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Old 1st Jan 2022, 12:01 am   #1
kellys_eye
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Default Magazine projects

I was wondering how many members have built projects from magazine articles and the results they got from them.... from their practicality, design principles and finished performance aspects.

Many of my own items of test equipment started from magazine (and, more recently, internet-based) projects and there has been a considerable improvement (imho) of the quality and accuracy of replication since the early 70's when I first took it upon myself to try one.

In particular, if you could recommend any project, what would it be?

Happy New Year to all too
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 12:26 am   #2
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Default Re: Magazine projects

Many many projects over more than 50 years. Test equipment, audio, speakers and radios.
Today I find the electronics magazines pretty useless ( for me anyway ). Today its gotta-b-digital or forget it. I still keep my magazines when they were analogue. I have a very large collection ( which wifey hates ) of Radio, Television and Hobbies, Elektor, Wireless World, Practical Wireless and ETI.
I also have over 200 gigs on hard drive. But I print out the electronic stuff as I cannot read from a computer screen and retain any information.
A recommended project?... ANY valve based equipment. Even descrete sand if its usefull enough.
The list is endless.

Very good question actually .

Joe
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 12:36 am   #3
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Default Re: Magazine projects

I made the clock featured on the cover of this PW https://worldradiohistory.com/UK/Pra...PW-1975-09.pdf It is still in use 46+ years later. This was the idea that started a thread about my oldest project still in use that I started on 30-12-07. wow over 14 years since. Sorry I can not find a link to it now.

Happy New Year everyone, John.
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 12:42 am   #4
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Default Re: Magazine projects

Hi i have built many projects over the years one i remember was a 1 valve air band super regen using an acorn 554 valve from PW it worked of sorts. have a happy new year Mick
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 4:03 am   #5
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Default Re: Magazine projects

Magazine projects are a rather variable affair. Some are excellent work by people who know what they are doing. Some are thinly-discuised applications notes from some chip or valve manufacturer (for good or ill varies) and others show signs of having been created by the clueless. Most fit somewhere between these extremes.

Heaven knows how many 'Texans' I had to sort out for people in the 70's. The aversion therapy worked! I run screaming at the sight of anyone walking towards me carrying one. So I can't give an unbiased view of them.

A good project? Alan Chester's balun ATU in early 80's Radcom.

David
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 8:01 am   #6
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Default Re: Magazine projects

HHMM I think today is hard to find anybody that DOESNT think electronics is a new modem for playing games.
I have four kids!!. They still think I am an eccentric old lunatic that could make more noise with a 10,000 watt PMPO digital rig that I can fold and carry in my wallet!!

ALL highly intelligent and all earning BIG money.
Engineering!!! Thats Chinese or Indian isnt it?. I have one highly talented florist, one school teacher, and two accountants. NONE can reboot a sick computer!!! ( ALL are Windows users ).

WE are consumers, NOT designers or producers. Alas lads, ONE of the reasons I visit this site is that, "We are the last of the Mohicans, as we are!!". From beginners to superb engineers.

I watch all " the olde fellers " telling of bad news, or degenerating health problems.
At least we speak around four languages: Wavelength, Frequency, Ohms law, and finally, Humanity.

NOT very common today.

Forgive my rave!!. Peace be to all present, and we ALL wish for a better 2021.

Joe
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 10:48 am   #7
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Default Re: Magazine projects

Three that I still have are most memorable.
The Practical Electronics sound to light converter. I built mine as dual channel for stereo with the dimmer option. Spectacular when playing such as Pink Floyd. It had good bass, middle and treble filters for my red, green and blue spotlights in the lounge.
One evening, the neighbour was banging on our front door. He thought our house was on fire!

The Elektor 2m to 70cm transverter. All on one main pcb copied from the article by a workmate ready for me to etch. Never got it working on tx at first, until one xmas borrowed the spectrum analyser from work. Within a very short time had it working correctly.

A pwm feedback speed control for model railway, featured in Wireless World. Just the circuit and text, no construction details. Built on veroboard and works a treat.
Rob
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 10:52 am   #8
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Default Re: Magazine projects

Texan stereo amp, and Scorpio electronic ignition were ones that I made and probably amongst the most popular electronic mag projects in the UK. Both worked well.
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 11:48 am   #9
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Default Re: Magazine projects

I don't think the Texan was that bad as a design - I used one quite happily for some time - but its very ubiquity meant the good, the bad and the indifferent had a go at making one. I'd qualify as indifferent at best in this context - Dad sorted mine out in the end, but this was a long time ago!

No, foibles aside, the Texan was all right for what it was, and spawned, indirectly, other hi fi units in the same size and shape of box. There was the Nelson-Jones tuner - a decent performer perhaps let down by the lack of a birdie filter; the Wireless World Dolby unit, which worked well; and even the Integrex Ambisonic decoder. At the time, these would have formed the nucleus of a decent set-up. If you wanted more power, you could go for the Linsley Hood amplifier (the 1973 design), which used a similar case.
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 12:27 pm   #10
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Default Re: Magazine projects

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ted Kendall View Post
I don't think the Texan was that bad as a design - I used one quite happily for some time - but its very ubiquity meant the good, the bad and the indifferent had a go at making one. I'd qualify as indifferent at best in this context - Dad sorted mine out in the end, but this was a long time ago!

No, foibles aside, the Texan was all right for what it was, and spawned, indirectly, other hi fi units in the same size and shape of box. There was the Nelson-Jones tuner - a decent performer perhaps let down by the lack of a birdie filter; the Wireless World Dolby unit, which worked well; and even the Integrex Ambisonic decoder. At the time, these would have formed the nucleus of a decent set-up. If you wanted more power, you could go for the Linsley Hood amplifier (the 1973 design), which used a similar case.
It was relatively easy to make a marked improvement to the Texan by changing the 741s to something more suited to audio use. Plus, if you hadn't fitted it right from the start, use the upgraded toroidal transformer. The boffins in our labs at Thorn did loads of mods that they allowed me to gleefully copy! I've still got it albeit in a bit of state having been handed back to me not working following a loan many years ago to friend.
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 12:43 pm   #11
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Default Re: Magazine projects

I built the Precision Pre-Amplifier featured in Wireless World (October 1983). A design by Doug Self.

The article had just a circuit diagram, for which I designed a PCB layout (I still have the tracing paper/rub down line masters!)

The pre-amp has been in use for nearly 40 years as part of my hi-fi set up, and has worked flawlessly for all this time.
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 12:50 pm   #12
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Default Re: Magazine projects

I recall the Texan! I'm astonished that so many 'recommend' it but have to admit that, as a project and for it's time, it was certainly a popular project. That it seems to have stood the test of time has to be testament to it even if there are issues with them.

Most of my time was spent building test equipment (power supplies, signal generators and some ham radio stuff, which eventually led to the purchase of commercial (ex) stuff with higher reliability and accuracy.

Re-reading old magazines is a pleasant time-waster during holidays and like others I have an extensive collection on HDD. I used to subscribe to the major producers (PE, Elektor, ETI, PW etc) and kept them in storage but succumbed to a (imposed...) need to clean-up-my-act so they were either scanned (not many - it was slow, hard work back then) before being binned - something I regret to this day. I had all the Elektor 300-project books (including the rare first edition that, for some reason, was taken off the market. I got a copy in Singapore (probably a pirated version) and sold them on a popular auction site for peanuts - even reminding myself of that fact still 'hurts'!

Nothing is the same as fondling and reading a hard copy and the last time I spend whiling away hours doing that was at a library that kept back issues - but that was years ago. Even before magazine collecting became a pass time I used to read through issues of Wireless World magazine in Middlesbrough Central Library where they had ALL issues back to #1 - that was back in the late 60's early 70's where my knowledge and appreciation of electronics was minimal BUT it did inspire me to take a path in electronics as I grew older.
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 2:05 pm   #13
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Default Re: Magazine projects

I made a Short Wave receiver in the early 1970s from the Practical wireless magazine, i think the design was in two or three parts with a couple of corrections . It used the ZN414 and denco coils .
In my young ignorance i made quite a few errors and was eventually helped out by an elderly local gentleman who had worked at Plesseys electronics, a really logical thinker with plenty of experience. I had stuffed up on the coil switching add one or two other things. In the end it was made to work very well i was over the moon .
I still have it tonthis day but its been robbed of a few things .
Writing this i think should i re-visit it or leave it as an historic piece of home brew, interesting.
Then i went a bit further a couple years later again (mid 70s )with a PW 2 metre transmitter using 2n3819s a crystal all on a pcb plus quite a few other components, that never worked , i even had a fella who was very switched on and he never could figure out why it failed.
Also built from Short Wave magazine in the 80s , SWM 80s design, a top band CW Tx with VN66AF o/p mosfet , I built it on an old pcb i had stripped off from a TV set , i worked out from kitchen grease proof paper a way to route the TX design onto the old TV PCB ! The thing actually worked and bit me once or twice with about 8-10 Watts , Also a Dummy load inside an Ovaltine tin , works well for low power .
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 2:44 pm   #14
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Default Re: Magazine projects

My first serious attemp at home construction was the valve 2 metre converter in the RSGB maual from Edition 3.. Page 132 by VQ4EV.. After massive help from another local amateur it worked, using a Heathkit RA1 as the tunable I.F. It wasnt a kit in the "purchased kit sense"... Many years later I worked for Maplin in the returns dept, many kits were returned, either from the "inept" to the down right, "shouldnt be allowed near anything electronic", however some kits were poorly designed in the first place. One that comes to mind was the Function Generator. It all hinged on the device type of the 7400. Various manufactures were supplied, but to my memory only the Texas 7400 worked. To the stores, packing kits.. a 7400 is a 7400.. I offered to redesign it using a PIC, but by then the kit market was slowing. Veleman was another, mostly good kits, but another comes to mind, the valve umpteen watts Audio Stereo amp using EL34's. Yes the torroidal transformers were great, but if they needed returning due to some electrical issue or other, the Mains transformer and or an output transformer would do a "Freddy Mercury" and "Break free" from its mountings, causing devastation. The Elektor kits seem to be well engineered, but I have not needed to buy or build one.
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 2:52 pm   #15
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Default Re: Magazine projects

I got bullied at school . I was bullied in to the building "The International Short Wave Two", which was a 2-valve TRF originally published in PW in 1962. It turned out to my first success in ham radio. Using a pair of DF91's, it was a great little receiver, which I initially had it running on the 31m band (many different stations in those days) and then later on the 40 and 80m amateur bands, when there were still lots of people using AM. Happy Days!

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Old 1st Jan 2022, 2:57 pm   #16
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Default Re: Magazine projects

Yes built a lot of projects from Radio Constructor. Started with a 3valve TRF shortwave receiver, then a 5valve superhet with BFO. Later I combined two designs using the best of both ending up with a very good 7 valve superhet with Q multiplier and tuned RF amp. Had that for many years. Lots of other items as well most of which were highly successful.
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 3:02 pm   #17
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Default Re: Magazine projects

I've built quite a few things over the years - from single-valve regenerative SW receivers described in an early-1960s Practical Wireless through to DSB transmitters and linear-amps detailed in QST, CW or RadCom. I liked the projects in the American ham-radio magazines [am still an ARRL member though I let my RSGB membership slide a couple of decades back].

Probably my most ambitious was the Elektor "Junior Computer" from the very-early-1980s - for which I wrote my own monitor-program [and burned the 2708 EPROM by setting-up data- and address-values on a panel of toggle-switches for each location!]. It worked rather well, and spent several years converting between 45.5 or 50Baud RTTY and 2400-ASCII.

I also liked to play around with some of the simple circuits in the magazines - the PW "Take 20" series were fun to dabble with and use some components you wouldn't normally use - the Unijunction Transistor for example.

Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar in "Byte" mag was also one series I diligently followed - and some of his designs got 'borrowed' for stuff I was involved in commercially.

The big problem with trying to do stuff from old magazine-articles these days is where to source the parts: unlike the days when Henry's Radio, GW Smith, Home Radio and Electroniques were advertising in all the electronics mags you just can't easily buy a nice solid chassis, a 2.5mH 150mA RF choke or a transmitter-grade wide-spaced variable capacitor these days!
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 3:27 pm   #18
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Like many others, I built countless items from PW & PTV, Wireless World, & even from Hobbies Weekly. The late F.G. Rayer, G30GR used to publish a number of items in HW.
Sadly after several house-moves, most of my old projects are no longer in my possession.

The one I remember most, which took a lot of work, was the Flying- Spot scanner from Practical Television.
I wish I still had it, all I have left is the chassis that the 931A photomultiplier was on, and also the 931A itself. It was a 405-line device, with a VHF modulator, all valves. The PTV design used octal valves, but I made quite a lot of changes, & mainly used B9A types. I stayed with the original CRT, which was a VCR517C.. I used a slide-gate from an old single-slide projector, to enable me to use 35mm. slides as the media.

Little did I know at the time, (I was working in domestic Radio & TV), that a few years on I would be working on a MK 1 Rank - Cintel scanner, which had been converted to colour, & still using valves. So from a magazine article, I'd not only built the kit, but gained some useful experience as well.

All a long time ago...

David
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 3:36 pm   #19
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Default Re: Magazine projects

Likewise built various projects from magazine articles, the most expensive one being the Purbeck oscilloscope. Sadly this o'scope was a waste of time and money for me. The transformer in the kit was phased wrongly and burnt out straight away, then there was the instability of the amplifier pcbs due to only being single sided print. The designer decided to use the copper track as a ground plane on the component side and use thin wire links on the other side. Who would have thought that a vibrating wire could cause the trace to bounce, certainly not me back then. I still have the scope somewhere awaiting for me to have a go at producing proper double sided pcbs.

Dave
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Old 1st Jan 2022, 4:36 pm   #20
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Default Re: Magazine projects

One of the most ambitious projects (at the time) I embarked on was the Practical TV Monochrome Television (1977). I purchased the PCB for that and built it over two months and was able to find a suitable CRT from a scrap Philips portable. It worked extremely well pretty much first time. A few years later I converted it for simple remote control, just channel change and sound mute. Can't remember what happened to it but I think it got damaged in a house move.
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