fav bits

[Neil Groves]

What are your best and worst aspects of our past time/hobby?

my Fav bit is de-bugging, in fact i am disappointed sometimes when i buiold something and it works first time, i find de-bugging very intriguing, and i get really excited when i find an error, especially the bit where i repair the error and switch the power back on ( i know....just the little things )fortunately i do make many errors at the moment

My least fav bit is casing the finished circuit in a suitable enclosure, that to me is boring!

Neil.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I'm with you. Debugging is fun, but fixing isn't.
Sometimes debugging and fixing gets scarey like with 30 KW, 15 KV power supplies and 100 KV @ 0.1 Amp supplies and so is 1KW RF supplies.

Redesigning so the problem doesn't happen again is also fun.

I don't like running wires in buildings.

 

[jrz126]

My least fav bit is casing the finished circuit in a suitable enclosure, that to me is boring!

I've had a few occasions where I've 'finished' the design and cleaned it up to make it look nice, only to have it quit working. After debugging to get it working again, it is a mess and needs to cleaned.

Debugging is ok, depends on how long it takes to fix it, and how stupidly simple the mistake was. usually the simpler the mistake, the longer it takes to fix it.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

One of my most proud moments is when the color went out on a commercial wire-wrapped Auger-SIMS machine.
SIMS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_secondary-ion_mass_spectrometry
Auger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_secondary-ion_mass_spectrometry

The manufacturer basically soldered the power pins of the IC's and Wire-wrapped everything else. The machine worked fine for many years and then became intermittent. There was one IC where the power pins were not soldered. Oops!

And your right. It took a while.

 

[Neil Groves]

But how great did you feel when you found it? Those were the occasions i switched the bench off and went to the pub for a beer lol

Terry.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Then there are times where I give up for the day and figure out the problem in my sleep.

 

[Neil Groves]

That has also happened to me, i'll be laying in bed thinking it through and suddenly it pops right up (unfortunate choice of words i know lol) at that time though everyone is sleeping so sneeking out to the workshop isn't going to happen.

It helps also if you get really foxed to leave it alone for a few hours then come back to it later with a 'fresh' set of eyes and look it over again.

Neil.

 

[duffy]

My least fav bit is casing the finished circuit in a suitable enclosure, that to me is boring!

Oddly, this has turned into one of my favorite parts - ever since I got my 3D printer. I now print out faceplates and entire housings, WITH the cutouts, D-shaped holes, windows for the LCD, embossed lettering and everything.

Here's a faceplate I made that holds an LCD and a couple of switches for a motor tester. It slides right into place in a project box. Beside it is one that wasn't quite right - so I just printed up another that was.




Here's a hand-held tester I made with a tricky 4-point LIF socket, I printed out the top section and stuck it on a project box -

 

[Neil Groves]

Can you give a basic run down of the proceedure for printing face plates? that is one area that lets me down badley, the dyno printer just doesn't look very professional.

Neil.

 

[Dr.james]

i hate debugging RF circuits lol

 

[duffy]

Can you give a basic run down of the proceedure for printing face plates? that is one area that lets me down badley, the dyno printer just doesn't look very professional.

Neil.

I'm talking about a rapid prototyping machine. You design the case in 3D, export a .stl file and then print it in ABS plastic.

 

[Neil Groves]

oh never mind then lol

 

[kinarfi]

What are your best and worst aspects of our past time/hobby?

my Fav bit is de-bugging, in fact i am disappointed sometimes when i buiold something and it works first time, i find de-bugging very intriguing, and i get really excited when i find an error, especially the bit where i repair the error and switch the power back on ( i know....just the little things )fortunately i do make many errors at the moment

My least fav bit is casing the finished circuit in a suitable enclosure, that to me is boring!

Neil.

I prefer to have my creations work the first time, it's so satisfying, while debugging may feel good when you find your errors, it's sort of like hitting your thumb with a hammer so you can suck on it to make it feel better, and if you fried parts, that can be related to having hit your thumb hard enough to make it bleed. Broken thumb bone could be related to frying parts that you had to order and you have to reorder and expensive.
The joy of turning the switch on and the light works the first time, SWEEEEEET!!!
Kinarfi

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Magic smoke is one of my least favorite creations.

 

[OlPhart]

A moving target...

Complexity as versed with accuracy, and experience:
More experience allows better accuracy regardless of task complexity.

I design/build stuff now, that 20 years ago would have been challenging, are now trivial.
Same toto: stuff that's challenging now, I wouldn't have considered doing 20 years ago.

Amongst my most satisfying aspects: achieving total agreement betwixt developer (me) and customer on HMI (human machine interface) of a project.

I got pretty good with circuits & mechanisms a while ago.... herding humans into agreement on aspects they have No concept of the consequences thereof is another matter.

My visual metaphor is Babe the pig herding cats...... and how's that going...

SO: Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from DaSarge...<<<)))

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

The problem is people dont know what they want, but they know what they don't want after you show it to them.

 

[OlPhart]

Having been through this tour SO many times: work on not thinking of it as a problem, you're opening the dialog of how it May be. They respond, you counter YaDa YaDa until everybody's in agreement.
This is NOT trivial, but the sooner you adopt this modality (yes it sux), I think your associated stress levels will back out too (mine sure did)
Good Fortune with this... it Really is NOT EASY... <<<)))