Re: Newbie Q. re: solar light/battery

On Sun, 1 Jun 2008, Kris Krieger wrote:

On that front, it seems foolish for a complete rookie
to try to *build* something that he can buy as a complete unit.

I stated the reason. It's not relevant, tho', why I want to do it - IMO,
it's sufficient that I *do* want to do it.

But. the relevance of the comment is because of a "cold" post.

People post here all the time, and they leave out details. They ask
for something very specific, but then it turns out that's because they've
based that on a false assumption. Without detail, we have to interpret,
and many times it's not obvious if the poster asking the question knows
what he's doing, or doesn't.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to build rather than buy.

But, lots of times people ask about how to build something because they
don't realize it's available off the shelf. They can still proceed to
build it, but it should be tempered by an awareness that such things
are available.

So someone asks how to build an alarm clock. They want to put it
in a box and use it for some specific purpose. Do they really need
to build one, or can they get by with buying a used clock radio and
stripping out the clock? It really depends on whether their first
goal is getting results or building something. It usually isn't clear
if they've even considered an existing clock radio (and even though
salvaging parts is a time honored thing, the beginner often seems
to overlook scrap electronics as a source of parts, rushing to the
parts store with the list of parts out of the article and paying
premium prices as a result).

And forget about the building versus buying, buying some existing
piece of equipment can often be faster and maybe cheaper means of
getting some parts. If you have to track down a multi-pin IC to
build that clock, the closest and cheapest source will be the clock
radio, and once you've got that, one has to rethink whether it's
really valid to extract the IC and build around it, or just use
the clock radio as a source of a the "clock module".

Sometimes you can't get parts via consumer electronics, because
the parts are too specific and don't show up in such equipment. But
consumer electronics can often be a great source of components
that are hard to track down even if they are commonly used in consumer
electronics equipment.

This is especially so when talking about buying things at rummage or
garage sales. Then the price often drops to almost nothing, which can
really beat buying the parts new.

We had some of those garden lights, they all broke during this winter's
heavey snowfall. So I got a set of solar cells, and some reaonably
bright white LEDs, the nicads and even the circuitry to make them
all work. Maybe it wouldn't be the best choice to buy them to get
the solar cells, but I suddenly have some without having to fuss at
all. If I was building something in single quantities, I would have
to evaluate the ease of getting them that way compared to finding
a place that sells them and will sell to me and the cost of
the full order to get them.

Michael
.

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