Practical Electronics Magazine Pdf Free Download

[Totaly Pavlina]

PEis available worldwide from good newsstands, on subscription delivered direct to your door and is now downloadable from Pocketmags for viewing on an PC, iPad and other devices as well.

Printed in full colour, all PE constructional details are presented in a high quality, crystal clear style that lets you tackle constructional projects with confidence. Published on approx. the first Thursday of every month.

Here at PE we're very proud of our heritage, having built the 1960's hobby electronics market in Britain from scratch. PE's Alan Winstanley wrote this two-part special article describing the origins of Practical Electronics magazine in the UK, followed by the arrival of its litte sister Everyday Electronics. The articles show how our title evolved over many years, including cover shots of some milestone issues, taking in ETI (UK) and Hobby Electronics along the way.

Everyday Electronics magazine is something I have fond memories of from my childhood. Much of the practical knowledge I have of electronics originated from things I read there or stuff I tried to make (some of it DID work). For many years my parents kept-up a subscription for me until sometime in the late-80s when I outgrew it.

The adverts are a real blast from the past. Many of them seemed to run unmodified for years and years. The spiv zapping his light and the odd boy with his crystal set were almost permanent features. I imagine J Bull (Electrical) always doing deals on vast lots of unwanted items and then finding enticing descriptions to sell them off to the unsuspecting.

As well as Elektor I would also read Wireless World, Everyday Electronics, Practical Electronics, Electronics Today International and Electronics Magazine (from Maplin). I read all of them during those days and they definitely help educate me on electronics. I think I subscribed to most of them at one point or another. But one by one they stopped being published or merged and apart from Practical Electronics (which merged with Everyday Electronics) none of them exist today. Which is really sad.

The celebrate its 60th year, Elektor has published a special edition of the magazine which features articles about its 60 years and remembers many of the projects it published over the years. I very pleased to say my ARMee project got a mention on page 64.

Over the years I have built quite a few projects, some from magazines such as Everyday Electronics, Practical Electronics and Electronics Today International (ETI) and others I've designed myself. I have covered some in the Old Meters & Test Equipment page but there are some that don't fit into that catagory so I've introduced this page to cover these projects. As I unearth my old project files I'll add them to this page in chronological order, the first one is a TV Sound Separator..

Fuzz Box - 1975

The Fuzz Box was my very first project, I'd bought a copy of Everyday Electronics and it looked like a project I could build. At only 3.00 I could afford it so I went to my local Electronics shops, RME and Bothwell Electrics to buy the parts. It was a steep learning curve as I'd never worked with strip board let alone transistors! needless to say it didn't work first time but I got it going in the end. In hindsight I think it helped me get my first job as a Trainee Electronics Technician as I could speak confidently, if not laughingly, about my experiences.

7 Watt Stereo Amplifier - 1976

This 7 watt stereo amplifier which I still use today is based on the Elektor project No.82 in the July/August 1976 magazine. To turn it into a more versatile amplifier I added a Magnetic cartridge pre-amp, tone controls and instead of an input selection switch a four channel mixer. I also added line out terminals and later a bit of a fudge of a headphone amplifier - no room inside the case!

Touch Switch Darkroom Photographic Timer - 1977

While I worked as an Electronic Technician I managed to barter a darkroom Enlarger from a colleague, this was a much needed upgrade from my homemade one so to complete it I decided to build a touch switch darkroom timer. Prior to this timing exposure was by watch and a flick of a switch but this timer made it so easy to control - select time and touch switch..done..and so repeatable. The circuit is a simple 555 timer with switch selectable timing resistors and an output relay to switch the enlarger bulb.

Logic Probe - 1979

When I needed a logic probe I looked back at old ETI projects and came across the ETI120 article. It was such a great little probe I built two and I'm still using them today when testing my Electron Sequencer board. I've even seen one built into a Tic Tak box using 7 segement displays to indicate a 1 or 0!

ETI120 Logic Probe article.

8 bit Sequencer for Maplin 3800 Synthesiser - 1980

After building the Maplin 3800 Synthesiser I looked at the Maplin 600 note sequencer but at 125 + it was way too expensive so I thought I'd have a go at designing and building my own and this is the result. It worked very well but lacked the very useful feature of being able to load and save sequences so I had to write down any that I liked and then re-type them in when needed - very labourious.

How it worked was very simple - press reset, press the R/W to write, set the data to the note required then single step it onto the next address. Once the sequence is complete set the repeat address to the last address, set R/W to Read then press run to start the sequence. Tempo is set by the rotary switch and the potentiomenter.

At the start of the 1980's I didn't use Micro Controllers or Processors so the design was based round 74 series logic, Static RAM and of course a 555 timmer. The following is my entire project file including circuit diagrams , pcb's, case and the synth interface along with a few photos. During this period there was no CAD so the PCB tracking had to be designed onto clear acetate using track & pad transfers which is then used to photo etch the board. I thought it would be a very complicated design to manually place each track so I made a board with pads for each IC so the IC's can be soldered in place then all the pin connections could be done using wire.

Sequencer Circuit Diagrams. Sequencer PCB layouts.

Sequencer Block Schematic. Sequencer Case.

Sequencer/Synthesiser Interface. uPD2114L Static RAM data sheet.

MM2111 Static RAM data sheet.

In 1984 I revisited the Sequencer to increase it from 8 bit to 16 bit with double the memory. Unfortunately I never got round to building it.

16 bit Sequencer Circuit Diagrams. HM6116L Data Sheet.

Ultrasonic and Infrared remote Controls - 1980, 1984 & 1986

Ultrasonic

This is all that has survived of my Ultrasonic remote control, the handset electronics minus the transducer! During the late 70's and early 80's there was a keen interest in ultrasonic control in the electronics magazines, they all had projects of one description or another. I built this one to switch on and off my TV..yes TV didn't have remote controls! I think this design came from a magazine but I can't remember which one although I probably modified the reciever to switch the mains suppy. Here are my circuit diagrams and PCB layout..note the obvious error - I etched the track on the wrong side of the PCB!

Infrared Mk1

My first look at Infrared Remote Controls was when I wanted to replace the wired remote control on my Feguson Videostar 3V30 video cassette recorder. I used the RS components datasheets to select the basic circuits I needed, I even bought their circuit boards, but I had to make some additions to the circuit to accommodate a pseudo Feguson remote control so didn't use them in the end. I added a BCD decoder and some 'd' type flip flops to toggle relays which swiched in resistors to emulate the wired remote control. On striping down the existing control and reverse engineering it was possible to see how it worked and luckily is was a simple resistor ladder which was easy to simulate.

My first IR Remote Control system then consisted of a transmitter handset which sends pre-selected codes to the receiver unit, the receiver then decoded the message and switched the appropiate relay and hense the function. The receiver unit consisted of a Power Supply, a receiver amplifier and a decoder board and sat snuggly at the side of the Video machine. The following documentation includes the circuit diagrams and PCB layouts and all my workings.

My Mk1 Ferguson Videostar 3V30 Video IR Remote Control designs.

The wired remote control whose wire was not long enough to reach the couch!

Infrared Mk2

In 1986 I decided to upgrade the Infrared Remote Control to provide new features such as silent operation - no relays, voltage controlled amplifer for volume control and a smaller controller. Again I've not a lot left of the original transmitter and receiver but I have the original keyboard circuit boards and an unused part built receiver PCB. All this was superceded a few years later when both TV's and video recorders came with their own remote controls.

My Mk2 Ferguson Videostar 3V30 Video IR Remote Control designs.

RS Datasheet Remote Control IC's 3560 July 1983

RS Datasheet Remote Control IC's 3560 July 1984

RS Datasheet Remote Control IC's 3560 July 1985

RS Datasheet Remote Control IC's 7786 July 1987

Autoranging Frequency Meter - 1983

A piece of test gear I didn't have at his time was a frequency meter and when this one appeared in Wireless World I thought I'd build it.. and it still works well.

The Wireless World 1983 Autoranging Frequency Meter article and my build notes.

E&MM Synbal, Syntom II and Synclap - 1983

Having built the Maplin 3800 Synthesiser I wanted to build some drum effects and the Syn projects were just being published at that time. I ordered one of each board then used them as templates to make a few more of each PCB. At that point the project came to a halt and was just revisited and completed in 2015.

I had left the project in a bit of a mess with some completed boards, some part built but none assembled into a decent rack. I had enough PCB's to build four SynTom II's, four SynBal's and a SynClap. They are all now built and assembled in a rack and controlled via a Raspberry Pi sequencer. Now in 2020 I'm replacing the Raspberry Pi with a sequencer built using an Acorn Electron computer - there is another page on the site that charts my progress with that project.

Some of the boards as they were left in 1983/4.

The completed drum rack. There is a short video of the rack in action on the Raspberry Pi pages.

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