Unless you are working directly off the mains (which you should never do) or with tube amps, there's not much chance of that...

Of course it goes without saying that hazardous EMFs would likewise be encountered in certain battery/low EMF supplied power conversion circuits as contained, for example, in; 'power inverters', portable radiography equipment, CCFL 'inverters', photo-flash units, 'insect zappers', electrical weapons (i.e. stun-guns/tasers), etc... Even battery operated CRT TVs and Geiger counters can 'bite' you... --- Also beware of dielectric absorption effects (Spec. leave shunts across caps during handling of connected circuitry).

Have fun!

HP

 

First circuit was a crystal radio from a kit.

First useful circuit I designed myself was a timer for my photo enlarger based on RC a transistor and relay. Looking back it was a stupid inaccurate circuit.
Also designed a + and - 12V supply using zeners and pass transistors so I could experiment with op amps. It is still working 45 years later!

If you can imagine, the '741 was the latest and greatest at that time.

Bob

 

Dissecting Appliances

 

My first project was a Heathkit Shortwave radio back in the 60's also repaired TVs back then. The TV repair wasn't much more then popping tubs out and running to RadioShack to test them.

 

Hello,

I started electronics using the EE1000 series of kits from Philips:
http://ee.old.no/1000/
I had the late 1000 series produced from 1970 to 1973.
The manuals can be found on this page:
http://ee.old.no/library/

Bertus

 

My first project was a Heathkit Shortwave radio back in the 60's also repaired TVs back then. The TV repair wasn't much more then popping tubs out and running to RadioShack to test them.

Aye! I recall The Shack's 'lifetime warranty' on tubes -- How ever did they come to their current predicament...

 

Thank you all for the input so far. You give me ideas and hopefully I helped walk you down some good memory lanes. I know you walked me down some of yours and I didn't mind the stroll in the least!

 

My first time was a Fuzz Face circuit. I took it the same way my ceramics teacher taught me with kit forming; break it all down into small pieces. I think that helped me cause it worked the first time I put it together. Pretty lucky too since I was using non pad perf and twisting leads together so they would hold for soldering. 8-10 Half watt resistors, measured and put together in series to get exactly the resistance on the schematic, 450vdc bypass caps in series to get 20uf, giant ceramic caps for couplers, its a real massive and overdesigned 2 transistor circuit, lol.

 

Crystal Radio using 1N34 Germanium Diode circa 1958 / 1959. Look Ma no batteries.

Ron

 

The project that I did that game me the most pleasure was a pocket radio when I was in high school. As I recall the time was 1957 and the radio was a two tube receiver The first stage was a regenerative detector and the second stage was an audio amp. The plastic box was a cigar box that was about 6" long, 3 inches wide and about 1 inch deep. The power was a AA carbon cell and the B+ was a 22 1/2 volt battery. The tubes were 7 pin miniature tubes that used 1.5 on the filaments and 22 1/2 V for the plates. It had a loop antenna around the inside of the box and a mica trimmer capacitor with a small shaft for a knob for tuning. I had received the whole receiver as a kit and it was originally constructed on a breadboard that used phonelic board with holes about every 1/4 of an inch. So all the parts to make it work were in the plastic box.

 

Build a 555 metronome.

http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/waveforms/555_oscillator.html