Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
- Chris needs a PCB checklist to ensure each board that comes out has the important pieces on it.
- Dave used to use the 3D viewer to inspect his board and see it from a different perspective.
- Chris has been learning Fusion 360 for 3D models. Dave and David have been learning OnShape.
- Why we started from scratch
- Coworking feels like a pipe dream, though people continue to try it. Chris prefers Git for revision control, Dave prefers dropbox.
- Chris was on The Engineering Commons a few weeks back talking about being a cross discipline engineer.
- Making custom components can be addicting, but there are tradeoffs with doing so. David2 hasn’t been burned yet!
- Sometimes you just need to pull the trigger and accept there will be bodge wires.
- PIC announced they now have cloud tools. It’s a popular hobby tool since it gave access to reprogrammability.
- The PIC16C84 (which had an eeprom) was introduced in 1993. Even in assembly, you can do amazing things. Former guest Voja has done just that on some of his projects.
- The AVR was introduced in 1996.
- PIC stands for “peripheral interface controller”. It was first made by General instruments.
- Web based tools are more and more common, Dave and Chris are actually ok with it. The mbed tool (mentioned on the embedded call in show a bunch) is used often. Even Jack Ganssle seems to be on board in his TEM newsletter.
- Lead time can severely impact product development times.
- Cash flow is an important business concept, because you need to front the money in order to get parts ready for purchase. Dave has worked on projects that had up to $1M in part purchasing before a single board was manufactured.
- When you remove a shunt that is passing current past a 50 kW AM station…it makes some noise.
- Bob created a $50 optical inspector for the boards he is manufacturing.
- Dave will be doing a giveaway on the forum, which is part of the Keysight “scope a day” giveaway.
- The scope is spec’d at 1GHz–and worth $15K–isn’t needed for most people. Is it better to instead sell the two Dave is giving away and then give away lower cost scopes?
Great show! I loved the discussion about pulling the trigger: I am guilty of always over analyzing things and delaying or blocking any releases.
This is also a tip for Dave and the Oscilloscope giveaway. IMHO you are over analyzing all this: although it is an expensive item, it is still an oscilloscope and not a life-changer item such as a winning lottery ticket. I can tell with 100% certainty that a simple draw will not be criticized by anyone and will release your mind from this paralysis – just pull the trigger of your wombulator!
Hi all.
I can ink of 3 uses within the reach of a DIYer: testing advanced switch mode stages (especially characterizing device switching loss!), debugging PCB layouts for high speed busses and debugging Intermediate Frequency radio stages.
That being said, you can’t go far wrong with a drawn lottery.
Now I’d better go join the eevblog forums…
Jbb
How about a condition of winning the new super fancy scope is that the person agrees to pass down their old scope (if they have one) to someone who doesn’t have a scope. Or you could just piss everyone off and give them to people who doesn’t even know how to use a scope.
… don’t even know how to use a scope. My brain is not a gud brain.
Re: the scope, why don’t you set a ultimate competition for people to build something and you judge it purely on merit in order to win a scope.
I thought this, build a project (or plan one) that would need this level of scopage. Or, don’t give them away, have some sort of loaner program going where you can get a loan of it for 3 months for free, just pay P&P + insurance for the duration.
idk, at first I thought Keysight marketing were just a bunch of wasteful di*ks but when you think about it; you could keep the scope (if you were real pro); sell it and buy a lab of your dreams! or sell it and cash in. any of those I guess would be fine, but you’d only want it to go to worthy forum members who had actively contributed over a few years; giving it out to a random new forum member with 4 posts would be evil, lol
I’m now wishing I hadn’t deleted my eevblog forum account! lol
The scope – I totally understand Dave’s anxiety over dropping such hi end piece of gear on someone who will never appreciate nor use it to its full potential. I have few ideas:
Remember last time Jeri was on the show and complained about debugging FPD-Link/lvds/hdmi/whatever serial digital protocols between pico projectors and her custom logic? It was pretty much impossible on anything below 1GHz BW. This is someone who could use such a scope … but Jeri is set now, swimming in Scrooge McDuck VC money :). So who else? There is someone on eevblog in similar situation, hamster_nz. He did projects like this :
http://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/the-bowels-of-hdmi/
with “just the HDMI protocol spec (thanks Google!), an FPGA board, a few different HDMI sources/sinks and a lot of time in the simulator” …and no scope?!?!?.
just look at his projects
http://hamsterworks.co.nz/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
especially http://hamsterworks.co.nz/mediawiki/index.php/FPGA_Projects
Everything extensively documented and open source.
Here’s a nice checklist I brief sometimes before sending PCBs for fabrication:
https://usecanvas.com/star/pcb-checklist/4JtW2rCfynJnyAe9crAIjE
Hi guys, great show! I’m getting back into personally designing gadgets, whatsits, and geehaws after too many years managing teams who did the fun stuff. Your podcast has been great inspiration as well as information. Dave, I totally relate to your feelings about lawyers but as I listened, I had to wonder if the work you turned down might have helped vindicate an unjustly accused that some big corporation was trying to have their way with. Patents should never be about who has more money.
you guys are the best! i love listening to your show when i am doing monotonous soldering work