• Book Name: Getting Started with Electronic Projects
• Author: Bill Pretty
• Pages: 176
• Size: 7 MB

Getting Started with Electronic Projects

In this book, I have tried to include something for readers with various skill levels and interests. It contains hardware projects, software projects, and a combination of both. In all cases, I have tried to begin with a simple project and moved on to progressively harder and more complex projects. Depending on your skill level, some projects will take an hour or so to build and some will take longer.

Either way, I hope you will enjoy building the projects as much as I have enjoyed writing about them.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introduction – Our First Project, explains how to practice our soldering and de-soldering skills by building an infrared flash light and head lamp.

Chapter 2, Infrared Beacon, continues with our infrared light project—that is, building an invisible infrared flashing beacon.

Chapter 3, Motion Alarm, explains how to build a simple but effective intruder alarm with the always popular LM555 timer.

Chapter 4, Sound Card-based Oscilloscope, covers the beginning of the combined hardware and software projects. We will be building some hardware. It will allow you to use a USB sound card as a simple but useful oscilloscope.

Chapter 5, Calibrated RF Source, introduces you to the wonderful world of RF when you build a 50 MHz calibrated reference. Useful on its own, it will also be used in the next chapter.

 

Chapter 6, RF Power Meter – Hardware, shows us how to build ourselves a meter capable of measuring RF power at various frequencies. We will avoid most of the layout headaches by using a demo board provided by the manufacturer of the power detector.

Chapter 7, RF Power Meter – Software, explains how to build a BeagleBone Black-based software development system. Then, we will go on to write the software which will not only measure RF power but will also control an external RF attenuator.

Chapter 8, Creating a ZigBee Network of Sensors, covers how to build a wireless security system for your home or office based on the ZigBee RF module.

What you need for this book: What you need will depend on which projects you intend to build. The first four projects can be built with the basic hand tools described in Chapter 1, Introduction – Our First Project. The software referenced in Chapter 4, Sound Card-based Oscilloscope, was tested on an IBM PC-running Windows XP, so you do not need a powerhouse PC or laptop.

The next chapters will require access to some RF test equipment, such as a spectrum analyzer and possibly an RF signal generator. The final chapters will require you to purchase a BeagleBone Black system. Some of the hardware is optional, but it is something I personally found useful. The reader should note that all of the software and hardware for this book was written on a PC running Windows XP.

Who this book is for: This book will hopefully have something of interest to a large variety of electronics enthusiasts, from hams to hackers. I would say that, as long as you have at least intermediate programming and construction skills, you should have no problem completing the projects in this book. All the projects use through-hole parts to make assembly easier. All the files used to construct your own printed circuit boards, as well as all of the code, are available for download from the Packt Publishing website.

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