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Old 13th Nov 2016, 7:55 pm   #1
G6Tanuki
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Default The first circuit you ever built...

Digging back through a box of junk, I came across the first 'serious' bit of electronics I built - a little push-pull audio amp. All 200-milliwatts of it....

OC71 driver transistor, a pair of OC78 as the output stage, LT44 and LT700 transformers. I remember buying all the bits at Walton's in Wolverhampton.

This dates back to around 1969. It still works!
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 8:15 pm   #2
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever buikt...

I think the first serious bit of gear I built was a 160M AM Tx,albeit flying briefly the jolly roger!

Age about fourteen.
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 8:22 pm   #3
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever buikt...

Mine have all long gone, mostly audio attempts at HiFi on a student budget in the early 70's!
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 8:26 pm   #4
G6Tanuki
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever buikt...

I was around 9 when I buil this little amplifier.
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 8:47 pm   #5
stevehertz
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever buikt...

Summat with my Philips EE20 kit. intercom I think, it used two speakers in the dual role of mic and speaker. Loved it to bits. c1965.
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 8:57 pm   #6
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

I also enjoyed the EE intercom.

I think the first independent thing that I built which worked was the Practical Wireless Take 20 'light flasher', basically a relaxation oscillator with one npn and one pnp transistor. I soon worked out that you could reduce the value of the controlling cap, replace the bulb with a speaker, and use it as an audio oscillator.
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 9:04 pm   #7
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

9 is a good age. I built my first kit, a crystal set, around that age after receiving a Tandy 160-in-1 kit the year before.

I'd really have liked the first thing I put together to have been the Heath TV that graced our living room until about 1990, but alas I was merely allowed to observe the construction, hold things because I had small hands, fetch drinks, sticky plasters and populate the swear jar for my father.
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 9:05 pm   #8
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

First proper bit of construction was a 2-metre converter using two ECC81s. Not to any particular design. VFO based not crystal, so it wasn't wonderfully successful.

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Old 13th Nov 2016, 9:15 pm   #9
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever buikt...

My first serious project at 13 years old was the PW Clubman. I completed every modification except the DF application. All holes in the metalwork were drilled using a bace and bit. Dad wouldn't let me use his electric drill. http://www.americanradiohistory.com/...PW-1968-01.pdf

Prior to that I had constructed Morse practice oscillators, test meters, AMU's etc but the Clubman was the first "biggy". Most components from Henry's Radio and payment by postal order.

My Top Band jolly roger TX (6V6 PA and 6V6 modulator) which followed on shortly after the Cubman is on my work bench awaiting health and safety inspection. Who knows how we survived our first mains driven projects!!!?

John G4IJD
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 9:27 pm   #10
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

I had built all of the Philips EE8 and A20 circuits by the age of 9. the same year I spent my pocket money on my first soldering iron a Henley Solon 25W had to go all the way to St Austell to get it.

My long suffering parents took me I remember it was as much of an ordeal for them as me not knowing exactly what I needed. Exactly what was rosin cored savbit solder.

The first successful item was an astable multivibrator using AC126's driving 60mA 6V bulbs I was well proud of it. They flashed at a rate of around a second on and a second off. I think it came from a PE design around 1965.

It was a all built into a rather oversized hardboard case.

Cheers

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Old 13th Nov 2016, 9:41 pm   #11
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

A bit lowly I know, my fourth birthday brought forth a Lego lighting up brick and a torch battery, mother said "I will make a cup of tea and get it going for you". When she got back it was lit.

At school some years later (aged 13 or so) in a science lesson we had to wire up a bulb and battery, it amazed (confused) me that most of my class mates had never done this.

The next thing after the inevitable crystal set was the classic reflex/regen using an OC44 and OC71, I had may hours of fun listening to 'fish phone' on the many incarnations of the set. I used to get many parts from Bambers in Littleport, the surplus shop not the TV one. A very nice chap ran it (A G8 interested in 23cm work, funny how you remember specific things from 40 odd years ago), willing to help us youngsters with free parts every now and again. A five mile bike ride there and the same back, great times!
 
Old 13th Nov 2016, 9:48 pm   #12
TonyDuell
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

Not counting connecting a torch bulb to a battery....

First (serious) circuit I made (with my father's help) -- The radio from the Ladybird book 'Making a Transistor Radio'.

First magazine project I built -- The 2 neon 'Neon Novelty' from Everyday Electronics. At that age I couldn't solder and this was the first project I had seen that was built on 'chocolate blocks'

First 'serious' kit that I assembled -- Science of Cambridge MK14.

Along the way I had built most of the projects in the Philips EE1050/1051/1052 and then EE1003/1004/1005 kits. Along with several other electronic educational kit systems. And the Meccano Elektrakit (electromagnets and bulbs basically).
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 10:19 pm   #13
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

I can't recall exactly what I built at the time, but I was given a Philips Electronic Engineer kit one Christmas (I would have been 8 or 9). I spent hours with it, and remember making a few bulbs light up, and persuading my parents to buy a supplementary stock of resistors and other bits and pieces to replace those lost down the side of the sofa, etc. Happy days.
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 10:34 pm   #14
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

Yes, Philips kit was my first - but I can't remember which circuit I first built. I do remember modifying the MW AM receiver for trawler band by winding a new coil.
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 10:44 pm   #15
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

Quote:
Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell View Post
The next thing after the inevitable crystal set was the classic reflex/regen using an OC44 and OC71,

Almost identical! A crystal set built around a 500pF variable cap...no chassis as such but I may have screwed the whole thing to a lump of hardboard. Really chuffed when it worked. I was around 12 I think. A long aerial that ran from my bedroom right down the length or the garden. Although I could receive the Light and Home, it also received BBC1.....I was that close to Crystal Palace!

After that came the reflex radio using OC45 and OC71. Built to a design from Practical Wireless in 1965. Hours of fun with that. It was so good, it could drive a high impedance speaker...just! Actually I found the very set just a few months ago when having a clearout. It was minus the tuning cap, reaction pre-set and aerial coil. Just for fun I decided to see if it would still work. I vaguely remembered the coil details so wound another, replaced the missing parts and amazingly is still worked! I've a mind to keep it as original but add a small IC amplifier to drive a speaker and keep it as a 'then and now' project.

Quote:
Originally Posted by G8HQP Dave View Post
Yes, Philips kit was my first - but I can't remember which circuit I first built. I do remember modifying the MW AM receiver for trawler band by winding a new coil.
Yes had the Philips kit as well. First thing I built was the two transistor radio, AF116 and AC126. Likwise rewound the coil for trawler band as detailed in the instructions.....amazing how many parallels there are with other enthusiasts!
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Old 13th Nov 2016, 10:54 pm   #16
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

A very high proportion of members now in their late 50s and early 60s were drawn into electronics by the Philips EE20. I certainly was.
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Old 14th Nov 2016, 12:04 am   #17
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

I recall my first bespoke circuit was at age 14, and around this time of year, and involved timed initiation of a firework display of some sort. I found that i could reliably dial in a delay of 20 to 23 minutes at minimal expense and without blowing myself up, although the circuits never survived to be used again. (They were too close to the action)
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Old 14th Nov 2016, 12:31 am   #18
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

After practically every variation of a crystal set, conventional and using a variometer and various modifications to radios, I started on home made hi fi amps, single ended of course, had a competition with a couple of mates as to who could built the amp with the best bass boost circuit. Circuits were so basic in those days they we knew the principles of by heart, we just kept making 'improvements' Great fun, used the same chassis just drilled more holes. Used the same 6SN7s and 6V6/6L6s in all of them.

Peter
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Old 14th Nov 2016, 12:35 am   #19
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

Hi all,
I was always more of a repairer than a constructor- my first repair was to a Regentone table radiogram given to me by the next door neighbours when I was 11. (I still have the chassis!) Radio never did it for me (still doesn't) Television was where it was at and I was about 12 when I got into fixing an endless supply of single and dual standard sets. These were readily available for free in 1979/80 and my bedroom always contained several along with record players, tape recorders etc- not to mention all the 3 phase switchgear rescued from old buildings which was connected to various sockets around the room I expect most of us here were rather odd children in that respect
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Old 14th Nov 2016, 1:00 am   #20
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Default Re: The first circuit you ever built...

My first circuit was a multivibrator flashing two bulbs. It was from the Ladybird Electronics book. It was meant to use 2 AC128's. Inevitably, I didn't have these. Instead I used two huge Russian signal transistors that looked like flying saucers, with Cyrillic script on them. No data and no tester, just guessed the pin out and got it right. I was about 14

They were salvaged from a mono record player, also Russian of Soviet era. It was made by Rigonda and was called the party time. The lid was also the speaker.

Carl.
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