About the Author

My father was interested in T.E.Lawrence and used to visit Pat and Joyce Knowles who looked after Lawrence's cottage. Because they lived way out in the country side, they were not connected to the electricity supply. Pat generated electricity to charge a small room full of accumulators using solar panels and windmills. Pat encouraged my scientific interest by giving me old electronic equipment to play with.

At first I just took things apart. I vividly remember one occasion when my dad gave me a brass time switch. I soon took it apart of course and a huge spring shot past my head and hit the ceiling.

When I was at junior school, I soon progressed from dismantling things, to repairing them and then to constructing them. One day a man arrived to repair the washing machine. He replaced the motor control board and let me have the old one. Using the triac I managed to build a really dodgy sound to light unit for my stereo.

When I left school, I went to college. During this period I earned pocket money by repairing scrap TV sets and selling them. I got really expert at refurbishing the then very popular Phillips G8 series and had quite a large collection of spare boards. TVs were more fun to play with back then because they were much less integrated than they are these days. I still find the inside of a TV more interesting than watching the front of it.

Since leaving college I have worked in the electronics industry. I have obtained lots of interesting surplus equipment during this time, including a high vacuum rig. I decided to put this site together to document my experimentation and to share it with others. I hope you find it interesting.

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