Replies

It is strange that with all of the electronics that we are now inundated with that fewer and fewer people seem to have a clue how to do anything with the hardware. I do have a couple of eprom programmers and various other equipment and tools, but I have to admit that all that I have ever done is repair stuff and build projects from kits and plans.

I am hoping my next project will be a CNC conversion on a small milling machine. I have a book with plans for building one up from scratch, but will probably get a kit to convert one of the X3 type mills Harbor Freight or Grizzly sells for a few hundred dollars. I always have admired people as creative as it sounds like you are.

I've been building electronics projects since kindergarten. In Scouts, I earned the electricity, electronics and radio merit badges. It wasn't until I graduated from college that I had time to pursue some licensing. I have an Extra Class ham license and First Class Radiotelephone license with Ship's RADAR endorsement (grandfathered to GROL). After grad school, I made a decent living caring for all of the electronics on 180 tuna boats plus base stations, work boats, freighters, naval vessels and pleasure boats. It was good "hands on" experience. I can design to the component level and write firmware to drive the electronics. Writing software for large scale systems is what pays the bills, but I still enjoy building hardware projects. I have PI, PIC and Arduino boards in addition to a few PC104 boards.