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I need an automatic voltage stabilizer. I'm thinking about building my own.

I've searched the internet and consulted several books. The diagrams in books show only the bare bones, basic design that is intended to illustrate the principles of physics at work.

I'm sure professional grade products are more sophisticated.

As a software engineer I read code of open source software to learn professional practices. Can I find something similar in electronics?

Is there an organisation that publishes such designs? Has some professional electronics company released the design of its old products?

Kshitiz Sharma
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  • Sometimes that sort of gear will include schematics in the service guide, especially for older models. – PeterJ Aug 05 '13 at 07:04
  • Interesting that you think reading code from open-source shows professional practices... depending on the project it could be much better or much worse than what passes for professional. Likewise a hell of a lot of electronics out there is not really to be emulated - much of it is made down to a cost, often very badly/riskily so. – John U Aug 05 '13 at 09:05
  • @JohnU You said it yourself. It all depends on size of project. Because John doe's personal project is riddled with bad practices doesn't mean that one couldn't read Spring framework or Django to gain some valuable insights. And a hell lot of bad electronics out there would still be better designed than what a software engineer could come up with in his hobby time. – Kshitiz Sharma Aug 05 '13 at 09:59

3 Answers3

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Some maintenance and service manuals have complete schematics (Nokia and Fluke service manuals for one). However, schematics cover only part of it, as with code, design requirements, device usage (AC? DC? Automotive? RF?) dictate component and design choices.

Component manufacturers often have reference designs with good explanations for many applications. See if you can find an application note that fits your design and learn from it.

Lior Bilia
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I have been recently reading some example project designs at: http://airborn.com.au/circuits/index.html

There are also some professional level fundamental visions provided for electronics design see e.g. http://airborn.com.au/method/index.php

Their site looks that what are you being involved in when it comes to professional PCB design, assembly and testing of electronics.

Also pretty good documentation is provided explaining the projects.

This answer has nothing do to promoting the company, since I really do NOT know those people there.

Just DIG IN!

sailfish
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Oh , so you really want to review the industrial design examples , as you reading the code of open source projects.

So after learning the basic concepts and basic circuit configurations then understanding the complex schematics are not a problem to you right?

One of a good source is laptop and mobil phone schematics and their service manuals. Service manuals are not free, but some are freed by their OEM (they are outdated, for a example IBM 586 motherboard diagrams.).So it's even easy to find such boards for a cheap price in the case you need to experiment with them.

http://laptop-schematics.com/

for free samples

http://laptop-schematics.com/free-samples/

you could easily find schematics through google.

Since I hope you have patience and concentration of reviewing opensource code , so same patience would be great when go through the schematics. However you should need the basic knowledge of basic circuit configurations as you need basic software constructs when reading code.

Good luck.

Standard Sandun
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  • -1 computer schematics tend to be large and not particularly good examples for study - 99% of them are just lists of pin-to-pin connections between chips. The tone of the answer appears to sneer that anyone could learn anything by looking at complex examples, whereas good designs are often modular and intended to be broken down into chunks which can be understood in isolation. – Pete Kirkham Oct 04 '13 at 13:27
  • I'm claming back for that -1 point, and i do believe I have a reasonable reason for that. Since he is from opensource world, complexity is not a much matter for him.Example after you learn the basic "C" software constructs then reading the complex open source code make you a good programmer. Anyway feel free to flag or vote up/down. Let the community decide what to do. – Standard Sandun Oct 05 '13 at 10:14
  • meantime I would prefer some edits, feel free to feedback. – Standard Sandun Oct 05 '13 at 10:19