Invisible wrote:
>> It sounds like you think very technically.  What is you interest level 
>> in electronics.  There's plenty of heavy lifting math there ;-)
> 
> My *interest level* is moderately high. My *knowledge level* is very low.
> 
> (As in, I know how it's *supposed* to work. It just doesn't work that 
> way when *I* do it.)

I bet that if you dedicate yourself to learning electronics the same way 
that you dedicated yourself to playing the church organ and uploading 
the file to youtube you could likely have something working.

Parts of digital electronics can be very simple - join wire a to wire b.
Some of it can get tricky, but most of the work has been done for you 
and is packaged into nice chips.

Analog can get a bit more tricky.  You have to calculate resistor values 
and capacitor values to make things work.  Then the parts you can 
actually use have a tolerance of +-10% - but i calculated I needed a 
2045 ohm resistor.....


Take a look at
http://www.amazon.com/Cmos-Cookbook-Donald-E-Lancaster/dp/0750699434

It's a pretty good book that gives some basics and provides enough 
information to get started hooking thing up.  I own it myself.

If you want to *program* something, then you need a microcontroller or 
the like.  BasicStamp is a good place to start that does not cost too 
much to get started.  You could look at their SX lineup that involves 
raw assembly programming.

You can hook all of these up on a breadboard pretty easily - no 
soldering needed.  Start small - don't try to build a antonymous robot 
the first time you light up a circuit.

There are a bunch of guys in here in Pr.O.T that know how this stuff 
works - you can always ask questions.


Tom

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