Please help, my 13 year old son loves electronics. He loves taking things apart and re-wiring them, turning dog food box's into speakers and all sorts. I love his passion and do not want to dampen his enthusiasm but I am petrified his going to blow us all up or cause a fire.
Is anybody on this forum in the UK? Do you know of any electronic clubs in the sussex/surrey area that would be suitable for his age group? Or any other suggestions on how I can encourage him safely?
Many thanks for any advice.
I think you should take a look for local 'hacker space' or 'maker space' ... don't worry, I'm not referring to 'computer hacking', it's a common word used by enthusiasts for cobbling things together.
Additionally, it would seem as though he's getting close to the age where he could take electronics in school. I would look into this and see if you can get him enrolled in an elective course.
As far as explosions and fires are concerned, it's both easy and difficult to do.
It's easy in the regard that with the right (or wrong) tools, you can cause damage.
It's difficult in that being mindful of what you are working with can make electronics very safe to work with.
Now, I don't mean to scare you, but an example of it being easy would be putting a metal wrench across the positive and negative terminals of a car battery (Or any other highly capable battery) can cause the battery to 'vent' or rapidly expel gases. This can be violent and dangerous.
Now, on the difficult side of things. If your son is working with a bench power supply, or even with an old computer power supply and decides to touch the positive and negative wires together, the power supply will make a little spark and turn itself off, or turn itself down considerably to protect itself.
In short, your son would either have to try to make fire or an explosion, or would have to be very ignorant and working with dangerous equipment.
Here is a small, non-exhaustive check-list for you that might help
Good things to work on:
-Low Voltage projects. (Battery operated. Typically the same batteries used in TV remotes and video games. You may have a drawer in the house full of these)
*Low voltage 'can' still be considered if he uses a proper power supply! This would be something like an AC-DC adaptor that provides 5V out... for example, your cell-phone charger. Just because it plugs in the wall does not mean it's super dangerous.
If in doubt, ask what voltage he is working with. If he can't answer, or the number is higher than something like 12V or 24V, it's probably not a good idea he works on it yet.
Things to avoid. At least for now:
-High power projects. (Things that may use car batteries or direct household power without an adaptor)
-High voltage. Things that spark
-High current. Things that get hot.
-Old household equipment may contain capacitors or other components that can be deadly if touched because they store energy when the device is unplugged. It can be worked on safely, but until your son becomes familiar with these safe practices, he should avoid it. The exception here is if the device has remained unplugged for a very long period of time. (If he plugs it in to see if it works, make him wait a long time before he opens it.)
Don't use this as a solid list, but use it as a guide-line to start only. When your son becomes familiar with it, he will be more than capable of doing repairs on common household devices, automotive, and small electronics. If you want to encourage this, you can also buy electronics kits that he can use to build low power devices. If you are curious about what might be acceptable, please share what you find and we can do our best to give you additional info.
Remember that you are the only person who can truly understand if he's ready. You be the judge, but when it comes time that he works on an old DVD player or household stereo, never let him work on anything in the 'avoid' section alone. This is true for anyone and everyone, not just your son.