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How it all began for me

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LAN_403

Killa-X

Sun Nov 29 2009, 04:21PM

Registered Member #1643 Joined: Mon Aug 18 2008, 06:10PM
Location:
Posts: 1039

I think id be the only one (maybe) to say my parents wernt much help in the High voltage part. But here I go.

First, my dad is a truck driver, and my mom is a stay-at-home-mom. As far as I know, no one in my family had relations to electrical stuff. My dad got me and my sister into computers when I was about 6, such as game, creating levels for Half-Life, and so on. As what people here said before, around 8th grade, my parents would say "He likes to take things apart" Because every toy I got bored off and never played, I took it apart, even though my parents didn't like some of the things i took apart. 8th grade I had a science teacher that had this snap electronics kit (raidoshack) that i loved and made my parents get it. Later, I went to radioshacks larger one, that used schematics...I hated it! too confusing. However, 9th grade, I wanted it back...As by then i had a much larger understanding.

Like Dalus here, I manage to get a lot into High voltage during high school. My school never offered any electronics classes, and the tech center removed theirs the year i got it, I had to take Electrical (Res. wiring) instead. The issue with high voltage, is my parents bug me almost every day, as they dont really like me playing with it. I guess they started giving up, because January, I asked for some large caps, they said hell no. Yesterday, I bought 2KJ worth of capacitors. So, clearly, they gave up stopping me :D

But to finish it off, I'm recent to HV since the beginning of 2009. Thanks to a friend in my MSN, who doesn't exist on this forums, who had me start on Iggys -> coilguns -> more coilguns -> Flyback -> Tesla coils -> more coilguns/ETG/railguns. If it wasn't for him, I'm sure I would have got here over time anyways, for the fact that I just love messing with high voltage, and electronics. Always wishing to work in a HV lab, but that's not likely. In fact, if it wasn't for me working right now, I wouldn't have all the stuff I do :D Now if only I could figure what to do for college class...

Chris Russell

Sun Nov 29 2009, 04:43PM

... not Russel!
Registered Member #1 Joined: Thu Jan 26 2006, 12:18AM
Location: Tempe, Arizona
Posts: 1052

Interesting stories! Looks like we do all share quite a bit of common ground -- mostly curiosity about how things work.

Like Dalus, I always loved taking things apart. My parents encouraged this as much as possible, as a broken blender and a screwdriver is much cheaper than the latest toy or gadget. At age 5, my grandfather bought me a crystal radio kit and taught me how to put it together. My grandfather, an aerospace engineer, showed me how to inventory every part before starting the kit. His meticulous nature annoyed me at the time, but I always inventoried every kit from there on out. Later I understood why being methodical and following an ordered process was important.

The big moment where everything clicked was at age 7, however. At age 6, I had decided to find out how the remote control worked. I jammed a screwdriver inside, in order to get it apart. When I got it back together, though, it didn't work. Disaster! I was in plenty of trouble. Some months and a birthday later, however, I saw the remote sitting on a shelf -- my parents had told me they were going to repair it, but hadn't yet. So, figuring it was already broken, I took it apart again to see why it wouldn't work. After careful scrutiny, I found the problem. A part on the PCB had been broken in half when I jammed the screwdriver inside. What really excited me, though, was that I knew the symbol that was printed underneath the broken part -- it was a diode! I ran over to my 30-in-1 electronics kit, and pulled out the diode. I hated to make the sacrifice, but I had to know if it would work. I bent the leads from the broken part so that the replacement diode was held in place relatively firmly, and put the remote back together. Giddy with excitement, I crept up behind my mom, watching the local news, and pressed the power button on the remote. Wonder of wonders, the TV turned off. My mom was incredulous when I showed her what I had done -- recognized the broken part and substituted another.

There were many other paths I took, of course, and many bumps along the way, but that was the pivotal moment. When I recognized the diode symbol, I realized that parts were interchangeable and could be combined in any number of ways, to make an electronics kit, a TV remote, or whatever else you might need. Suddenly my mind had been opened to a world of infinite possibility. I'd had an interest before, but from that day on, I was hooked.

vasil

Sun Nov 29 2009, 09:10PM

Registered Member #229 Joined: Tue Feb 21 2006, 07:33PM
Location: Romania
Posts: 506

I have no one in my family interested of electricity. I read a few books about distractive physics in high school and built a little flyback driver as part of my license project. Not much interest in uni (I had a lot of work to do). But in the second year of specialisation (around 1998-1999) I discovered the internet and the site of Sam Barros that sparked my hobby for high voltage generators. Then, Fulmen Labs appeared, many other projects were done....and here I am.

MinorityCarrier

Mon Nov 30 2009, 01:44AM

Registered Member #2123 Joined: Sat May 16 2009, 03:10AM
Location: Bend, Oregon
Posts: 312

My dad was an electronics teacher with the USMC, specializing in RF circuit theory. I got lots of science/engineering-oriented kits when I was young (chemistry sets, erector sets, etc.) unfortunately my dad was killed in a car accident when I was nine, my mom knew nothing of science, so I pretty much taught myself from then on. There were several kids who were friends who were also interested in science, so we 'compared notes' on things we were building. I pretty much scared my mom (and others) alot with the stuff I did while in High School. But I survived with all my fingers and both eyes intact, and no structures were destroyed.

Z28Fistergod

Mon Nov 30 2009, 03:42AM

Registered Member #2040 Joined: Fri Mar 20 2009, 10:13PM
Location: Fairfax VA
Posts: 180

Arcstarter

Mon Nov 30 2009, 05:11AM

Registered Member #1225 Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253

Well, my dad is the kind of guy that used to be curious about things, he worked with his hands, and took a 2 year course in college that has something to do with electronics, though i don't know exactly what.

As early as i can remember i took things apart to see what made them tick. R/C cars, anything that made a noise, moved, or lit up. I always got busted, which did nothing but make me ache to take something apart more!

Slowly i began to get around the neighborhood more, searching the side of the streets for things that have been thrown out. For awhile i was very into liquid pump designs, and then generators, and finally i built on of those motors with just a single coil of wire. I then made other more complicated motors with brushes made from copper tape and stuff.

I started getting on the internet and looking up circuits to make. I did that for awhile. Then i came across a site that would actually show you the specifications of the parts inside TV's! These are known as so called 'data sheets'.

I started using those components to build things.

Finally, while looking up some sort of schematic, i kept seeing schematics for 'ignition coil drivers'. I made one, it worked, and i made nice fiery little sparks. I got one of those acrylic boxes with the metal enclosure at the bottom with 3 hv hf transformers somewhat like an LOPT that was used by salesmen to show how ozone gets rid of odors, identical to the one in that thread. I made a small Tesla coil from that, maybe 1 inch sparks with a plastic bowl capacitor, secondary made from 3 different spools of wire, and other junk. I then made my first AC coil with a bug zapper transformer. Then all these other projects i now do.

Daniel Uhrenholt

Wed Dec 02 2009, 05:27PM

Registered Member #125 Joined: Fri Feb 10 2006, 01:52PM
Location: Aalborg, Denmark
Posts: 155

When I was a child I started playing with LEGO and LEGO Technics, this was when all the other at my age played with toy guns and cars. I was always enjoying taking things apart, old tape recorders, radios and motors just to see how things worked. My parents wouldn't dare to take me to the local recycling plant, as they might end up taking more with them home, than what they brought there

And when people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, the most common answer would be â€œI want to be an inventorâ€.

I also had this thing about fossils and stones, so my parents was driving me around the northern part of Denmark to various chalk pits, so I could dig up fossils:-) We also travelled a lot around Norway and Sweden, where I was collecting stones and crystals...

When I started my apprenticeship as a toolmaker, things got more exiting, I was at the factory almost 24/7 making bladless turbines, tennis ball launching air-guns and a lot of other things. There was some rather talented toolmakers that were radio amateurs, and they made some crazy things like guns and machine guns, turbochargers for their bikes(with control electronics) and a lot of other things:-) I definitely learned a lot from these guys, sadly half of them are dead today...At this time I met Finn, and started building Tesla coils, and I have been building and learning electronics for about 8 years now...

Cheers, Daniel

Tetris

Thu Nov 17 2011, 06:50PM

Registered Member #4016 Joined: Thu Jul 21 2011, 01:52AM
Location: Gainesville, FL
Posts: 660

I think I just met him. He was at a convention... IAAPA.

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