Ucando Rocks

[Jidis]

I grabbed a set of the Ucando instructional VHS tapes a few weeks ago for the "Digital" series of electronics tapes. They look like they're going to be quite helpful. I got their "VCR Repair" tape a long time ago and skimmed through it, but all except one of my VCR's are broken, so I never had a convenient place to watch it. ;D

I only took AC and DC semesters of classes here, and didn't continue into semiconductors because the class was filled with lots of "money for nothing" types who just wanted an easy job and had no real interest in electronics, so it moved way too slow and ate lots of time. These tapes move fast enough that you frequently have to back up and re-watch parts of them. Not to say that they're a substitute for proper schooling, but each hour long tape covers about a month of what my classes probably did, which may be good for other "low attention spanners" like myself.

The whole third tape is on multiplexers and shift registers. I'm really excited about watching it, and had fished the web many times for such info. It was the main MBHP area that I wanted a better understanding of. If anyone else is having trouble with that, I'd recommend them.

I think they're only available on VHS, and they're not the greatest picture quality or animation that I've ever seen, but it doesn't matter much for this. You can also get any of the individual tapes from them for $25 or $35 dollars here (US) and they all have fairly decent descriptions of what they cover.

                                                    -Take Care!

George

PS- Just looked through the end of that third tape and it might be better than I thought. It not only hits the mux/demux chips, but it then runs over some of the LCD,LED, and matrix display theory that they're often used for. - Good Stuff!

[Milkmansound]

don't you find their chep animation hilarious?

I used the Ucando TV repair tapes when I first started out with TV repair - they are informative, but that animation makes them really hard to take seriously.

[Jidis]

don't you find their chep animation hilarious?

Yes, it is indeed awful. ;D

It reminds me of stuff when I was in elementary school, where they would drag a TV and VCR into the class on a roller cart and force all the kids to watch something. I actually think the horrible graphics are one of the things it has going for it in a way. It makes it so it doesn't really matter that it's on VHS, or how old the tapes are. Some of the sealed up ones look like they've been hanging on a rack in some electronics store that went "belly up" fifteen years ago.

I've also noticed a couple careless mistakes in the videos so far (very low budget productions).

The pace is good though. The constant rewinding is one of the reasons I wish it was on DVD. I'm waiting for that nasty crumbling sound where the tracking starts getting all funky looking while the VCR decides to take a "lunch break". Maybe I can wire a big fader to the motor and have an SL1200 style pitch adjust.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            ;)

I've got the Square1 "Serial Communications" book coming in a couple days. I'm looking forward to that. My new Myke Predko book doesn't cover the serial thing for that long. I was also looking at his "Digital Electronics Demystified" last night. That may be a cool one too and it's cheap. I can't get enough serial. I've been checking out some IR junk recently, as well as those long-ass streams used for the different audio formats.

                                                               Happy Holidays!

George