Bullshit, that’s what it is. They targeted the “Launchpad”  toward the maker/hacker market and yet they don’t provide the according payment methods, these corporate weasels will only take your credit card, tell me how many students actually own a credit card? only the rich kids, who are probably more interested in getting more free money from their parents and living la vida loca than spending their time hacking away on a TI development board alone in their basement.

It just makes no sense whatsoever! they’re trying to get a piece of this huge market by introducing a ridiculously cheap product and yet theres no way anyone outside the US without a CC would be able to get one!.

Therefore TI’s product is as appealing to me as sucking a rusty nail while watching a match of cricket under severe chronic depression! It’s going to end one way and it won’t be pretty.

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This is the first oscillator I ever built. I remember looking at books and magazines, schematics on the net, etc. They were all either colpitt or hartley oscillators. Generally speaking while they’re simple enough, they require the use of proper inductors which is something that usually you don’t have when you’re just starting out or you can’t measure them because you don’t yet own the proper equipment (unless you’re lucky).

As to avoid frustration, you should ignore them for now and take a look at simpler oscillators like the one that follows:

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As my first electronics-related entry, I would like to share a modification of the “current limiter add-on” by Ron J. The original circuit works as advertised, however I needed to disconnect the load immediately after the maximum current was reached, what I needed was pretty much a resettable fuse.

The following schematic depicts this concept:

With only a few extra components you can make a trusty yet simple electronic fuse.

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I had in mind to share a bunch of my libraries throughout the course of this week, however real life kicked-in and prevented me from doing any of it. In a few days I will hopefully start posting the promised code. Keep in mind though, I’ve been studying electronics lately (I find it fascinating) so any spare time is likely to be spent on that as well.

Let’s see if I can get some well deserved rest now…