All posts by Jeff

Electrical engineer, tinkerer, maker.
Events

Come see me at NOTACON

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naclogo_small

NOTACON is a conference dedicated to the intersection of technology, community, and creativity.  NOTACON takes place from April 16th-19th, at the Wyndham Cleveland at Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland.

This will be my first trip to NOTACON, where I’ll be talking about Hacking the Asus WL-520gU Wireless Router.  My presentation will be largely based on what I learned from building my Wifi Radio project, including a bunch of things that never made it into the blog.  It should be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to meeting some cool people and exchanging ideas.

blockparty

This year, NOTACON also features Blockparty, North America’s longest currently running demoparty. If you have been around personal computers for the last 25 years, chances are you have been exposed to the demoscene.  This is your chance to see a real demo competition, in person, without traveling to Europe!

Last year, Jeri Ellsworth presented an amazing talk about creating demos with FPGAs.  Thanks to the NOTACON media archives you can watch a video of her talk.  Definitely check it out!

Advance registration is open, and as far as cons go these days, NOTACON is a pretty good bargain at $75 for basic registration.

Books and Resources

Forrest Mims Engineer’s Mini-Notebooks

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Engineer's Mini-Notebook

I previously posted about Forrest M. Mims III’s Getting Started in Electronics, one of the best books out there for someone who wants a thorough, yet unintimidating introduction to electronic components and circuits.

From the mid-1980’s through the late 1990’s, Forrest Mims also published several mini-notebooks, each dedicated to a specific topic in electronics.  Each mini-notebook contains 50 pages of circuits, electronic concepts, and project ideas.

The complete set includes:

  • 555 Timer Circuits
  • Basic Semiconductor Circuits
  • Communications Projects
  • Digital Logic Circuits
  • Environmental Projects
  • Formulas, Tables, and Basic Circuits
  • Magnet and Sensor Projects
  • Op-amp IC Circuits
  • Optoelectronic Circuits
  • Schematic Symbols, Device Packages, Design and Testing
  • Science Projects
  • Sensor Projects
  • Solar Cell Projects

I had a few of the originals when I was growing up and wish I had kept more of them.  I specially remember reading the Optoelectronics Circuits Mini-Notebook in High School.  I attempted to build the optical communicator entirely with parts from Radio Shack, which was very difficult 15 years ago, and would be pretty much impossible today!

Updated/compiled versions of the notebooks are available on Forrest Mims’ website, but many of the originals can be found used for less than a few bucks each on amazon.com.