Circuit Hacking Monday

400px

This page is out of date!

Please look for the event on meetup for updated information.

What? Where?

What: Weekly get-together to solder cool stuff!

You can easily learn all of the skills you need in one session.

Make a project tonight, and take it home with you!

If you have your own project (advanced or simple),

bring it by, and if you would like help, you can get it!

When: 7:00pm till 10pm or so -- some Mondays (on some Monday holidays, volunteer instructors might announce an Early start of 3:00pm. Look for the info on the discussion and announcements mailing lists: Discussion Announcements)

Most projects take about 1.5 to 2 hours

Where: Noisebridge, 2169 Mission St., San Francisco, 94114 (at 18th St., near 16th St. BART station).

Map: Getting_Here

Who: You! It is fun to make things in the friendly community of Noisebridge.

Come join us. Everyone is welcome.

Cost: Instruction is free! We ask that people pay only for the cost of the parts used -- kit prices range from $10 to $35. For more information see the list below for current kits

• [1] (The pricelist for the kits is here)

Instructors:

volunteers who love soldering

J has also been teaching on a regular basis since April 2015

Learn to solder! J and others will bring kits to make cool, practical, intriguing, hackable things that you can bring home after you make it. Of course, you can also bring your own projects to hack.

Plenty of cool kits have historically been available but most of these are not currently in stock, including:

• TV-B-Gone (turn off TVs in public places!)
• Trippy RGB Waves (interactive blinky lights!)
• "Hello My Name Is" badge (you may have seen me wearing mine)
• MiniPOV 3 (write messages in the air!)
• MiniPOV 4 (write messages in the air in COLOR!)
• MintyBoost (charge your USB enabled gadgets!)
• Drawdio (make noise by drawing lines with this pencil!)
• Atari Punk Console (make cool noise from an Altoids tin!)
• Diavolino (make your own shield-compatible Arduino!)
• LoL Shield (Lots of LEDs! for your Arduino!) Arduino required
• And more.
  

If you have a bunch of kits to donate that you think would be great for education and probably beginners, bring them by.

(Not available at the moment:)

• Brain Machine (Meditate, Hallucinate, and Trip Out!)
• Open Heart (animate fun patterns in the shape of a heart!)
• Mignonette Game (make your own handheld game console!)
• LEDcube (animated 3D cube!)
• BoArduino (make your own fully functional Arduino -- for solderless breadboards!)
• microcontroller programmer (USBtinyISP) (program all your AVR family chips!)

More info on many of these projects:
http://www.CornfieldElectronics.com (click on the "maker faire" tab)
http://www.adafruit.com
http://www.jimmieprodgers.com
http://www.mignonette-game.com
http://www.evilmadscientist.com
http://analogmachines.com/

Anyone can learn to solder! Even if you have never made anything in your life, you can learn this very useful and enjoyable skill. It really is fun! Volunteers at Noisebridge have taught tens of thousands of people to solder all around the world, and they can teach you, too! Add yourself to the ever increasing community!

Topics

As interest warrants:

• soldering (everything from through-hole to SMD rework)
• breadboarding
• powering your circuit (bench power supplies, ATX hacking, batteries)
• making LEDs blink and fade
• programming microcontrollers
• using AVR / Arduino / Boarduino to make circuits easier
• using oscilloscopes / multimeters to debug circuits
• reverse engineering circuits
• Designing PCBs using GEDA and EagleCAD

Who?

Everyone is welcome, regardless of experience level or age. If you have never made a circuit before and have no idea where to start, bring a few dollars ($10 to $30 to cover materials costs of a Brain Machine kit or other cool kits) and build it. Everyone gets personal attention, and everyone will learn enough to complete their project. If you have experience, please come and enjoy working on your project with others -- and share what you know!

Why?

Learn and share with others of all skill levels! You can come with an idea, or a question, or a circuit you want to hack. You can research ideas on the Internet ahead of time and come put them into practice! Or, you can learn with a large selection of easy-to-make kits that are available each week.

What can I bring to help?

No need to bring anything -- just yourself and your desire to play, learn, and/or share. We have everything you need. But if you like, you can bring:

• Your own tools (we have all you need, but you can bring your own)
• Arduino / clones
• USB - serial dongle for your Arduino
• breadboards
• If you bring your laptop, we can set it up to program microcontrollers
• 9V or AA or AAA or other batteries (a bulk donation would be great)
• parts for your own project(s)

I am a blank slate! What should I do?

• make one of the many easy kits that are available each week.
• make an Arduino fade an RGB LED in varying color patterns.
• make a microcontroller illuminate a 3x3 LED matrix in varying shapes.
• reverse engineer something you're curious about.
• come to Noisebridge and brainstorm!
  

Learn More About Electronics and Circuits

All About Circuits
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

Soldering Is Easy
http://mightyohm.com/blog/2011/04/soldering-is-easy-comic-book/

Soldering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldering

Surface Mount Soldering
https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/category/2

How to Solder
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-solder---through-hole-soldering

Basic Electronics
http://www.instructables.com/id/Basic-Electronics/?ALLSTEPS

Learn more on CHM kits on YouTube
J's Circuit Hacking Mondays Video Playlist

Electronics Tutorials
http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/

Introduction to Electronics Text: This is going deep to the rabbit hole
http://www.ece.mtu.edu/faculty/ljbohman/onlinetext/elint200.pdf

Electronic Applications Text: By now you are already taking the "Red Pill"
http://www.ece.mtu.edu/faculty/ljbohman/onlinetext/elapp200.pdf