/diy/ - Do It Yourself

You will have to look for really old stuff due to the smaller components used in modern appliances.

>i got an a in physics so i should be able to solder.

lol over compensate much?

>>30165
>i got an a in physics so i should be able to solder.

this may be true as long as you dont have parkinson's or drink too much coffee this morning.

>>30165
My point wasn't that I could solder but that I already know about the relationships between voltage, amperage, wattage, resistance, etc. I know how capacitors and resistors work, I know the difference between circuits in parallel and series. I don't know why you attacked me for giving the readers an idea of how much prior knowledge I have so I can get answers that are valuable to me.

>>30180
i didnt attack you, its just silly non relevant info. you think the kiddies modding thise xbox's would know a pire circle if it imprinted itself on their forheads?

Fuck buying broken stuff to scavenge for parts, buy faulty LCD TVs, repair them and sell them on - you'll find tons of them on eBay.

Most TVs made (roughly) 3 years ago by companies like LG, Samsung and Toshiba use leaky capacitors in their power supplies, they swell up and gradually lose their capacitance, rendering the TV inoperative.

Usually you'll see the remarks "The TV used to switch on but switched itself off after a few minutes, eventually this became less than a second until it didn't work at all".

Buy larger than 32" TV to make sure you're not stuck with them - pay less than £40, add £3 for the electrolytics - and half an hour's work later you'll have a TV to bump onto Craigslist for £100.

junkyards, garage sales

I realize it's beyond you because you already know how to create circuits, but I would start with some soldering kits. The components won't have to be salvaged so you have a little more mistake room as far as leads as well as having to worry less about accidentally bridging things.

http://www.electronickits.com/kit/complete/complete.htm has a good list of kits, but you can Google "soldering iron kit" and find something interesting.

>>30213

Oh, meant to add - macbooks too. Not so much profit in these since you'll have to buy complete assemblies (or other macbooks for parts) from somewhere to repair them but once you have a few contacts (look up BGA reballing on eBay) you'll get better prices for repair work.

>>30233
So wait, if I understand this correctly, if I were to buy this:

http://www.electronickits.com/kit/complete/meas/ck105.htm

then I get parts of a multimeter and then built the multimeter myself? That's pretty cool and would actually be useful to me after I finished.

>>30149
I got an A in physics too bro. Circuits were probably the most interesting thing we covered to me. I have a conceptual grasp of it, but I'd like to learn more. It's a good thing to be knowledgeable about.

>>30255

Yup, you buy the kit and it comes with what you need sans iron and solder.

If you've never touched a soldering iron before though, I'd recommend something closer to the Stairway to Heaven game. Much less expensive if you mess up and there's more space on the board for mistakes.

>>30149
>>29821

I used to fix appliances, you won't find anything wrong in the PCB area. It'll mostly be like lid switches, relays, compressors, the whole motherboard of a fridge, stupid pastic pieces that connect the motor to a transmission. I wouldn't try to fix appliances, shit is WEAK as fuck.

If you are serious don't buy shitty tools.

You can get a lifetime supply of basics components for a few bucks on ebay. Spending hours to scavenge 2$ of resistors and capacitors is a massive waste of time.

TBH Just get an arduino and decide on a project. You should be able to figure out pretty much anything with the internet.

I hate to sound like an advertisement, but if you need cheap components, futurlec.com is very cheap. They can take ages to ship though, so that's the downside. But if you only need one 220uf capacitor, they will ship you just one 220uf capacitor which is fucking amazing.
I don't think they sell soldering irons though. there's some store near me called harbor freight tools, and they have 25W soldering irons for 4 bucks that are cheap chinese shit, but mine has worked ok for me so far. Ive been considering trying to run one off reduced power to try to get it to run at a low temp like 230F

The iron I got was the Kakko 936. It's fantastic, gets super hot very very quickly and is cool to the touch. I think I got it for like 80 bucks.

http://www.hakkousa.com/detail.asp?PID=1250&Page=1

Get a decent soldering station. It'll pay for itself quickly in terms of time saved & fewer damaged components as you learn.

>>31090

The 936 is cheap as fuck now that the FX-888 is out to replace it. You can find them under $50 now.

Don't worry about support for it; Hakko will still honor their warranty and still makes replacement parts for them.

>>31090
And of course I now notice I wrote Kakko instead of Hakko...

>>31103
Awesome, good to know.

>>31103
Also, just looked at the FX-888. Man that thing looks stupid...

>>31131

Hahaha I know right? It looks like a Fisher Price toy.

That said, it has a smaller footprint and better power/thermal characteristics compared to the 936. Heatup is faster and it holds the element temperature better. Also I approve of the tip cleaning wool coming standard.

Can't stack 'em like you can the 936 if you're running multiple workstations on the same bench though.

>>31143
That's true. When I got my 936 I got one of these with it. Best purchase ever.

>>30149
so hakko pretty good i also heard there was this good german brand of soldering iron have no clue on the name but am looking for an upgrade of my shit radio shack iron ive been leggin along for years

I am pretty good at electronics and a have an advanced grasp about how things work.
I got an A in physics also BUT the stuff i learned in physics was absolutely no help when applying theories and the like constructing circuits. If you want to learn about electronics, the best thing to do is read up about ELECTRONICS. Physics II really only skims the surface of what you need to know.

>>31304

The problem with trying to apply hard physics to electronics is that ideal situations never apply, and if you try to apply Maxwell's equations to everything you're doing, you'll never get anything done (and components won't conform anyway).

You basically need to learn the physics "shorthand" of tolerances/specifications and electronics formulas in order to have practical application.