Hi all,

I'm an Italian guy that recently moved to Toronto. I've been following out this forum for a while and I think people here are very competent, skilled and sharing.

I hope I'll be meeting many nice people here, having in common this passion for electronics. I started playing with this stuff when I was 14, at the high school. After graduating in electronics, unfortunately I have never had a chance to work in this field. Computer science mostly, but not electronics in particular. This is something I regret, so electronics turned out being my hobby, nothing more. Life goes on anyway...

Hope to have fun here, exchanging experiences and knowledge and be active and present as much as I can.

Thank you for reading.

Piero

Ciao Piero, welcome to the forum! What sort of diy projects have you built?
Cheers

Hi Gio,

I just started dealing with tubes, I got my inspiration here, but I like using PICs and playing with LEDs.
Most of my projects are still in Milan, one day I will pack off my tools and circuits and will send them to Canada. I built function generators, bench power supplies and tons of other little things, like digital inductance and capacimeter. I also have a nice oscilloscope over there, that I'm missing too.

Since I moved here I had to buy everything, or at least the basics. I started a few months ago making PCBs, using a laminator and Eagle. I had to buy a drill press in order to get some decent result and I am very satisfied with them.
The first tube project I made, in May this year, was a kind of VuMeter using two "magic eyes". Now I've just built a 12-150V converter that I found in the internet: http://bruno.netstrefa.com.pl/radio/pro ... /index.htm
(with some limitations it works pretty well), and I would like to use it to power up that Vumeter and put it in a box along with Roger Gomez's "12AU7 / IRF510 Headphone Amp".
I don't want to use any transformer and I would like to use one of those new Hammond's enclosures.
I also will be building soon a ESR meter, like this one:
http://www.qsl.net/iz7ath/web/02_brew/1 ... ex_ita.htm
it's not very expensive, just a few bucks, and it will work instantly.



Piero

Let us know how the ESR meter turns out. Some other DIY meter ideas were recently posted in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2260
Cheers

Sure, I've already ordered two microammetters on ebay, and should get them in a couple of weeks.
I want to design a decent PCB and put the whole thing in a box.
I will be more than glad to post some pics and comments. Should I get a nice PCB I will definitely upload the PCB, in case somebody wished to build one. The schematic is the one of those mentioned here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2260
It was designed years ago by a leading and trustworthy Italian magazine. I have chosen that project because is cheap and effective. I won't be using such an instrument on a daily basis, just on occasion, so there is no reason for me to spend a fortune.

Today I finally got a couple of MAX1044, so I can build my latest project: an input stage for a "pc based oscilloscope".
That IC is basically a voltage converter, from 9v (the device is battery powered), I can get a dual voltage (+/- 9V), which will power up a TL082.
The first OpAmp is used as a voltage follower, following a three way switch; the second one as a low pass filter. The signal goes to the computer's MIC plug through a 3.5mm mono jack. Then one can find tons of freeware SW.

I will let you know.

Bye!

Piero