Electronics
A central place to organize and publish all of my hobbyist electronics knowledge and projects.
Install / Use
/learn @cellularmitosis/ElectronicsREADME
Electronics
A central place to organize and publish all of my hobbyist electronics knowledge and projects.
Wiki
My first attempt at curating this clump of electronics knowledge was this wiki.
Low Thermal EMF copper alloys
I'm still unclear if tellurium and beryllium are actually added for thermal EMF performance, or are added for ease of machining.
- The standard Tellurium Copper alloy appears to be C14500
- The standard Beryllium Copper alloy appears to be C17200
EEVBlog threads of interest
- UT61E drift and recalibration
- This post describes replacing the built-in vref (75ppm/C) with the LT1790 (5ppm/C).
Building a resistance reference box
Communication checksums
- How should be a serial communication packet format ?
- This thread links to this excellent overview of CRC's.
Fletcher16 seems to be a good choice. It is easy to understand and implement, performant, and has "good enough" data integrity for simple use-cases (i.e. sending small data packets between an Arduino and a PC).
Learning how op-amps work
- In Doing opamp educational stuff - suggestions wanted, Ian.M suggests looking at the schematic of a very early op-amp, the GAP/R P65, which only uses 6 transistors. See [1] and [2].
Fluid baths for electronics (for volt-nuts, resistance-nuts, etc)
Immersing electronics in oil is a tempting idea to stablize the temperature of the components, which helps combat the temperature coefficient of the components in a precision circuit (i.e. a voltage or resistance transfer standard).
But what fluid should you use?
Mineral oil
This seems to be the first idea people come across -- minearl oil is non-conductive, so you can immerse electronics in it. Searching YouTube for "raspberry pi minearl oil" shows lots of cool project ideas.
However, it turns out that over time, minearl oil breaks down and becomes acidic [1] [2]. It could be used, but for best results you may need to monitor the pH and change the oil when (or before!) it becomes acidic.
Silicone oil
It appears silicone oil does not suffer from the same problems as mineral oil, and it appears this is the oil used in the Vishay hermetically sealed resistors [1].
If you search amazon.com for "silicone oil high purity", you'll find 16oz bottles from CCS (Consolidated Chemical & Solvents LLC) from $18 to $25. These are available in viscosities from 0.65cSt to 100,000cSt. Here's a helpful video comparing the viscosities of silicone oil.
Measuring standard cells
Null meters (models to look for, what to use them for, how to build one)
- Null voltmeter
- NULL DETECTOR (this schematic is actually from Conrad Hoffman's article series on building a mini metrology lab)
Hermetic seals
- Hermetic vs “Near Hermetic” Packaging A Technical Review
- "Moisture permeability in most glasses, metals and ceramics is negligible. But not so with any plastic, it is several orders of magnitude greater..."
- "Polymeric materials such as silicones and epoxies do not provide a hermetic seal..."
Ageing voltage references
- zlmex linked to an article by V. S. Orlov about how Datron ages their reference zener diodes.
Threads I need to mine for volt-nutting tips:
- T.C. + Hysteresis measurements on brand new LT1027DCLS8-5 voltage reference
- DIY Low EMF cable and connectors
"Awesome" lists
Github users have started an awesome tradition of curating lists of "awesome" links.
- https://github.com/monostable/awesome-electronics
- Mentioned in the "meta awesome" list: https://github.com/sindresorhus/awesome#hardware
- A similar gist: https://gist.github.com/rgaidot/9132b50cdcdb455fccbe
- https://github.com/intajay/open-electronics
Interesting parts
INA226
Matched transistors
Oscilloscopes
DSO112A ($70, 2MHz, single-channel, hand-held, touch-screen, battery-powered scope)
Security Score
Audited on Mar 24, 2026