Is using components cheating, I mean like ic chip that are premade. It's seems wrong to use a premade circuit.
Is using components cheating, I mean like ic chip that are premade. It's seems wrong to use a premade circuit.
Not at all. Use what your comfortable with.
Think about how much circuitry you would haft to string together to create an op-amp.
That would be a double sided board all on its own.
And technically a transistor is an IC.
Is a voltage regulator an ic?
Yes, basically, anything with more than 2 connectors and that has silicone on it is an IC.
If you don't wish to use IC's than go old school, and look into building circuits with Tubes.
But they are hard to find, and are not manufactured much any more. if at all.
Plus they use up tons of power to run.
FM radio kit:
Using tubes is just as much 'cheating' as it is to use single transistors. What is very worthwile when designing with ic's is to read the datasheets carefully, and don't use the ic's which don't have a full-detail datasheet. Many circuits can't be built within reasonable time / cost / performance without using ic's anymore.
You can only cheat if you wrote down rules before. Please show us your rules!
Good point.
Good point.