Ghettotronics

ghettotronics

gɛtəʊˈtrɒnɪks/

noun

1. The branch of physics and technology concerned with the hacking of circuits using 

sub-optimal equipment. Typically carried out in a shed, spare room or somewhere else equally unsuitable for the task at hand.

Quite often when messing with electronics you get to the point where doing something is either too expensive to do properly or too hard to cheaply. For example, you could precision laser decap a chip you want to reverse engineer or you could throw some acid on it and hope for the best. You could buy a multi channel logic analyser or you could try and build one using your spare arduino. You could invest in a rework station for removing chips from a circuit board or you could just try your luck with your soldering iron.

The cheap and probably-going-to-fail-but-fun-trying approach is what I call ghettotronics and I seem to spend a significant amount time involved with it.