Had a look around out there and came across this...

[tvtech]

See the link here: https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?t=91516

In order to keep my sanity, I think I should stay at home....that means HERE. Please read the whole thread. Three pages I think and see some of the advise given....I cringe to see some of it.

Sorry Eric, I am back tvtech belongs here.

Regards,
tvtech

 

[killivolt]

I believed the plasma speaker I found on the Internet, was a good design. Because I found it on "Instructables website. They said it worked, I believed it. However, I couldn't make it work, but that doesn't mean I did it correctly, so I put it into LT Spice and I was able to get a reasonable example of the circuit to function. I don't think it's the best design out their like the author is saying, a "Reliable Plasma Speaker" he ran for 6hrs with no failures or heat stresses.

I'm suspect now, because "he" put a cap in the driver going to the GDT. With it included in LT Spice it wouldn't drive, until I removed it. I haven't had time to put it on the Development board, I will sometime soon. I will take some sample voltages and see if it's all a bunch of hokum or if the guy was really onto something? I don't know yet.

Yes, I'm a stubborn ass. Yes, it's how I learn, it's cost me money and time in the past but, I do learn a lot out of it.

He will get his experience the hard way, just let him crash and burn.

 

[tvtech]

Anyway Guys..I might be posting less from now on. And not taking threads purposely off topic and all.
Keeping my Pride here at ETO. With all the knowledge available here.

I was quite frankly embarrassed to admit that I had strayed to have a look out there at "other places"

And you know what....as popular or as busy as they might seem...they are not ETO. The knowledge base here is exceptional.

Quality is better than quantity. Always. I must keep remembering that. Seeing that is what I have always stood for

All the best,
tvtech

 

[JoeJester]

You let one newbie send you packing. You let someone with no credentials whatsoever run you out of a forum. Your "I said it was a bad design" was no better than his rant.



You choose to "help", but offered nothing about the design. Sometimes true believers are the hardest to "help". You didn't have to respond to that thread and you could have ended your participation with the one post about when you built it 20 years ago. You mucked up the waters when you stated

Maybe I did not lay my PCB out 100%....I don't know. I scrapped the whole thing a few years ago after many strange failures.

The design is from the LM317 datasheet and I'm sure thousands were built.

Sometimes with hard headed individuals it's best to "not post". You could have directed them back to H&H for further explanation of a circuit in their book, or to the author at the website where it was posted and "working" for all those many years.

It would take an army of individuals to "confirm" the validity and sanity of all the circuits out on the web. A daunting task. Think of all the "instructables" circuits of poor design. Sometimes knowing the source of the schematic is priceless, and a time saver.

I did not see any "baseline" questions to ascertain the OP's experience. The clue for me would be the OP's admitting their lack of knowledge.

In the end it's your choice on where you spend your time. It's always been that way. Even the NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) electronic related newsgroups had their OPs that were as hard headed as the OP you ran across. This is a vicious circle.

 

[jpanhalt]

It would take an army of individuals to "confirm" the validity and sanity of all the circuits out on the web. A daunting task. Think of all the "instructables" circuits of poor design. Sometimes knowing the source of the schematic is priceless, and a time saver.

A good part of my background is in chemistry. By way of analogy, there are a lot of published organic syntheses that are not very good either. To address that problem, a series of reference texts,"Organic Syntheses" was published. Basically, syntheses for compounds of interest would be submitted and then validated by an independent group with credentials in the field. When accepted and published, the submitters and validators were both identified. An ingenious person could still screw up one of the published syntheses, but for most of us, a synthesis in that publication almost assured success.

I have suggested a similar approach to common circuits, except today, they would be published on the Internet. So far, I have not found a lot of interest. My first impression from projects on Sparkfun and some of the sites for robots (e.g., https://www.dprg.org/ ) is that they come close, but the level of review and validation is a little lacking.

John

 

[JoeJester]

John,

That certainly is a niche that could be filled. There are plenty of sites with good designs in the vast ocean we call the internet. In audio applications, I would recommend Elliot Sound Products website **broken link removed** A lot of individuals copy a circuit from the net and become disenchanted when it doesn't work. Even the link mentioned in the OP's thread at AAC, the first sentence stated the website owner didn't have the exact components so they improvised. Suggesting improvising to someone with zero knowledge gets the inquiries from the OP in the manner exhibited at AAC. Making reading recommendations to that type of poster will eventually lead them to leave.

Helping the willing is fine. Helping the unwilling is a waste of time. Help the unwilling by stop posting.

 

[tcmtech]

I don't think that little bit of experience is anywhere close to being a fair or honest assessment of AAC.

To me that would be like me saying all Turkish men stink being that the two I stood by on a bus yesterday smelled like they each smoked a case of cigarettes to cover up their BO just before they got on.

(Honestly most of guys here really smell nice!)

 

[audioguru]

Many Instructable circuits are designed by little kids who are only 10 years old and know nothing about electronics like many of the members at All About Circuits (it is a student's site).

Electro-tech has (had?) many experienced engineers and only a few kids.

I think a plasma speaker is a distorted hissing joke.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I think a plasma speaker is a distorted hissing joke.

I would fully agree with you.

 

[tvtech]

You let one newbie send you packing. You let someone with no credentials whatsoever run you out of a forum. Your "I said it was a bad design" was no better than his rant.



You choose to "help", but offered nothing about the design. Sometimes true believers are the hardest to "help". You didn't have to respond to that thread and you could have ended your participation with the one post about when you built it 20 years ago. You mucked up the waters when you stated

The design is from the LM317 datasheet and I'm sure thousands were built.

Sometimes with hard headed individuals it's best to "not post". You could have directed them back to H&H for further explanation of a circuit in their book, or to the author at the website where it was posted and "working" for all those many years.

It would take an army of individuals to "confirm" the validity and sanity of all the circuits out on the web. A daunting task. Think of all the "instructables" circuits of poor design. Sometimes knowing the source of the schematic is priceless, and a time saver.

I did not see any "baseline" questions to ascertain the OP's experience. The clue for me would be the OP's admitting their lack of knowledge.

In the end it's your choice on where you spend your time. It's always been that way. Even the NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) electronic related newsgroups had their OPs that were as hard headed as the OP you ran across. This is a vicious circle.

Hi Joe.

No sweat. I guess I should stay away from the Internet for a while.....heck, I can hardly train the person sitting next to me...never mind someone thousands of km's away.

My situation is unusual, to say the least

All the best,
tvtech

 

[JoeJester]

tvtech,

Your in the same situation as many out here in the internet. We don't know the abilities of those asking the questions till we start reading what they wrote ... even if it's a google translation. You could take a well thought out inquiry, then run it through the google translator to a different language, and then translate it back to English. The European languages preceding English have the best translation while those from the eastern half of the international dateline produce some unusual results.

Some with English as their primary language slip into text talk ... which may illicit a response to speak in full if they want to pursue a discussion.

There is plenty of misunderstanding for everyone on the internet. The key seems for best help is schematics and math.