People do take those absolute maximum ratings quite seriously. I had friends in my undergraduate engineering class who used to connect components directly to the AC mains to observe what would happen if you exceed those ratings. I have to say - the demonstrations using electrolytic capacitors were quite remarkable, though admittedly a little messy.
Over the last decade or so, it's really sucked the wind out of my sails when every "electronics" project is actually just a software project of modules wired to an MCU. Hardly anyone is still doing hardcore discreet electronics stuff anymore, and I guess I don't totally blame them, it is punishing as hell heh
Indeed. The thing with the black box ICs is you still need to understand the electrical interface to them. Without the fundamentals you are crippled the moment you have a problem.
This is my principal objection to some of the Make and Mimms stuff. It's recipes and instructions not building understanding. You aren't asked to discover stuff or build a mental model, merely replicate and copy.
Loved the transistor, SCR, and op-amp depictions in the Mimms books but was intensely frustrated that I couldn’t understand how the example schematics worked.
After University classes, I realize now they didn’t even hint at biasing or use feedback.
All the resistors in the transistor circuits seemed overly “ornamental” and I could t see their function from the descriptions.
Yep. The Mimms books are actually terrible. Had loads of problems getting stuff working out of them in the 80s. Assumed it was me.
So roll on a few years and our linear circuits lecturer at uni launched into a 30 minute diatribe about how utterly awful they are and to forget everything. And you know what, he was spot on. The points were specifically extrapolations of what you suggest i.e. poor biasing and feedback designs which forced relying on device characteristics. This was damage multiplied by the crappy second rate parts that Radio Shack sold.
I only ever assume people with positive memories of that crap either never built anything or were lucky enough to have parts that were binned as Mimms' were.
The one thing they were good at was instilling excitement and wonder at what simple designs could do.
But yeah, I think only the digital counter circuits made sense to me then.
Wish Mimms had made books showing biasing and calculations for transistors and op-amps. Maybe too much math for too little space…
I feel like the designs could have been kept simple (a not relied on part characteristics) where almost any transistor of a particular type could be have been used.
Surely a simple audio amp or light detector need not be critically dependent on the exact parameters of a specific part…
Oddly, I remember the books covering SCRs and TRIACs, but those were never covered in my university courses… Think we skipped JFETs too…
