Hello ... Just joined up
About Me:
I am 38 years old and live in New Hampshire, USA.
I have been playing with electricity & electronics since I was like 4 years old breaking stuff to figure out how it worked. By age 8 I was not as destructive as for my father introduced me to Radio Shack to spend my allowance on parts there vs killing stuff around the house to grab parts out of. When I was 9 I got a 150 in 1 electronics kit and had a blast with that. At age 10 I was fixing stuff for teachers at school and friends such as a electric pencil sharpener, and a old black and white TV in which the teacher said that if I can get the TV working that the class can watch a baseball game on it. For both of these devices I got lucky, the pencil sharpener was just a poor connection inside from the cord getting yanked hard so I rewired the lamp cord wire to it, and the TV was an easy fix because it turned on and there was no sound and the potentiometer was bad as for it would eventually have sound when you brought the volume to the max, but had nothing lower. So a $3 potentiometer later and it had sound of none to some all the way up to loud.
From age 10 to like age 18 I built all sorts of kits, and came up with my own circuits learning from the small circuit books that Radio Shack had as well as those in the library. Ended up memorizing what parts of what values are used with others for certain voltages etc, and using combinations of other peoples circuits in my own projects as I self taught myself.
In 1994 at age 18 fresh out of High School I got a job with Allied Electronics as a PCB Assembler/Tester, which then turned into working with engineers there to test and troubleshoot troubled boards and learn with an engineer to instruct me on some stuff that I either didnt know or may have had gaps in knowledge of. I then landed a good paying job at 19 years old with Rockwell Automation / Allen-Bradley as an Assembler/ Production tester in 1995. I quickly moved on to more challenging work as for I became friends with engineers and when they saw my home projects I'd be working on during lunch, and they asked what I was doing, they said your in the wrong position, you need to be over in the service department fixing the troubled production boards and the ones that failed in the field. So I got a promotion to Electronics Technician of the Service Department in which I was able to operate on my own looking at schematics, using the test equipment that I knew how to use, chase signals etc, and fix problems pretty quickly as well as learn all sorts of techniques for fun problems such as a bad batch of chips with a specific date code that act up under certain conditions etc, and much more. I worked there until 2001 when my job was being sent to Mexico to make for cheaper manufacturing. I got a bonus to train people how to do my job and a good severance package. I then worked for Geokon for a year from 2001 to 2002 with quality control and testing of load cells, transducers, and all sorts of other precision instrumentation that they manufactured. In 2003 with a severe shortage of Electronics jobs in my area and with my college degree alsomost complete, I took on the role of working in IT from 2003 to 2009 fixing computers, servers, point of sale hardware and systems, as well as user support. In 2009 I landed a job with the USPS as an ET10 ( Electronics Technician - Level 10 ) which I still work for today keeping the automation running which includes Electronics, Inductrial Electrical, Mechanical, as well as IT/MIS Computer, Server, and Networking troubleshooting and repairs.
My Education: ( College from 1998 to 2004 while also working full time jobs in between )
Self Taught Electronics (mostly), with some college level electronics training, but they did away with the degree plan 1/2 way through degree and I had to switch majors from Micro Computer Electronics to Computer Systems Management (MIS/IT) because there were not enough students interested in electronics and colleges only want courses that make money so since Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center Hospital was expanding to a new building and they had a need for nurses, I was asked by the college if I wanted to become a nurse instead and remain at their college. I declined turning into a nurse as for I stated " I can fix Electronics Problems, but I cant fix People Problems!"
So I have a degree, but its in MIS/IT and not electronics, so while I know a bunch there is still stuff to learn and I am always soaking up new knowledge like a sponge.
In closure of this introduction, I'd like to state that if anyone has any destructive kids out there, who breaks their toys into pieces. You should take a moment to see why they are doing this. My parents thought I had something wrong with me to break everything, but they never asked why I did it. They only were angered by it. Later on they finally realized what I was doing and how all the stuff I broke to find out how it worked, and built other things from the pieces are parts, and all my mothers vacuum cleaner belts that got smoked when a relay got jammed in the auger, lead me to a future of good paying jobs.
About Me:
I am 38 years old and live in New Hampshire, USA.
I have been playing with electricity & electronics since I was like 4 years old breaking stuff to figure out how it worked. By age 8 I was not as destructive as for my father introduced me to Radio Shack to spend my allowance on parts there vs killing stuff around the house to grab parts out of. When I was 9 I got a 150 in 1 electronics kit and had a blast with that. At age 10 I was fixing stuff for teachers at school and friends such as a electric pencil sharpener, and a old black and white TV in which the teacher said that if I can get the TV working that the class can watch a baseball game on it. For both of these devices I got lucky, the pencil sharpener was just a poor connection inside from the cord getting yanked hard so I rewired the lamp cord wire to it, and the TV was an easy fix because it turned on and there was no sound and the potentiometer was bad as for it would eventually have sound when you brought the volume to the max, but had nothing lower. So a $3 potentiometer later and it had sound of none to some all the way up to loud.
From age 10 to like age 18 I built all sorts of kits, and came up with my own circuits learning from the small circuit books that Radio Shack had as well as those in the library. Ended up memorizing what parts of what values are used with others for certain voltages etc, and using combinations of other peoples circuits in my own projects as I self taught myself.
In 1994 at age 18 fresh out of High School I got a job with Allied Electronics as a PCB Assembler/Tester, which then turned into working with engineers there to test and troubleshoot troubled boards and learn with an engineer to instruct me on some stuff that I either didnt know or may have had gaps in knowledge of. I then landed a good paying job at 19 years old with Rockwell Automation / Allen-Bradley as an Assembler/ Production tester in 1995. I quickly moved on to more challenging work as for I became friends with engineers and when they saw my home projects I'd be working on during lunch, and they asked what I was doing, they said your in the wrong position, you need to be over in the service department fixing the troubled production boards and the ones that failed in the field. So I got a promotion to Electronics Technician of the Service Department in which I was able to operate on my own looking at schematics, using the test equipment that I knew how to use, chase signals etc, and fix problems pretty quickly as well as learn all sorts of techniques for fun problems such as a bad batch of chips with a specific date code that act up under certain conditions etc, and much more. I worked there until 2001 when my job was being sent to Mexico to make for cheaper manufacturing. I got a bonus to train people how to do my job and a good severance package. I then worked for Geokon for a year from 2001 to 2002 with quality control and testing of load cells, transducers, and all sorts of other precision instrumentation that they manufactured. In 2003 with a severe shortage of Electronics jobs in my area and with my college degree alsomost complete, I took on the role of working in IT from 2003 to 2009 fixing computers, servers, point of sale hardware and systems, as well as user support. In 2009 I landed a job with the USPS as an ET10 ( Electronics Technician - Level 10 ) which I still work for today keeping the automation running which includes Electronics, Inductrial Electrical, Mechanical, as well as IT/MIS Computer, Server, and Networking troubleshooting and repairs.
My Education: ( College from 1998 to 2004 while also working full time jobs in between )
Self Taught Electronics (mostly), with some college level electronics training, but they did away with the degree plan 1/2 way through degree and I had to switch majors from Micro Computer Electronics to Computer Systems Management (MIS/IT) because there were not enough students interested in electronics and colleges only want courses that make money so since Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center Hospital was expanding to a new building and they had a need for nurses, I was asked by the college if I wanted to become a nurse instead and remain at their college. I declined turning into a nurse as for I stated " I can fix Electronics Problems, but I cant fix People Problems!"
So I have a degree, but its in MIS/IT and not electronics, so while I know a bunch there is still stuff to learn and I am always soaking up new knowledge like a sponge.
In closure of this introduction, I'd like to state that if anyone has any destructive kids out there, who breaks their toys into pieces. You should take a moment to see why they are doing this. My parents thought I had something wrong with me to break everything, but they never asked why I did it. They only were angered by it. Later on they finally realized what I was doing and how all the stuff I broke to find out how it worked, and built other things from the pieces are parts, and all my mothers vacuum cleaner belts that got smoked when a relay got jammed in the auger, lead me to a future of good paying jobs.
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