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Discussion
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Hello Everyone,
I have a post or two up in the forums, I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Sheldon, I live in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. I live a 10 minute drive from the Eastern most point of North America (Cape Spear). Like everywhere else, it has its beauty, but I moved here from Saskatchewan for my Beauty. My wife and I have been married 5 years this summer.
I’m a welding inspector working in industrial construction. The basics of my job are to ensure that nothing burns, breaks, or blows up. If it does, it is written down somewhere. It is a challenging job, in a good way, moving to a new project site every year or so and re-learning to work with a new team each time. Also means a lot of travel and being away from home more often then not.
Woodworking has been my form of sanity preservation for a long time. I used to build cabinets for family with my father. We are farmers, so, not a professional shop and by far a not a professional process, but, we churned out some pretty nice stuff. Now, I have a small hand tool only shop in a bedroom on the second floor of my house. It is a nice sanctuary where I can go to tinker between shifts and gives me something to think about when I’m on shift.
I’m new to audio, my grasp of the electronics are sketchy at best, but I can build a mean box! This is why I’m here. I get to soak up as much information as I can while I try to formulate my own questions and workup the courage go deeper into design. Living in Canada, however, means my costs increase due to boarders and shipping. I have to think long and hard about my purchases.
Thanks for lookin’
Sheldon
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Rook-Woodworks
updated 2 years, 10 months ago
1 Member
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8 Replies
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Sheldon! It is great to have you. What a fantastic story. Honestly, you are a step up on the game in some respects. Learning how to build the enclosure well is just as hard for some people as the electronics. As I always say, the only stupid question is the one you do not ask. Feel free to ask anything, you will not be shot down here. We will work our hardest, to keep you sane in your new hobby 😀 😉
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One of the best resources for basic electronics study is “All About Circuits”.
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/
It will give you all the principles you need to begin experimenting with simple projects (like my VU meters). There are also advanced articles and a forum if you need extra help.
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The electrical is a mysterious subject for me. Professionally, I work with piping & mechanical. I’ve spent most of my career avoiding electrical due to the lack of understanding and the fact that it is the kind of electrical that can kill you (1500 amp feeders and the like).
Thank you for the support.
P.s. I’ve always like VU meters… I just never knew what they were for other than a little show to go with the music.
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Thank you for the support.
P.s. I’ve always like VU meters… I just never knew what they were for other than a little show to go with the music.
No problem. I’m always happy to help someone get started. Electronics is a great hobby… and for me it’s been a pretty decent career. Check in the Sub-Out thread for the post marked Spice Modelling. This is a great way to begin experimenting without spending yourself into the poorhouse.
VU meters give us all kinds of information. How far up they go can tell us when we’re at risk of clipping an amplifier and possibly damaging tweeters. How much they move around can tell us if the music is compressed or dynamic. Where their average levels sit can tell us if the music is too loud or too quiet. No movement tells us that something is broken. So they really are quite useful to have.
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@douglas-blake
This is gold. Thank you so much!
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Rook… I feel you man. I can build a box and cut a few holes, but the electronics are a mysterious beast indeed. I don’t know how many times I’ve read what a volt, amp, and ohm is, but all I can remember is the ohm 😂
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Easy analogy …
A volt is a measure of electrical Pressure
An Ampere is a measure of electrical Flow
An Ohm is a measure of electrical Restriction (Resistance)
Now think about the plumbing in your house… pressure, flow and restriction … same concept.
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Another way to ‘splain it is:
Volts are potential. Think of it as height – obviously on the ground is 0 volts. the further away from the ground, the higher the voltage (analogy 1′ = 1V, 5’=5V, and so on)
Ampere (Amps, colloquially) can be seen as mass (or weight, if you prefer), where the larger the mass, the more amperes.
Power (Watts) is Volts x Amps, so height x mass. The larger the number of each, the more power you have available. 2 examples: a grain of sand dropped from 1000′ won’t do much (low power) while a 1000 lb. rock dropped from 1′ will hurt whatever is under it (high power). And for further illustration, drop a 100 lb. rock from 100′ and it can do serious damage (high power, even though weight is less, potential is more) and a 1 lb. rock dropped from 1000′ has become high power due to the even greater potential height.
Ohms are like Douglas said, a valve, or to go with my examples above, a “rubber band”. A very thin rubber band (low ohms) will not slow the rock much in it’s fall. A thick, heavy rubber band (high ohms) will slow the rock down quite a bit. It’s all about the resistance to the flow, or fall, in this case.
Hope this helps too.
