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Our 5th call in show. Likely our last for a while given the drop off in the number of callers. We’ll do it again if asked!
- Alexander (by far our best caller)
- He’s an EE student struggling with math, was wondering how to get through it.
- Dave was part of a local college’s promo video.
- There is an Intersil chip that involves RGB LEDs that requires using matricies.
- Alexander was the person who sent Dave’s mailbag a warming device.
- David2 is back doing some design work for Dave again.
- Anon SW Eng via email
- They asked about connecting the green and black grounds on a power supply by default. You can, but it’s usually better not to unless there’s a reason.
- The isolated output of these supplies allows for “stacking” voltages.
- Not having a grasp on your grounding tree means you could end up with ground loops.
- Chris found out he has knob and tube wiring throughout his house, which means none of the 3 prong switches (except for the ones Chris wired) have an earth ground. Romex is the plastic wrapped wire that often runs throughout houses.
- Xander
- Wanted recommendations for getting an EE degree while keeping working.
- Ultimately it comes down to what kind of work Xander wants to work in.
- If you’re getting a degree online (or in person, for that matter), make sure they are ABET accredited. These are often the only kind of engineering degrees accepted by employers.
- Artem
- Asked about the whether there is a shift away from formal education.
- We used as an “add on” to Xanders question.
- Places like Google are putting less emphasis on degrees and more on experience/portfolios.
- Todd
- Asked if we had heard about magnetostrictive delay line memory.
- He has a version from an old Friden 132 calculator from the mid 60s (what a beast!)
- Chris asked Dave about RPN notation.
- A user took die photos of a chip on board a uCurrent when they blew theirs up. Chris was trying to remember the name of the site (formerly with a Russian TLD) took pictures of tons of ICs. It was Zeptobars! (who we have surely mentioned before)
- Chris has been posting lots of videos on the PHY youtube channel, including a great talk from Mike Harrison about art and one from James Lewis on Capacitors.
Thanks for the show – very interesting, and having one caller is okay – adds distiction to this episode.
The torsional delay line is an interesting way to temporarily store bits. An electromechanical DRAM which can store thousands of bits and turn over in milliseconds, requiring those bits to be fed back into it every trip down the wire.
I wasn’t planning to ship the entire calculator to play with (unfortunately I don’t have the logic boards) but would send the delay line and demo circuit (weighs a kilo or two.) Fascinating piece of little-remembered computer history.
Also, the link to the Friden calc info also includes one to its predecessor (EC130) with more insights into the architecture as well as the architects. Thought you’d get a kick out of this groundbreaking machine (seems HP didn’t pioneer RPN calcs after all!)
Hey Jerks (SMILIE),
I just wanted to say that I LOVE the call in shows. Possibly due to my boycott of social media, I missed that you were looking for questions. I have a trillion about everything. I’ll get busy writing them up.
You guys never say “ummm” in the call in shows (or interviews/hangouts). There is a flow to the call-in shows that doesn’t occur when you guys discuss the latest merges in the “industry”. I realize that it takes some prying to get an expert to talk about 101-level stuff, but there is more talk of electronics on the call-in shows than any other format.
I love the podcast, but I hope both Chris and Dave get a good disease. (SMILIE)
“There is more talk of electronics on the call-in shows than any other format.”
Too true! We always take discussion topic suggestions via the subreddit, just start with “Topic Suggestion:” or “Question”. We can maybe set up tags there too if that helps? We’re always happy to talk about 101 level stuff, it just doesn’t normally come up naturally. Any pointers towards “Beginner’s Mind” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshin) is helpful.
No, I have no pointers to the “beginner mind”. Once the genie is out of the bottle…..whatever. I went through this problem with my audio recording community. The best way is to get questions from idiots like me. Here are some:
1) Dave mentioned in one of his dumb videos that mechanical-type problems in a circuit are a major source of headache when prototyping. I can confirm this. What are ways to minimizing the headache of wires getting torn out, pins getting bent, etc? For example, I discovered the glue gun a month ago and my life has changed.
2) I’m currently majoring “Engineering Physics – Electrical Emphasis” even though I’d prefer to be a “real” EE. I have a family and, therefor, do not want to move. (I’m 36.). I’ve been telling people that engineering physics guys get laid less than electrical engineers….. if electrical engineers got laid. I will get a healthy dose of electronics in this degree, but it is a hair off from the EE route I’d prefer. I suspect I may miss out on 3-4 upper level EE classes while I’m doing “physics stuff”. Assuming I’m militantly working on electronics on my own, is this kind of thing going to hurt me in the electronic skill department? In other words, if you shave off 3-4 upper level EE classes, would that affect your life?
3) I bought a Rigol DS1054 oscilloscope about a month ago. It’s been insanely helpful 4 times. The other zillion hours I haven’t quite figured out what to do with it.
4) Why do so many multimeters have super slow continuity beepers? This does not strike me as a challenging circuit (then again, ignorance is bliss). I have a generic multimeter from 1999 that has instantaneous continuity beeping.
5) I’ve found myself making custom cables on a regular basis. Banana clip to breadboard male, banana clip to breadboard female, breadboard to usb, usb to banana clip, etc. I’d like to hear a list of 10-50 cables I need to throw together in one day so they’ll be ready in the heat of battle.
6) What is the secret to finishing one project before starting another one?
I’ll give you a 100 more soon.
Cool, most reliable way that we’ll answer something is if you ask it via reddit. We use that every week to share links and discussion points for the show.
What other ways should we notify people about call in shows?
Well, the ONLY thing everyone here has in common is they love listening to your dumb show. (SMILIE) Twitter and all that nonsense are hit-n-miss at best, but it does sound like Reddit may be a common hub. So, I’d imagine the most ideal method of communication would be to plan call-in shows several episodes in advance and announce their impending arrival on each podcast leading up to the call-in. Be sure to have your flawed Aussie counterpart complain that no one likes the call-in shows and that you shouldn’t do them anymore each time. This will spring lazy people like myself into action.
Hey guys. Just wanted to chime in on the education thing. In my experience, large companies want the warm fuzzies of the MIT grad. On the other hand, I’ve got my associates, but never finished my four year. I’ve had no problem finding jobs in semiconductor or electronics design over the course of my career. (Note that I’ve always lived close to a big city and intentionally those with tech opportunities) It *IS* more difficult to find an employer who is willing to give you a chance especially when you’re competing with folks holding paper, but it’s not impossible. Don’t get me wrong, school is the better path, but some simply can’t afford it. I couldn’t. There are companies that will pay 100% toward your degree – you will have to eat a corporate shit sandwich. How many bites do you want?
-The Current Source
I’ve noticed around here (small town) that many companies care nothing about your education and ask specifically for your experience. It illustrates the great divide between academia and commerce.
Writing a RPN calculator is one of the first things I remember doing in comp Sci because it is stacked based like Dave said. Also one interesting property is it naturally takes care of precedence so no need for parenthesis.
Now the point where I’m probably going to lose everyone’s interest – haha. It’s also still heavily used actually for programming languages and a great modern example would be Clojure which is a “lisp”. Ironically while I did say you don’t need parens in the calc example if you look at lisp based language all you will see is parens, but it’s how it denotes a list. 🙂
Ahhh! Weird.
I am from Toronto! And was going to call in to ask something along the lines on this topic, but you nailed it! This is so weird.
Thinking about to EE or EC Technician in a program with a co-op.
Alexander, if you’re reading this… where did you end up going to school? Are you by any chance at Seneca? Did your school have any cool labs?
*CE
I think my maths is worse now than it was at school/university. However now I want to go back and learn vector calculus to help me understand antennae design and wave propagation. It’s more interesting now that I know the applications etc. Luckily MIT open course ware has some good videos on vector calculus.
Math or Maths? Ask a linguist – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbZCECvoaTA
I’m jumping in a little late here, but in the US you are allowed to replace an ungrounded 2-prong outlet with a GFCI outlet, but it must be labeled “No Equipment Ground”. Downstream 3-prong outlets must also be labeled “GFCI Protected”. These stickers should come with the GFCI outlet.
This will provide you with some protection against electrocution, but probably won’t protect your electronics. Still, it’s better than cheater plugs or improperly replaced outlets.