Learning Resources and Software for DIY Projects

[gleem]

For those who might need a relatively simple electronic device for a project like relay control, frequency to voltage converters, voltage to current and current to voltage converter, small signal amplifiers, signal averaging and many others using cheap op-amps, I recommend

"How to Build and Use Electronic Devices Without Frustration, Panic, Mountains of Money or an Engineer Degree" by Stuart A. Hoenig.

It is dated (1980) but is great for learning how to use op-amps for a multitude of useful purposes in the various sciences. along with many useful tips. It has enough theory to get one up and running but not so much as to bog you down. It may still be in print although Amazon say it only has two in stock.

 

[jedishrfu]

Other good books are Simon Monk's books:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071802363/?tag=pfamazon01-20

and

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[Stephenk53]

The following quote is from the tagged thread 3d printing resources in the mechanical engineering forum

I bought a fairly simple printer (TEVO Tarantrula) from AliExpress some time ago, it had some issues, but after a bit of patience and googling I have a device I'm quite happy with. As it came as a kit, I had to put it all together, and the devices themselves are really uncomplicated. Of course people far more talented than myself had already done all the hard work in terms of software, my unit uses "Marlin Firmware" (http://marlinfw.org/) which gets dumped on a Arduino based board and bobs your uncle. And after watching a few youtube videos, some of which were from this guy, (http://www.makersmuse.com/) I'm fairly comfortable with the whole thing.

In terms of CAD software, I use Fusion360 (https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview) it has a 30 day fee trial which can be made unlimited if you register as a hobbyist/enthusiast, it is an Autodesk product like TinkerCAD, but significantly more powerful, in my humble opinion.

If 3D design is not your bag, then (https://www.thingiverse.com/) has all sorts of objects you can just download, send to your slicing* program directly and print.*Slicing programs are what takes your CAD designed masterpiece and chops it up into little layers that your 3D printing software can understand, i.e. boatloads of X,Y,Z co-ordinates.
3 major slicing programs I've come across are;
CURA (https://ultimaker.com/en/products/cura-software) which is free
SLIC3R (http://slic3r.org/download) which is also free, but was last updated in 2015, and we are still waiting for the April 2017 update
SIMPLFY3d (https://www.simplify3d.com/) which is less free at $150

I downloaded the Cura software, and fusion 360 and they both work great. When I downloaded fusion 360 my computer could not open it for a few hours after download so you may need to wait before being able to use it. For some reason it kept opening it in paint so if you have that issue don’t worry it will get fixed after some time.

 

[gleem]

Has anybody checked out Pinterest?