IAN LANG ELECTRONICS
This site contains 600+ pages. Should you get lost, clicking on the date brings you back here.
Other stuff directs to part II of the site which has tons of theoretical and practical stuff on it.
This site has been written in response to the third and final assessment for BTEC Advanced Certificate Level 3.
Please click on any of the buttons to the left to go to the various answers. Some buttons have a pull out menu allowing access to various parts of the answer, or each part can be accessed from the preceding or following. Click on the brown tabs to start the topic, the green pull outs to delve in anywhere in the topic, or follow the link buttons at the bottom of each page to go through subsections page by page.
Sole Author: Ian Lang
Section 1. Principles of Radio.
Section 2. Optoelectronics.
Section 3. Integrated Circuits and Logic.
CRIB SHEETS
Rapid are based in Colchester and do a wide range of components but they have no shops. Farnell tend to supply high-quality components to designers but again have no shops. They are based in Leeds. Both have a local trade counter.
Much the same as the above can be said of Bowood, which is in Chesterfield. Mainly internet orders but trade is welcome Monday to Friday in office hours.
This website is growing .
ATV are aerial installers in Sheffield. I've never bought anything from them or been to their shop, but I've made their logo so large because their website is without doubt (as well as being highly informative) the funniest thing I have ever read on the internet. Even if you have no interest whatsoever in RF engineering, I urge you to go and read it. Especially the bits about Royal Mail!
Loads of stuff in here about how to get your Arduino to do anything from the easy to the quite hard indeed. Click for the home page and follow the guide links.
This is Limor Fried, aka LadyAda (after Ada Lovelace who did some complex maths whilst working with Babbage and became the first effective programmer). Limor is the co-founder of Adafruit industries in the United States of America, which does a lot of work in that country in promoting the Arduino and electronics in general. Her website, ladyada.net is well worth a visit as is Adafruit.com.
Or if you prefer the more direct approach [email protected]
BTEC 3rd Assessment section begins here. Click on Other Stuff above to get information to help with the first two.
Proto-Pic have a breathtakingly large array of bits for sale. Good for Arduino, standalone, and just about anything else. Some real goodies on here.
The Electronics Club is a UK based site which is probably the very best on the internet for those finding their feet in Electronics. It features components, projects, FAQs and a breathtakingly large array of links to everywhere to do with Electronics.
Inkscape is a very good and completely free tool for illustration. Click on the logo above to go to a page about it and see the possibilities.
Conrad are a German firm who have recently set up an internet business in the UK. They run the gamut as far as electronics is concerned and there is some good quality stuff for serious projects as well as toys and finished products. A large range of parts for just about everything. Amazingly you can actually buy a lathe here!
RF Solutions of Lewes in Sussex sell a range of receivers, transmitters and transceivers for just about any application you can think of. I'm particularly impressed by the ZULU range (which is expensive) but overwhelmed by the range of small, low power radio modules that are brilliant for short-range work and take data from microcontrollers and throw it over the ether. Absolutely the first choice for low-cost modules for inexpensive remote control from the Arduino or other systems.
The first step in electronics
for many people today is no longer the traditional radio sets but the fairly new science of cybernetics (the building and controlling of robots). To that end the very best site for components is
robotbits.co.uk and if you click on their picture of a robot warehouseman above it takes you to their site. I like their site very much just for the pictures they've drawn, the products they stock are excellent too. Everthing mechanical and electronic you'll need to build your bots including the Rover 5 chassis at a very reasonable price.
Kitronic are based in Nottingham and supply loads of stuff from components to tools to modules, quite a lot of which they make themselves. Their website is a gold-mine if you are a teacher of Design and Technology (look at the resources bit) and they sell posters to stick up in your classrooms at a reasonable price. Highly recommended if you work in education.
An outfit based in Hollingwood, near Staveley in Derbyshire. I REALLY like these people. Range is smallish but quality is good and price is unbeatable.
There's cartoons on it!
Read our Comedy Blog on the IET server if you want to.
Undergoing repair after some sort of horrible meltdown occured............................................
And not forgetting the important things, click on Dilbert to go to the website.