-screen display! We doubt you’d make one exactly like this, of course, but that’s part of the charm. You can mix and match exactly what you want and make the prototyping station of your dreams. Throw in a small portable soldering iron, a handheld scopemeter, and you can hack anywhere.
We’d love to see something like this that was modular. Beats what you could build in 1974.
For what purpose?
To pass butter.
And this teaches you? what, soldering maybe. large groundplanes are a b1tch to solder if your iron is cheap and small.
I miss the springs, the wires to connect. a screen is fun and a small computer i salute, the effort put in too, but you know what made those old kits awesome? the book, the lessons it teached you.
taught
The irony is astounding here….
*Taut
Taut means stretched tightly.
What irony?, the man used the correct taught. Taut means stretched tightly.
And this teaches you… to enjoy buying cheap and hardly usefuel crap from aliexpress because that opportunity will be gone soon.
For you, if you’re in the US, probably. For the rest of the world, not so much.
Not everyone lives in US. ;-)
But what US tariffs teach us is long term consequences – parts and components for STEM and startups will become pricier (tariffs), on another hand – bigger corporations will not notice it, because it will be either bypassed, or bypassed to the customers.
On a similar note, at least in the U.S. system corporations don’t pay taxes they collect them.
There is always the canadian way. Ask your canadian friend to order from banggood or aliexpress and ship it to the US with the next visitor for the price of free beer.
1980s are calling again, and they remember cuban cigars shipped in a similar roundabaout way. Cuba, btw, is still behind the self-inflicted US Iron Cirtain, but not for the canadians who find it cheaper than Cancun (and safer, too).
If Canada did it for Cuban cigars (and may still be doing for prescription meds) they can become the store front for the world.
Just as airports have Duty Free shops, Niagara Falls could have a Tariff Free Mall.
Gurg…
I really dislike these video where people uses tweezers to put large modules, pretending to be fancy…
As for the content itself, well, at least it’s a portable raspberry pie now.
Not much more to say.
the tweezers match the music.. +1 for using it as a wrench.
I use tweezers in the (few) videos I make – so that my hands don’t get in the way of what I’m filming.
why does a pi need a breakout board? the pin header it has is super easy to work with…ic clips, wire wrap, point-to-point soldering, just pinching solid wire to it with needle nose pliers… i’ve never had any trouble with that kind of connector
It’s pretty, polished and modern.
But as far as I’m concerned, I’m glad to have been grown up with crystal radio sets and electronic construction sets.
Winding coils, wiring connections and finishing chapters in the fascinating manuals were a satisfying experience.
Afterwards you knew that you could built all the components from scratch if you wanted to.
That you could help rebuilding modern civilization through your newly acquired knowledge.
And I really mean from scratch, not modules.
A razor blade or quarz crystal could be used as a detector (diode).
A wrapped aluminium foil or a glass of water with salt and a piece of metal could be a capacitor.
A lemon and a pencil could be your 1v battery, to help powering the diode (to overcome 0,3v or 0,7v min voltage).
You could build your own loudspeaker or headphones using metal cans and other things.
Making fundamental things like conductive wire was probably a challenge, but not impossible, either.
Please ‘splain this to me Lucy. The bits I don’t understand:
– wrapped aluminium foil
– salt water and one piece of metal
– a lemon and a pencil
– metal cans
They glued the boards down? that’s gonna make replacement insane!
Not a fan of the soldering method either.
6/10 for execution. Use screws more, not glue. If you can’t repair it without damaging the enclosure, what’s the point.
I really would like a breadboard. Very useful when testing new ideas.
Reminds me of the Gakken EX-150 Denshi block set I had in my youth.
I miss that kit.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denshi_block, for those who have no idea what I’m talking about.)
Perhaps a board that connects to a Crowview Note via USB might be interesting.
Anyone have any idea what the wireless controller they used was? I really like that form factor of mouse and tiny keyboard in a game controller shape.
My opinion is not very high. The old electronics trainers had things like individual components (gasp) and we’re quite versatile. I suppose this thing can run DOOM, and you could watch a video about an R-C circuit or a transistor on it, so there’s that.
For the keyboard, search ‘mini wireless keyboard’ on they have a ton of them.