Maker Pro
Maker Pro

That state of metric conversion in the US

J

Jeroen

Jan 1, 1970
0
It can and does but the syntax for enabling it as a custom number format
is rather perverse and you probably would not guess what it does from
just looking at it unless you are an Excel wizard.

Yes, I know it does engineering notation, with powers of ten limited
to multiples of three, but it doesn't do SI multiplier prefixes.
It can do 100E-9, but not 100n. Not without jumping through lots
of hoops, anyway.

Jeroen Belleman
 
J

John Devereux

Jan 1, 1970
0
John Larkin said:
[...]
I don't get it. What are you showing the boards for...?

Because PC boards are an art form, and I'd like for some others to
post their boards, styles, colors.

Here is my most recent one. Nothing spectacular I guess but it turned
out well, worked first time and only took a couple of days.

<http://ee.devereux.me.uk/203001-01.jpg>

Bottom right quadrant is a 8 channel 0-10V output. An ADUC7021
microcontroller, with a pretty good reference and 12 bit DAC, generates
the 8 values in sequence. A CMOS switch "demultiplexes" this onto a set
of capacitors to hold the voltage. Opamps then boost this 0-2.5V to
0-10V.

The rest of the board is a USB to RS485 adapter and a boost power supply
generating 12V from the USB.

In fact the RS485 carries modbus traffic, and the microcontroller snoops
on this traffic and extracts the relevant values for the analog
outputs. When the USB is disconnected, the microcontroller takes over
(reversing roles) and becomes the modbus master. That bit was a PITA.

It's black because I thought it would look cool, but the assemblers did
not like it, they had to adjust the sensor on the P&P to get the
conveyor to stop the board in the right place or something. And you
can't see the tracks very well.

It is two-layer, routed basically single layer style on top and
groundplane underneath. Barring a couple of short hops I expect.

It goes in one of those extruded style aluminium enclosures, that's why
the funny cutout on the right, to stop the board moving around in the
case.
 
I get the occasional migraine aura, but I don't get the headache. It
looks like this:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/53724080/Aura.JPG

I get stuff that looks like that, though more like a gray blob with
whiskers that move (fast). Sometimes it's not circular but more like
a paramecium, complete with cilia (again, gray and out of focus). No
color at all and never a headache.
I've seen drawings and paintings by other people who get the same
pattern: a bright yellow football with jumpy jagged black lines
outside. Kind of cool for a few minutes, as long as you don't need to
see stuff.

It always happens when I need to see stuff. I can't look "around" it,
either, even if it's not in the center of focus. It seems that I can
see letters but can't interpret them.
A detatchment border is a white arc that flashes on briefly wnen you
move your eye rapidly. If you see that, and then a corresponding dark
region, get help fast.

Rarely, I get the same gray thing that's an arc with the same moving
border. No flashes and not black behind it but gray. It only lasts a
few of minutes, usually. Maybe fifteen. A couple of aspirin does
seem to help in all cases. I take one a day anyway so it's not a big
deal.
 
G

George Herold

Jan 1, 1970
0
John Larkin said:
[...]


I don't get it.  What are you showing the boards for...?
Because PC boards are an art form, and I'd like for some others to
post their boards, styles, colors.

Here is my most recent one. Nothing spectacular I guess but it turned
out well, worked first time and only took a couple of days.

<http://ee.devereux.me.uk/203001-01.jpg>

Bottom right quadrant is a 8 channel 0-10V output. An ADUC7021
microcontroller, with a pretty good reference and 12 bit DAC, generates
the 8 values in sequence. A CMOS switch "demultiplexes" this onto a set
of capacitors to hold the voltage. Opamps then boost this 0-2.5V to
0-10V.

The rest of the board is a USB to RS485 adapter and a boost power supply
generating 12V from the USB.

In fact the RS485 carries modbus traffic, and the microcontroller snoops
on this traffic and extracts the relevant values for the analog
outputs. When the USB is disconnected, the microcontroller takes over
(reversing roles) and becomes the modbus master. That bit was a PITA.

It's black because I thought it would look cool, but the assemblers did
not like it, they had to adjust the sensor on the P&P to get the
conveyor to stop the board in the right place or something. And you
can't see the tracks very well.

It is two-layer, routed basically single layer style on top and
groundplane underneath. Barring a couple of short hops I expect.

It goes in one of those extruded style aluminium enclosures, that's why
the funny cutout on the right, to stop the board moving around in the
case.

Thanks, (I was going to take a pic of an old circuit, but too many
screws and too little time today.)

I'm guessing you won't do the black pcb again unless you need it.
(It seems for anything I make, the mistakes always stay longer in my
memory, than any successes.

George H.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
It's a public discussion group. Attention is a basic part of the
process.

Show us some PC boards that you designed.

This is one of those times when you are acting like you are 12. What is
your point?
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Because PC boards are an art form, and I'd like for some others to
post their boards, styles, colors.

How about you? Do you design electronics? Does it wind up on PC
boards? Show us some.

I do design PCBs, but not as art. Most of my stuff is very small and
often very low power. I find that I can make it tiny, I can make it
good, I can make it pretty : pick two.

I thought you were talking about the issue we had been discussing, PCB
software in relation to metric vs. inch. But I guess we are making a
hard left turn... or do you make right turns? I don't recall.

I would post some boards, but I can't find my pics. I'll have to fire
up the old desktop. I'm sure they are on there.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I don't understand why nobody makes a LCD with sequential RGB LED
backlighting. You'd get three times as many pixels for free, and
energy efficiency would be many times better. I thought there were
some fast LCD chemistries around.

Maybe because there is no real need? When was the last time you said,
"Gee, I wish my display had more resolution". I was happy with my 1280
monitor and now my laptop has 1440. I can get 1920 on a desktop
display. Do we need more?

The sequential RGB might be useful for one of those DLP displays, but I
think they may already be doing that. Do they still make them? I
haven't seen one in a store for a long time now.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Doggonit. You pulled too hard, my leg popped off, hand it back if you
will.

I was beginning to think no one had noticed. The nice part is it
doesn't need batteries. It is gas operated. I don't like pulling the
starter cord though. I have to add oil to the gas, its just a dual
core. My next one will be a quad core, but they weigh a lot more.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
You retards are so Office 2003!

sheesh! 2k7, 2k10, 2k13... ALL have advanced functions.

Losers like you do not.

Joseph = not reliable. For anything other than obsoleted
"information" and convoluted, personally biased cracks.

Does anyone know who this guy is? He is worse than krw with calling
everyone names. Is he a kid or something? I swear several of the
posters here are only 12.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
The inch is 10% more than an atto Parsec by pure chance too.

Yes, I use that relationship all the time. Just the other day I was
converting my attic Parsecs to... well something. What is a Parsec
again and why are they in your attic?
 
J

John Devereux

Jan 1, 1970
0
John Larkin said:
John Larkin said:
[...]


I don't get it. What are you showing the boards for...?

Because PC boards are an art form, and I'd like for some others to
post their boards, styles, colors.

Here is my most recent one. Nothing spectacular I guess but it turned
out well, worked first time and only took a couple of days.

<http://ee.devereux.me.uk/203001-01.jpg>

Bottom right quadrant is a 8 channel 0-10V output. An ADUC7021
microcontroller, with a pretty good reference and 12 bit DAC, generates
the 8 values in sequence. A CMOS switch "demultiplexes" this onto a set
of capacitors to hold the voltage. Opamps then boost this 0-2.5V to
0-10V.

The rest of the board is a USB to RS485 adapter and a boost power supply
generating 12V from the USB.

In fact the RS485 carries modbus traffic, and the microcontroller snoops
on this traffic and extracts the relevant values for the analog
outputs. When the USB is disconnected, the microcontroller takes over
(reversing roles) and becomes the modbus master. That bit was a PITA.

It's black because I thought it would look cool, but the assemblers did
not like it, they had to adjust the sensor on the P&P to get the
conveyor to stop the board in the right place or something. And you
can't see the tracks very well.

It is two-layer, routed basically single layer style on top and
groundplane underneath. Barring a couple of short hops I expect.

It goes in one of those extruded style aluminium enclosures, that's why
the funny cutout on the right, to stop the board moving around in the
case.

Ooh, a Darth Vader black PC board. We did some black boards recently
to reduce leaking into some photodiodes through the PCB.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/53724080/PCBs/Black.JPG

Actually I'm doing somthing soon where that might be a good idea, for
same reason.
 
J

John Devereux

Jan 1, 1970
0
George Herold said:
John Larkin said:
[...]



I don't get it.  What are you showing the boards for...?
Because PC boards are an art form, and I'd like for some others to
post their boards, styles, colors.

Here is my most recent one. Nothing spectacular I guess but it turned
out well, worked first time and only took a couple of days.

<http://ee.devereux.me.uk/203001-01.jpg>

Bottom right quadrant is a 8 channel 0-10V output. An ADUC7021
microcontroller, with a pretty good reference and 12 bit DAC, generates
the 8 values in sequence. A CMOS switch "demultiplexes" this onto a set
of capacitors to hold the voltage. Opamps then boost this 0-2.5V to
0-10V.

The rest of the board is a USB to RS485 adapter and a boost power supply
generating 12V from the USB.

In fact the RS485 carries modbus traffic, and the microcontroller snoops
on this traffic and extracts the relevant values for the analog
outputs. When the USB is disconnected, the microcontroller takes over
(reversing roles) and becomes the modbus master. That bit was a PITA.

It's black because I thought it would look cool, but the assemblers did
not like it, they had to adjust the sensor on the P&P to get the
conveyor to stop the board in the right place or something. And you
can't see the tracks very well.

It is two-layer, routed basically single layer style on top and
groundplane underneath. Barring a couple of short hops I expect.

It goes in one of those extruded style aluminium enclosures, that's why
the funny cutout on the right, to stop the board moving around in the
case.

Thanks, (I was going to take a pic of an old circuit, but too many
screws and too little time today.)
I'm guessing you won't do the black pcb again unless you need it.
(It seems for anything I make, the mistakes always stay longer in my
memory, than any successes.

Actually we have several boards that go in that same box,we did them all
black. It's no real problem; the boards are bare board tested so we
don't really need to be able to e.g. find track shorts. Some of the
others have more writing on them for the customer wiring, that was the
original excuse for the black actually (so the writing would show up
well). Plus I thought it looked cool, especially unpopulated, all black
and gold.

We do some red ones because a customer wanted a variant distinguised
from their "standard" product.

Our own product range uses blue because it is sort of our company
colour. And again the gold on blue looks nice :)
 
J

John Devereux

Jan 1, 1970
0
John Larkin said:
George Herold said:
[...]



I don't get it.  What are you showing the boards for...?

Because PC boards are an art form, and I'd like for some others to
post their boards, styles, colors.

Here is my most recent one. Nothing spectacular I guess but it turned
out well, worked first time and only took a couple of days.

<http://ee.devereux.me.uk/203001-01.jpg>

Bottom right quadrant is a 8 channel 0-10V output. An ADUC7021
microcontroller, with a pretty good reference and 12 bit DAC, generates
the 8 values in sequence. A CMOS switch "demultiplexes" this onto a set
of capacitors to hold the voltage. Opamps then boost this 0-2.5V to
0-10V.

The rest of the board is a USB to RS485 adapter and a boost power supply
generating 12V from the USB.

In fact the RS485 carries modbus traffic, and the microcontroller snoops
on this traffic and extracts the relevant values for the analog
outputs. When the USB is disconnected, the microcontroller takes over
(reversing roles) and becomes the modbus master. That bit was a PITA.

It's black because I thought it would look cool, but the assemblers did
not like it, they had to adjust the sensor on the P&P to get the
conveyor to stop the board in the right place or something. And you
can't see the tracks very well.

It is two-layer, routed basically single layer style on top and
groundplane underneath. Barring a couple of short hops I expect.

It goes in one of those extruded style aluminium enclosures, that's why
the funny cutout on the right, to stop the board moving around in the
case.

Thanks, (I was going to take a pic of an old circuit, but too many
screws and too little time today.)
I'm guessing you won't do the black pcb again unless you need it.
(It seems for anything I make, the mistakes always stay longer in my
memory, than any successes.

Actually we have several boards that go in that same box,we did them all
black. It's no real problem; the boards are bare board tested so we
don't really need to be able to e.g. find track shorts. Some of the
others have more writing on them for the customer wiring, that was the
original excuse for the black actually (so the writing would show up
well). Plus I thought it looked cool, especially unpopulated, all black
and gold.

We do some red ones because a customer wanted a variant distinguised
from their "standard" product.

One of my customers decided to use red to flag boards that were especially ESD
sensitive. QC intervened, and soon all boards were red.

That's what people with little real understanding do to make their
mark. You can be in a product design meeting, say, and spend most of it
talking about the technical stuff with the other technical person in the
room. All the marketing and sales people sit there like lemons. Then,
what color should it be? Yes! Finally something they can have an opinion
on and they spring into life, spend the next two hours deciding it. And
then it changes three times in the next three meetings.
 
G

George Herold

Jan 1, 1970
0
[...]
I don't get it.  What are you showing the boards for...?
Because PC boards are an art form, and I'd like for some others to
post their boards, styles, colors.
Here is my most recent one. Nothing spectacular I guess but it turned
out well, worked first time and only took a couple of days.
<http://ee.devereux.me.uk/203001-01.jpg>
Bottom right quadrant is a 8 channel 0-10V output. An ADUC7021
microcontroller, with a pretty good reference and 12 bit DAC, generates
the 8 values in sequence. A CMOS switch "demultiplexes" this onto a set
of capacitors to hold the voltage. Opamps then boost this 0-2.5V to
0-10V.
The rest of the board is a USB to RS485 adapter and a boost power supply
generating 12V from the USB.
In fact the RS485 carries modbus traffic, and the microcontroller snoops
on this traffic and extracts the relevant values for the analog
outputs. When the USB is disconnected, the microcontroller takes over
(reversing roles) and becomes the modbus master. That bit was a PITA.
It's black because I thought it would look cool, but the assemblers did
not like it, they had to adjust the sensor on the P&P to get the
conveyor to stop the board in the right place or something. And you
can't see the tracks very well.
It is two-layer, routed basically single layer style on top and
groundplane underneath. Barring a couple of short hops I expect.
It goes in one of those extruded style aluminium enclosures, that's why
the funny cutout on the right, to stop the board moving around in the
case.
Thanks,  (I was going to take a pic of an old circuit, but too many
screws and too little time today.)
I'm guessing you won't do the black pcb again unless you need it.
(It seems for anything I make, the mistakes always stay longer in my
memory, than any successes.
Actually we have several boards that go in that same box,we did them all
black. It's no real problem; the boards are bare board tested so we
don't really need to be able to e.g. find track shorts. Some of the
others have more writing on them for the customer wiring, that was the
original excuse for the black actually (so the writing would show up
well). Plus I thought it looked cool, especially unpopulated, all black
and gold.
We do some red ones because a customer wanted a variant distinguised
from their "standard" product.

One of my customers decided to use red to flag boards that were especially ESD
sensitive. QC intervened, and soon all boards were red.


Our own product range uses blue because it is sort of our company
colour. And again the gold on blue looks nice :)

Yeah, we like yellow on blue. White on green is so boring.

--

John Larkin                  Highland Technology Incwww..highlandtechnology.com  jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation
Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators
Custom timing and laser controllers
Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links
VME  analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer
Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

OK here's my only circuit with some artistic value.
http://bayimg.com/HAKJIaAEA

One of our production people is a 'real' artist, he builds the above
lamp, and took it to one of his shows. Part of the beauty is the nice
pick color from the bulb.

(Green and white PCB though...)

George H.
 
J

John Devereux

Jan 1, 1970
0
George Herold said:
George Herold <[email protected]> writes:

I don't get it.  What are you showing the boards for...?
Because PC boards are an art form, and I'd like for some others to
post their boards, styles, colors.

Thanks,  (I was going to take a pic of an old circuit, but too many
screws and too little time today.)
I'm guessing you won't do the black pcb again unless you need it.
(It seems for anything I make, the mistakes always stay longer in my
memory, than any successes.
Actually we have several boards that go in that same box,we did them all
black. It's no real problem; the boards are bare board tested so we
don't really need to be able to e.g. find track shorts. Some of the
others have more writing on them for the customer wiring, that was the
original excuse for the black actually (so the writing would show up
well). Plus I thought it looked cool, especially unpopulated, all black
and gold.
We do some red ones because a customer wanted a variant distinguised
from their "standard" product.

One of my customers decided to use red to flag boards that were especially ESD
sensitive. QC intervened, and soon all boards were red.


Our own product range uses blue because it is sort of our company
colour. And again the gold on blue looks nice :)

Yeah, we like yellow on blue. White on green is so boring.

OK here's my only circuit with some artistic value.
http://bayimg.com/HAKJIaAEA

Well that's a bit retro isn't it? Reminds me of the inside of some of my
ebay instruments. Not that there is anything wrong with that!

Here is the only through-hole board I have done in last ~10 years.

<http://ee.devereux.me.uk/191402-01.jpg>

Bit boring; yours is more interesting.
 
G

George Herold

Jan 1, 1970
0
George Herold said:
[...]
I don't get it.  What are you showing the boards for...?
Because PC boards are an art form, and I'd like for some others to
post their boards, styles, colors.
Thanks,  (I was going to take a pic of an old circuit, but too many
screws and too little time today.)
I'm guessing you won't do the black pcb again unless you need it.
(It seems for anything I make, the mistakes always stay longer in my
memory, than any successes.
Actually we have several boards that go in that same box,we did them all
black. It's no real problem; the boards are bare board tested so we
don't really need to be able to e.g. find track shorts. Some of the
others have more writing on them for the customer wiring, that was the
original excuse for the black actually (so the writing would show up
well). Plus I thought it looked cool, especially unpopulated, all black
and gold.
We do some red ones because a customer wanted a variant distinguised
from their "standard" product.
One of my customers decided to use red to flag boards that were especially ESD
sensitive. QC intervened, and soon all boards were red.
Our own product range uses blue because it is sort of our company
colour. And again the gold on blue looks nice :)
Yeah, we like yellow on blue. White on green is so boring.
OK here's my only circuit with some artistic value.
http://bayimg.com/HAKJIaAEA

Well that's a bit retro isn't it? Reminds me of the inside of some of my
ebay instruments. Not that there is anything wrong with that!

Grin, 'retro' is almost my middle name.
(The design is ~ 10 years old.... but still.)

George H.
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
This is an electronics design discussion group. Do you design
electronics? If this were a tennis discussion group, it would be
reasonable to ask if you play tennis.

There was a discussion going on and out of the blue you ask people to
show their boards. Then you say, PCBs are an art form. Ok, fine, that
may be OT within the group, but it is a non-sequitur in a discussion.

No problem, I just have no idea why you take these left turns sometimes.

Rick

PS I am sure someone will make a joke about "left turns".
 
T

Tim Williams

Jan 1, 1970
0
rickman said:
Maybe because there is no real need? When was the last time you said,
"Gee, I wish my display had more resolution".

Probably a few times a year (not counting games, since that's a hardware
issue :) ).

At computer monitor sizes and distances, the eye's resolution is supposed
to be around 2-3k pixels across. Things would be mighty tiny down there,
but the blown-up text would look very nice. Sadly there aren't all that
many programs which even behave correctly when upsized. In principle, it
should be trivial to rescale all GDI components, but alas, programs, and
programmers, have their own ideas about performing window layout, and they
usually don't work so well together.

I was confused for some time, a fresh install of Altium Designer Summer 09
on a brand new Win7 computer, until I discovered Windows was set by
default to 125% scale. Some buttons were obviously being pushed out of
the frame and hence made invisible and unclickable (though still
tab-selectable, if you happen to guess the right focus order, which again,
programmers aren't always keen on defining). Resetting to 100%, suddenly
the layouts were correct. Go figure.

Tim
 
R

rickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Tripling the number of pixels per dollar has obvious marketing
advantages at any resolution. I was just wondering why there are no
sequential RGB LCDs around.

Per dollar? It wouldn't be free. Adding pixel density stops having
value at somepoint and I think going from 100 to 300 pixel per inch has
far passed the useful point.

For a conventional LCD, what is the marginal cost of pixel density?
Anyone know how much it costs to go from 100 pix/in to say 150 or even
120 pix/in?

I can agree that some small increment in pixel density would have
benefit, but tripling the density would probably exceed the capacity of
the eye to see. I think now a single pixel on my laptop is hard to see
and that is only 18 inches from my eyes. My problem is not that I need
more pixel density, I just need more pixels.
 
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