If you're using resistors of different values, it's probably a good idea to make them easier to read, but a resistor that is different depending on which way 'round you install it is called a diode! ;->
Resistors don't have polarity, you can put them anyway you like. People usually put them all in same direction only so its easier to read the values (colors), and to look nice. Capacitors and diodes have polarity and can work only one way.
Yes, that's correct, resistors aren't polarised, so you could fit them either way round. But they look better if they're the same way round! It's the same with ceramic capacitors. Electrolytic capacitors & diodes are polarised though.
The Sony HX100V is the main overhead view - but I had to crop some of the footage, so it looks a bit low res at times. The camera on the left hand side is a Sony GW55VE.
I've seen a few old ones on eBay...but they are from the late 1960s or early 1970s and very basic, with unusual operation. I'd love to see someone making a new one.
I like that you got the point of these kits. They're exactly the kind of thing you could buy for a kid who wants to learn how to "do electronics". Your soldering job looked nice and tidy too.
Looks like I've learnt something about resistors. Three comments out of five means that this will probably be a popular comment on this video. I can see that I'll be receiving similar comments for years to come.
Here's my 2 cents, or P if you like, resistors aren't polarity sensitive, but diodes, transistors, and most electrolytic or tantalum capacitors are. That said, as another commented it does look more professional. I really do like your videos, but this one struck a chord with me. Back in 1976 or 1977, I bought and assembled a Heathkit calculator, which I used for the rest of High School (1978). It was quite a bit more complicated, having separate driver transistors for the LED display segments. I believe it was 16. 1 for each digit, and 1 for each segment and the decimal. I just had to google that old thing and I believe it was the model IC-2006. According to the Datamath website www.datamath.org/Related/Heathkit/IC2006.htm the original price was $69.95 in October of 1973. I believe I paid in the neighborhood of $30.00 in 1976 or 7, as it was on clearance. Possibly you could try to find some Heathkit equipment to try out. Heathkit made Ham Radio equipment, Audio, Televisions, Radio Control equipment for model airplanes, boats and cars, and electronic test equipment such as signal generators, vectorscopes, and ocilloscopes. Heathkit Audio was almost considered audiophile quality.
I've added one now....but from experience few people read annotations. I still get regular comments about the hologram that I mistook for a LED in the Sony Action cam.
I love that kit. It looks so retro. Takes me back to my late teenage years when calculator's became affordable. Thanks for posting this video. Cheers, b.
I had a mechanical one as a child....yes I was that kid. I'm not an expert, but if you are buying a cheap one then you are probably better with a quartz movement as cheap mechanical movements aren't the most reliable things.
I was working with some led 7 segment displays recently, by putting a thin translucent layer over the display you can increase the contrast of the 'off' segments dramatically; dark plastic, filter gels, even a post-it note does wonders for readability.
I have absolutely no interest in building my own calculator...But just watched your video coz your that very good at presenting and explaining things. Seriously mate get your self an agent. Thanks for all the hard work.
The resistors you can orient pretty much any way, along with inductors and unpolarised capacitors. It's all the other components that need proper orientation, particularly polarised capacitors which can explode if installed backwards.
I've got a job where a typical calculation would be along the lines of £90.28 +0.2% -15% +28% -0.25% +£10 -52.72% +3.78% (and on for about 25 steps)...speed is also important...hence the necessity to me for a % key.
it'd probably cost like $40 to make though if you paid for the PCB from somewhere like OSHpark or seeed, then bought the LED display, buttons, MCU, supporting components, had somewhere like protolabs or shapeways make the enclosure, etc. Not to mention the cost of your time actually designing Everything. Not saying it's worth $40... hell, I wouldn't even pay $10 from an eBay seller for this kit, but whatever.
@@martinj9268 well the pcb (seeed wants 4 bucks for 10pcs each 10*10cm) is probably the cheapest compared to stuff like the custom lasered acrylic and actual time going into not only designing it but the whole overhead of getting the components into the kits, operating the laser cutter (spikenzie cut their own stuff afaik), packaging, shipping etc...
@@nonchip I wouldn't think by much. Especially if they're cutting the acrylic themselves. Acrylic is one of the absolute cheapest materials for custom enclosures only after things like cardboard, cardstock, PET, etc. If you already have a laser cutter it would cost maybe like $2 to make the pieces for the enclosure and effectively none of your time. Development cost and overhead is also basically nothing once you spread it across more than a hundred plus units. I mean its not like they spent months of R&D along with weekly design meetings to make this. It was probably a few hours in sketchup and kicad. The most expensive part is probably the human assembling the kits, though these days human labor is also dumb cheap and would probably only add a dollar or two per kit, even if they were paying them like $20/hr(which they probably aren't unless they themselves are assembling the kits). I'm not trying to bash them, I'm just saying. I myself could make this using prototyping services like oshpark and ponoko for under $40 for a single one. Add in the fact they're making parts themselves and buying in bulk, there's no doubt in my mind this cost far under $40 each unless they're cutting a huge piece out for a ridiculous salary or something. In the end it's just a novelty gadget anyways. Why anyone would pay more than ~$20 for something they'll likely never use anyway is beyond me.
@@martinj9268 well they did strike me more as a hackerspace than evilcorp so i think the humans and laser time are probably their highest expenses... if they're anything close to smart they're not using oshpark for this kind of "mid sized series" thing so their pcbs/components will probably tally in at 1-3 bucks per kit. having someone watch for a cnc laser catching fire while that eats through watts is probably more expensive, unless they went full-on chinese fulfillment ofc. oh and the amount of clear, unburned, uncracked acrylic going into this suggests they probably have some rejects, and acrylic really isn't that cheap. and they have about 3.5times more acrylic (just by area; plus it's thicker) than pcb... oh and don't forget the business overhead. someone has to sit there, read the orders, pack them up, ship them, keep the right records for tax purposes, etc. add that to the fact they probably want to make at least a bit of money and you'll see why they probably cost at least 2.5times their expenses.
People are giving you way too much crap sir.. they may be right about the electronics bits but this turned out beautiful. Besides that, if I wanted prodigious electronics building knowledge I'd watch Afrotechmods, bigclive, eevblog, or Mr Carlsons lab... I watch your videos because you know your shit on the things you review and are a blast to watch! I enjoy your hifi videos so much.. please don't change what your are doing! :D
It's not crap, it's just basic facts about electronic components. Pointing these things out doesn't detract from the video or diminish the good work done.
You've done a fine job, and obviously enjoyed yourself, also! ..there's a world of small kits with plenty of soldering involved out there... We'll enjoy watching your build vids. :-)
Tip: A small piece of transparent red foil over the displays will make them much easier to read. It "hides" the unlit segment and gives the lit segments a warmer glow.
26% Price increase in 8 years! There’s a few copy cat products on eBay (China), but I think I’ll get myself an original for my birthday next month. Thanks for the review-walkthrough
Techmoan, in the video you said that people shouldn't touch the chips. This is due to static electricity charges in your clothing that can discharge through the chip so destroying it. However, it looks like you were building this kit on a nylon type of chopping board. Just like nylon clothing, that chopping board can carry a high static charge endangering sensitive electronic components. Take static precautions when building electronic projects. Invest in an antistatic wrist strap. Ian.
Cool. I do think they could have provided a thin, dark (red?) plastic sheet to put in front of the displays to darken out the unlit display segments, which would make the numbers stand out much more.
Yes. Masking Tape is also what it is usually called in the US. More specifically, in the US that blue colored Masking Tape you are using would usually be called Blue Masking Tape.
One thing I don't understand they omitted in the kit. A piece of red frosted tape or similar for the display. Those displays are really hard to read without a diffuser in front of them. Or they could just have chosen LED modules not requiring diffuser although these days they're not as common as they were in the 80s
It still worked though....... I never have bothered with anti-static precautions and I've just calculated it has saved 1hr and 36 minutes of my life that I can do more exciting things with. Sadly it took me nearly 1hr and 55 minutes to work it out and type this reply.
Sorry to split hairs but most capacitors aren't polarised - it's just the electrolytic and tantalum ones that are. The capacitors used here are for decoupling and are ceramic which aren't polarised. God, I didn't realise I'm so pedantic! By the way, I splay my legs everytime - that's just my preference.
Nice channel, much love from mozer Russia! Dont own any of that kind of gadget and even not interested but somehow love your videos, subed and watched all of them :D p.s.sorry for bad english)
That's just basic maths they teach in primary school ;-) ... which we all forget when we reach secondary school and encounter calculators. Or jobs where we shovel numbers into Excel spreadsheets (in fact if you tell Excel to represent numbers as percentages it assumes they're between 0 and 1 like you describe).
Nice enough video, EXCEPT: - as others have noted, resistors and ceramic capacitors are not polarized - the preferred technique for straightening IC pins is to lay one side's pins flat on a table and hold the IC body, rocking it over firmly. Doing it with your finger not only gets less than ideal straightening, but a good change of poking your fingers - I could see in your video that the black keys were not fully adhered to their clear plastic carriers....the bubbles in the adhesive were apparent. When I built mine, I took all keys out and firmly squeezed them together for more complete adhesive attachment - There is really no need to use the tape if normal PCB assembly techniques are used, but nothing really wring with your way way, either - VERY bad practice to snip off leads from a PCB the way shown in the video! Lay the board down on the table, hold the ends of the lead with fingers of one hand, snip them off with the cutter in the other hand. OR, do like the skilled professionals....holding the handles of the diagonal cutter between thumb and little finger (the cutter must have spring return handles for this to work), freeing up the index finger of the same hand to touch the end of the lead when cutting, with the PCB over a trash can...as soon as the lead is cut, it fall into the trash and you move on to the next lead....very fast, easy and SAFE. Some other comments based on my own experiences with this: - This is obviously a piece of working sculpture. Nobody would buy this to be their 'working' calculator....too few digits, too few functions.....it is intended to be a fun and perhaps educational piece of art that also works....with that in mind, the price is not outrageous - The spacer behind the LEDs is there to raise them so that their faces are close to the front of the case, instead of being recessed, but I noticed that with this spacer they are still a bit sunken back from the front - The LEDs really need a red filter in order to see the beautiful large display clearly in normal light. I checked and found that almost all industrial LED displays use a red Lexan filter that ....guess what....is exactly as thick as the Spikenzie kit's LEDs are recessed back from the front of the case.....as if the Spikenzie designers had intended to use a piece of that red Lexan in the kit, but then changed their mind and left it out. DigiKey sells small pieces of that red Lexan (from PRD Plastics) that are just about the right size for this kit, and I bought one and used two tiny drops of super glue to affix the filter to the front of the LEDs, and now that filter is precisely flush with the front of the case and the LEDs look spectacular even in bright room light. - I recommend assembly of the clear plastic case while wearing nitrile gloves (like machinists and mechanics use these days to keep their hands clean)...you can buy them by the carton for very cheap....and wear these gloves while handling the case parts. Have a lint free cloth (microfiber wash clothes or shop rags work well) with ammonia window cleaner to wipe the pieces free of finger prints before and during assembly, and have a can of compressed air (a.k.a. air duster) to blow away dust. This way you assembled calculator will have a sparking clean look with no dust and fingerprints showing through.
Dear youtuuba , the resistor part rustled my jimmies so hard i was gonna comment this, thanks for beating me to it by 1 year. Btw your comment is underapreciated.
One thing to say: you did a bunch of criticising here, and while I'm fine with that, just try to not make the actual comment give into one of the things that I didn't like: you called the acrylic plastic. It's acrylic, not plastic.
Since it's an Arduino shouldn't it be too difficult to prog a shortcut of two keys? Just an idea :) I still use my oooold TI-30S calculator from my school-days, never failed :)
"If you want to splay your legs out, go ahead, that's your business." "If I carry on like this, I'll get a job at Foxconn." "I say studio... it's a bedroom- but- don't tell anyone," Classic Techmoan in this video lol!
Actually not all the capacitors are polarized, Tantalum and some if not most Electrolytics caps are polarized. The ones that came with the kit must be either ceramic o plastic film capacitors. Diodes allow current to flow the other way (reverse bias) negative to positive as long as the voltage is bellow ground.
It's a neat little thing but 25 of our British pounds is a bit steep for a novelty item. Enjoyed your video though, I'll make do with having watched you assemble it.
I get that it's not about the price. But 43 US Dollars? Are you kidding me?! That's ridiculous for a DIY calculator made from acrylic. Not to mention it's only a 4 banger
Ilovelazers everyone thinks their idea deserves"boutique" pricing... then idiots buy it convinced it's a piece of functional "art"(yeah, someone actually commented that) which makes the creator positive their next basic ass project could fetch even more money from dummies, and so the cycle continues.
Sorry, I thought of ATMega and wrote Arduino. :) I see no reason why the Microcontroller needs to be removed, the PCB got a pinout for a FTDI-cable. a plain 5-pin connector soldered to the PCB should be enough, and also would fit in the case. The video also shows the settings to reprog it: 00:48
Resistors are not polarised, you can put them in anyway, the stripes are the values of the resistor and just get painted which ever way the resistor comes out before it gets painted.
hi mate could would you consider reviewing Mini Car Real-Time Tracker For Vehicle GPRS GPS? they sell them on ebay for about 40-50 quid. i live in manc myself so if i see you on market street filming buskers ill say hi haha
I prefer 7353.315 That reads 'Sie Esel' which is German for 'You fool' And you don't have to use your imagination because it looks exactly like uppercase letters.
thing about that is: they would run out of pins on the chip to control them. they are probably doing some very fancy stuff to fit all those buttons and leds into the pin count anyway, so if you want more, you would need something like a shift register added to get more outputs from the microcontroller, or just use a serial (e.g. OLED or lcd) display instead. so tl;dr: such a kit would of course be possible, but not as "basic" (which is part of the point here, to show people how it actually works)
3:45 -- RE: "Splaying your Legs" and that being up to you; I'm immediately reminded of a folk song I last heard the Wurzels singing... th-cam.com/video/sfmYIjojkMg/w-d-xo.html
If you put in resistors the wrong way around, you get clashing colours. This is bound to affect functionality, increase power usage and ultimately destroy the planet, one color at the time, starting with black.
Spikenzielabs is still offering this device for $44. They have a heck of a nerve charging that kind of money for such a basic calculator. Forgetting the fact that any smartphone has a far more feature-rich calculator, a few bucks will buy a solar powered calculator many more desirable features, including memory functions, percentage calculations, square root, etc. I used to build Heathkits when I was younger, and the advantage of building those kits was cost savings. I checked the Spikenzielabs website. Some of the kits might offer some educational value for youngsters, but the bulk of their stuff was overpriced and low-tech.
Stephen, you are off base here. First, Spikenzie Labs do not owe you or anyone else any favors when it comes to the price they put on their products......so you seem to be unreasonably outraged (how do they have the NERVE to charge the price they do?) Second, Heathkits were only about saving money in their early days. For most of their time in Business, they were about the fun and satisfaction of building something yourself....it was no longer cheaper to build kits than buy ready made electronic devices. Third, you seem to have no notion of what things actually cost. As soon as you make a kit of an electronics project, you need to make it using through-hole parts, which means that the PCB and parts are more expensive than what is done for mass production. Then the low quantities involved with most kits mean that everything is much more expensive for the kit maker to buy. Then there is all the individual parts marking and packaging. This kit cannot reasonably be considered to be very much overpriced. AND, it comes out of North America, and is not some low ball product from China that is government subsidized.
fitting a resistor will work either way round
Yep, only bad thing happening is your OCD kicking in. He probably got confused with transistors.
The do look better all placed the same way.
If you're using resistors of different values, it's probably a good idea to make them easier to read, but a resistor that is different depending on which way 'round you install it is called a diode! ;->
Actually fitting them all the same way looks way more professional. But yeah, they'll work either way..
@@sambrown9494 Or you could use them to spell something in binary?
Resistors don't have polarity, you can put them anyway you like.
People usually put them all in same direction only so its easier to read the values (colors), and to look nice.
Capacitors and diodes have polarity and can work only one way.
i was about to be like uh.... hes trolling right?
@@thomasslone1964 Right? WTH?!
Yes, that's correct, resistors aren't polarised, so you could fit them either way round. But they look better if they're the same way round! It's the same with ceramic capacitors. Electrolytic capacitors & diodes are polarised though.
@@Aphrodite-fh3vk Found that out the hard way. BOOM!
I like to live my life on the edge.
And you take no prisoners.
Ah, saying the resistors are polarized and caps aren't was just bait.
heh...
'If you want to splay your legs out? Go ahead.That's your business.' LOL
The Sony HX100V is the main overhead view - but I had to crop some of the footage, so it looks a bit low res at times. The camera on the left hand side is a Sony GW55VE.
Good job. Its a nice looking Calculator! Hard to believe you made this video 10 years ago now.
I've seen a few old ones on eBay...but they are from the late 1960s or early 1970s and very basic, with unusual operation. I'd love to see someone making a new one.
Ur videos are crystal clear, the editing and the instructions u give are so well done. Its amazing :)
I like that you got the point of these kits. They're exactly the kind of thing you could buy for a kid who wants to learn how to "do electronics".
Your soldering job looked nice and tidy too.
Looks like I've learnt something about resistors. Three comments out of five means that this will probably be a popular comment on this video. I can see that I'll be receiving similar comments for years to come.
Here's my 2 cents, or P if you like, resistors aren't polarity sensitive, but diodes, transistors, and most electrolytic or tantalum capacitors are. That said, as another commented it does look more professional. I really do like your videos, but this one struck a chord with me. Back in 1976 or 1977, I bought and assembled a Heathkit calculator, which I used for the rest of High School (1978). It was quite a bit more complicated, having separate driver transistors for the LED display segments. I believe it was 16. 1 for each digit, and 1 for each segment and the decimal. I just had to google that old thing and I believe it was the model IC-2006. According to the Datamath website www.datamath.org/Related/Heathkit/IC2006.htm the original price was $69.95 in October of 1973. I believe I paid in the neighborhood of $30.00 in 1976 or 7, as it was on clearance. Possibly you could try to find some Heathkit equipment to try out. Heathkit made Ham Radio equipment, Audio, Televisions, Radio Control equipment for model airplanes, boats and cars, and electronic test equipment such as signal generators, vectorscopes, and ocilloscopes. Heathkit Audio was almost considered audiophile quality.
I've added one now....but from experience few people read annotations. I still get regular comments about the hologram that I mistook for a LED in the Sony Action cam.
I love that kit. It looks so retro. Takes me back to my late teenage years when calculator's
became affordable. Thanks for posting this video. Cheers, b.
There is life beyond school...I use a calculator daily in my job, but I've never needed any scientific functions.
I had a mechanical one as a child....yes I was that kid.
I'm not an expert, but if you are buying a cheap one then you are probably better with a quartz movement as cheap mechanical movements aren't the most reliable things.
I'm mechanical to, but because I'm a gamer, I'm more retro too :)
The direction of the resistors do not matter.
I was working with some led 7 segment displays recently, by putting a thin translucent layer over the display you can increase the contrast of the 'off' segments dramatically; dark plastic, filter gels, even a post-it note does wonders for readability.
I have absolutely no interest in building my own calculator...But just watched your video coz your that very good at presenting and explaining things. Seriously mate get your self an agent. Thanks for all the hard work.
The resistors you can orient pretty much any way, along with inductors and unpolarised capacitors. It's all the other components that need proper orientation, particularly polarised capacitors which can explode if installed backwards.
Techmoan, the only person who can make a calculator assembly interesting...
I've got a job where a typical calculation would be along the lines of £90.28 +0.2% -15% +28% -0.25% +£10 -52.72% +3.78% (and on for about 25 steps)...speed is also important...hence the necessity to me for a % key.
I guess you are a stock broker !
It's basically a $2 microcontroller that's programmed with whatever SpikenzieLabs put on the thing
it'd probably cost like $40 to make though if you paid for the PCB from somewhere like OSHpark or seeed, then bought the LED display, buttons, MCU, supporting components, had somewhere like protolabs or shapeways make the enclosure, etc. Not to mention the cost of your time actually designing Everything. Not saying it's worth $40... hell, I wouldn't even pay $10 from an eBay seller for this kit, but whatever.
@@martinj9268 or you can order tjem in China and pay like 5 bucks a pop. What is what they probably had done.
@@martinj9268 well the pcb (seeed wants 4 bucks for 10pcs each 10*10cm) is probably the cheapest compared to stuff like the custom lasered acrylic and actual time going into not only designing it but the whole overhead of getting the components into the kits, operating the laser cutter (spikenzie cut their own stuff afaik), packaging, shipping etc...
@@nonchip I wouldn't think by much. Especially if they're cutting the acrylic themselves. Acrylic is one of the absolute cheapest materials for custom enclosures only after things like cardboard, cardstock, PET, etc. If you already have a laser cutter it would cost maybe like $2 to make the pieces for the enclosure and effectively none of your time. Development cost and overhead is also basically nothing once you spread it across more than a hundred plus units. I mean its not like they spent months of R&D along with weekly design meetings to make this. It was probably a few hours in sketchup and kicad. The most expensive part is probably the human assembling the kits, though these days human labor is also dumb cheap and would probably only add a dollar or two per kit, even if they were paying them like $20/hr(which they probably aren't unless they themselves are assembling the kits). I'm not trying to bash them, I'm just saying. I myself could make this using prototyping services like oshpark and ponoko for under $40 for a single one. Add in the fact they're making parts themselves and buying in bulk, there's no doubt in my mind this cost far under $40 each unless they're cutting a huge piece out for a ridiculous salary or something. In the end it's just a novelty gadget anyways. Why anyone would pay more than ~$20 for something they'll likely never use anyway is beyond me.
@@martinj9268 well they did strike me more as a hackerspace than evilcorp so i think the humans and laser time are probably their highest expenses... if they're anything close to smart they're not using oshpark for this kind of "mid sized series" thing so their pcbs/components will probably tally in at 1-3 bucks per kit. having someone watch for a cnc laser catching fire while that eats through watts is probably more expensive, unless they went full-on chinese fulfillment ofc. oh and the amount of clear, unburned, uncracked acrylic going into this suggests they probably have some rejects, and acrylic really isn't that cheap. and they have about 3.5times more acrylic (just by area; plus it's thicker) than pcb...
oh and don't forget the business overhead. someone has to sit there, read the orders, pack them up, ship them, keep the right records for tax purposes, etc. add that to the fact they probably want to make at least a bit of money and you'll see why they probably cost at least 2.5times their expenses.
You best let Lego know, so they can discontinue their product line.
People are giving you way too much crap sir.. they may be right about the electronics bits but this turned out beautiful. Besides that, if I wanted prodigious electronics building knowledge I'd watch Afrotechmods, bigclive, eevblog, or Mr Carlsons lab... I watch your videos because you know your shit on the things you review and are a blast to watch! I enjoy your hifi videos so much.. please don't change what your are doing! :D
It's not crap, it's just basic facts about electronic components. Pointing these things out doesn't detract from the video or diminish the good work done.
"If you wanna splay your legs out, go ahead that's your business."
-Techmoan, 2013
You've done a fine job, and obviously enjoyed yourself, also!
..there's a world of small kits with plenty of soldering involved out there...
We'll enjoy watching your build vids.
:-)
Makes sense.
Tip: A small piece of transparent red foil over the displays will make them much easier to read. It "hides" the unlit segment and gives the lit segments a warmer glow.
"If you want to splay your legs out, that's your bussiness." LOL
Always leaves me with a big smile on my face...Thanx
26% Price increase in 8 years! There’s a few copy cat products on eBay (China), but I think I’ll get myself an original for my birthday next month. Thanks for the review-walkthrough
Techmoan, in the video you said that people shouldn't touch the chips. This is due to static electricity charges in your clothing that can discharge through the chip so destroying it.
However, it looks like you were building this kit on a nylon type of chopping board. Just like nylon clothing, that chopping board can carry a high static charge endangering sensitive electronic components.
Take static precautions when building electronic projects. Invest in an antistatic wrist strap.
Ian.
You might as well unsubscribe. You'd have to be crazy to subscribe to something you don't like.
Cool.
I do think they could have provided a thin, dark (red?) plastic sheet to put in front of the displays to darken out the unlit display segments, which would make the numbers stand out much more.
Resistors aren't polarised, so it doesn't matter which way round they go
Just FYI resistors aren't polar, but yes for electrolytic capacitors and many other electric components getting them the right way round is important
Yes the resistors work the other way round. It's just neater to have them the same way.
Very nice video mate, this channel keeps getting better and better :) Thumbs up
Its usually called Masking Tape in the UK.
Yes. Masking Tape is also what it is usually called in the US. More specifically, in the US that blue colored Masking Tape you are using would usually be called Blue Masking Tape.
@@williamgottlieb8723 or possibly Painter's Tape
One thing I don't understand they omitted in the kit. A piece of red frosted tape or similar for the display. Those displays are really hard to read without a diffuser in front of them. Or they could just have chosen LED modules not requiring diffuser although these days they're not as common as they were in the 80s
Missed opportunity not having the first thing you typed into the calculator be 58008
¡0.7734
Buddy Clem
0|/|.7734
14215469 x 5 = 71077345 As this was the mid '70s the joke went 142 Israelis fought 154 Arabs over 69 oil wells. They fought for 5 days. Who won?
It still worked though.......
I never have bothered with anti-static precautions and I've just calculated it has saved 1hr and 36 minutes of my life that I can do more exciting things with. Sadly it took me nearly 1hr and 55 minutes to work it out and type this reply.
egads that's a lot of mundane work, but you did it really well
Disassembling your calculator each time you need to change the battery is pure Techmoan
Sorry to split hairs but most capacitors aren't polarised - it's just the electrolytic and tantalum ones that are. The capacitors used here are for decoupling and are ceramic which aren't polarised. God, I didn't realise I'm so pedantic! By the way, I splay my legs everytime - that's just my preference.
That might be one reason why they only use 6 digits.
Some capacitors can go in anyway like the little pancake looking ones. The tube one have to go in a certain way.
Looks fun ! Unfortunately I'm a very impatient person and this would lead to more frustration than satisfaction.
Pick one up at the POUND SHOPPE... Brilliant!
Arab Cadabra pick up good spelling
Is there a off button or does the unit shut off after so many minutes not used?
Please tell me how your Techmoan intro is done? It is super COOL!!!
Stripes are for colour code, to get resistance value of it;
Resistors will work either way.
Patience of a saint
Nice channel, much love from mozer Russia!
Dont own any of that kind of gadget and even not interested but somehow love your videos, subed and watched all of them :D
p.s.sorry for bad english)
That's just basic maths they teach in primary school ;-)
... which we all forget when we reach secondary school and encounter calculators. Or jobs where we shovel numbers into Excel spreadsheets (in fact if you tell Excel to represent numbers as percentages it assumes they're between 0 and 1 like you describe).
Nice enough video, EXCEPT:
- as others have noted, resistors and ceramic capacitors are not polarized
- the preferred technique for straightening IC pins is to lay one side's pins flat on a table and hold the IC body, rocking it over firmly. Doing it with your finger not only gets less than ideal straightening, but a good change of poking your fingers
- I could see in your video that the black keys were not fully adhered to their clear plastic carriers....the bubbles in the adhesive were apparent. When I built mine, I took all keys out and firmly squeezed them together for more complete adhesive attachment
- There is really no need to use the tape if normal PCB assembly techniques are used, but nothing really wring with your way way, either
- VERY bad practice to snip off leads from a PCB the way shown in the video! Lay the board down on the table, hold the ends of the lead with fingers of one hand, snip them off with the cutter in the other hand. OR, do like the skilled professionals....holding the handles of the diagonal cutter between thumb and little finger (the cutter must have spring return handles for this to work), freeing up the index finger of the same hand to touch the end of the lead when cutting, with the PCB over a trash can...as soon as the lead is cut, it fall into the trash and you move on to the next lead....very fast, easy and SAFE.
Some other comments based on my own experiences with this:
- This is obviously a piece of working sculpture. Nobody would buy this to be their 'working' calculator....too few digits, too few functions.....it is intended to be a fun and perhaps educational piece of art that also works....with that in mind, the price is not outrageous
- The spacer behind the LEDs is there to raise them so that their faces are close to the front of the case, instead of being recessed, but I noticed that with this spacer they are still a bit sunken back from the front
- The LEDs really need a red filter in order to see the beautiful large display clearly in normal light. I checked and found that almost all industrial LED displays use a red Lexan filter that ....guess what....is exactly as thick as the Spikenzie kit's LEDs are recessed back from the front of the case.....as if the Spikenzie designers had intended to use a piece of that red Lexan in the kit, but then changed their mind and left it out. DigiKey sells small pieces of that red Lexan (from PRD Plastics) that are just about the right size for this kit, and I bought one and used two tiny drops of super glue to affix the filter to the front of the LEDs, and now that filter is precisely flush with the front of the case and the LEDs look spectacular even in bright room light.
- I recommend assembly of the clear plastic case while wearing nitrile gloves (like machinists and mechanics use these days to keep their hands clean)...you can buy them by the carton for very cheap....and wear these gloves while handling the case parts. Have a lint free cloth (microfiber wash clothes or shop rags work well) with ammonia window cleaner to wipe the pieces free of finger prints before and during assembly, and have a can of compressed air (a.k.a. air duster) to blow away dust. This way you assembled calculator will have a sparking clean look with no dust and fingerprints showing through.
Dear youtuuba , the resistor part rustled my jimmies so hard i was gonna comment this, thanks for beating me to it by 1 year. Btw your comment is underapreciated.
youtuuba this ain't be no comment dis be a freaking essay
Micah Angelo the guys name is YouTuba
Officialpoiuytrewq4645 lol
One thing to say: you did a bunch of criticising here, and while I'm fine with that, just try to not make the actual comment give into one of the things that I didn't like: you called the acrylic plastic. It's acrylic, not plastic.
What cameras did you use
so why is it that you did the capacitor separately from the resistors? since they're all on a line could could do them at the same time right?
Since it's an Arduino shouldn't it be too difficult to prog a shortcut of two keys? Just an idea :) I still use my oooold TI-30S calculator from my school-days, never failed :)
"If you want to splay your legs out, go ahead, that's your business."
"If I carry on like this, I'll get a job at Foxconn."
"I say studio... it's a bedroom- but- don't tell anyone,"
Classic Techmoan in this video lol!
Actually not all the capacitors are polarized, Tantalum and some if not most Electrolytics caps are polarized.
The ones that came with the kit must be either ceramic o plastic film capacitors.
Diodes allow current to flow the other way (reverse bias) negative to positive as long as the voltage is bellow ground.
TM needs to take a holiday over to the Isle of Man so BigClive can give him some soldering lessons. ;)
It's a neat little thing but 25 of our British pounds is a bit steep for a novelty item. Enjoyed your video though, I'll make do with having watched you assemble it.
I get that it's not about the price. But 43 US Dollars? Are you kidding me?! That's ridiculous for a DIY calculator made from acrylic. Not to mention it's only a 4 banger
Ilovelazers everyone thinks their idea deserves"boutique" pricing... then idiots buy it convinced it's a piece of functional "art"(yeah, someone actually commented that) which makes the creator positive their next basic ass project could fetch even more money from dummies, and so the cycle continues.
Martin J “anyone who pays for this is a dummy cause they don’t know electrical engineering”
Your soldering iron, it's an Antex one, isn't it?
A resistor will work both ways!!!!
is there a nixie calculator ?
hey techmoan bet you wish it was nixie display rather than led !
OMG, aren't they the old 9 digit vacuum tubes?
Sorry, I thought of ATMega and wrote Arduino. :) I see no reason why the Microcontroller needs to be removed, the PCB got a pinout for a FTDI-cable. a plain 5-pin connector soldered to the PCB should be enough, and also would fit in the case. The video also shows the settings to reprog it: 00:48
Resistors are not polarised, you can put them in anyway, the stripes are the values of the resistor and just get painted which ever way the resistor comes out before it gets painted.
PBMS123 I would still line them up so they look nice in the clear case, and so they are easier to read.
PBMS123
any way*
hi mate could would you consider reviewing Mini Car Real-Time Tracker For Vehicle GPRS GPS? they sell them on ebay for about 40-50 quid.
i live in manc myself so if i see you on market street filming buskers ill say hi haha
I prefer 7353.315
That reads 'Sie Esel' which is German for 'You fool'
And you don't have to use your imagination because it looks exactly like uppercase letters.
this has nothing to do with the video but i was wondering if i should get a battery pocket watch or a mechanical one, please suggest one. thanks
Does there exist a such kit with at least 10 digits?
thing about that is: they would run out of pins on the chip to control them. they are probably doing some very fancy stuff to fit all those buttons and leds into the pin count anyway, so if you want more, you would need something like a shift register added to get more outputs from the microcontroller, or just use a serial (e.g. OLED or lcd) display instead. so tl;dr: such a kit would of course be possible, but not as "basic" (which is part of the point here, to show people how it actually works)
Great Vid!
Saves me buying it, snapping half the plastics and ending up swearing at it (Did it with an ant bug kit and a build it yourself mini helicopter)
What will happen if you overload (more than 6 digits) the digits?
The blue brand is also called painters tape.
what is the chip number, can u order it seperatelly?
this guy is awesome!
how long take it to send it to you
Do they make a scientific version?
+dimmddr1 no
Thumbs up for that Foxconn Joke lmaooo
3:45 -- RE: "Splaying your Legs" and that being up to you; I'm immediately reminded of a folk song I last heard the Wurzels singing...
th-cam.com/video/sfmYIjojkMg/w-d-xo.html
Did you type in 58008.
nice kit and great video thanks :)
Only electrolytic capacitors are polarised. All other types are bipolar.
Resistors aren't polarised, they can be fitted either way round.
2:41 It's definitely a handy-hand!
that camera was designed to have the keys backlit. Dont know why they didnt go through with that idea.
Probably due to the lithium coin cell, not enough battery to last if you do that.
"little crabs" lol
If you put in resistors the wrong way around, you get clashing colours. This is bound to affect functionality, increase power usage and ultimately destroy the planet, one color at the time, starting with black.
thank you! i didn't realise it had a pdf
"Plastic-y bits." Don't you love Mat?
You don't need a % key! Just work out the fraction & multiply by 100.
Put a big annotation in the video that you already got it. Might cut the amount of comment you get about it in half.
that kit is almost $50, that's outrageous
Great video as always. :D
Spikenzielabs is still offering this device for $44. They have a heck of a nerve charging that kind of money for such a basic calculator. Forgetting the fact that any smartphone has a far more feature-rich calculator, a few bucks will buy a solar powered calculator many more desirable features, including memory functions, percentage calculations, square root, etc.
I used to build Heathkits when I was younger, and the advantage of building those kits was cost savings. I checked the Spikenzielabs website. Some of the kits might offer some educational value for youngsters, but the bulk of their stuff was overpriced and low-tech.
Stephen, you are off base here. First, Spikenzie Labs do not owe you or anyone else any favors when it comes to the price they put on their products......so you seem to be unreasonably outraged (how do they have the NERVE to charge the price they do?)
Second, Heathkits were only about saving money in their early days. For most of their time in Business, they were about the fun and satisfaction of building something yourself....it was no longer cheaper to build kits than buy ready made electronic devices.
Third, you seem to have no notion of what things actually cost. As soon as you make a kit of an electronics project, you need to make it using through-hole parts, which means that the PCB and parts are more expensive than what is done for mass production. Then the low quantities involved with most kits mean that everything is much more expensive for the kit maker to buy. Then there is all the individual parts marking and packaging.
This kit cannot reasonably be considered to be very much overpriced. AND, it comes out of North America, and is not some low ball product from China that is government subsidized.
._. its for programmers to put custom code on to it, cause some times we need to run custom code. If you can imagine.