"Mike Engelhardt has parted ways with Analog Devices"

On Tue, 10 Mar 2020 14:20:43 -0700 (PDT), Phil Allison
<pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:

>Bill Sloman is Totally Weird wrote:
>
>---------------------------------
>>
>> > 
>> > "Intuition is the most important part of engineering."
>> > 
>> > That's great.
>> 
>> It's actually insane,
>
>
>** What an absurd claim. 
>
>Makes it very clear that Bill has none so has no clue what it is - apart from reading a dictionary. 

One of Jim Williams' books has a great chapter by Barrie Gilbert,
"Where do little circuits come from?"

I've known lots of engineers who just tweaked circuits they found on
data sheets or on eval boards. One guy I know has a nice little
business basically repackaging eval boards.

>
>Good engineers have "insight" = a deep understanding of how stuff works. 
>
>This leaves all the software guys gasping. 
>
>Insight informs one's "intuition" -  so your assessment of what might be possible with what is currently available is very good. 
>
>
>
>> but if intuition is all you've got, you might agree.
>
>
>** And if you have none you are stuffed. 

Most people get along fine without ever having original ideas. Society
only needs a small minority of creative lunatics.

Spice hugely improves creating and testing wild ideas.

I'm just now iterating a complex design using a soldering iron. It's a
huge pain. The parts I'm battling don't Spice well.



>
>
>.....   Phil 
-- 

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing   precision measurement 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

On Monday, March 9, 2020 at 10:56:08 AM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Mar 2020 04:14:07 -0700 (PDT), bulegoge@columbus.rr.com
> wrote:
> 
> >Przemek Klosowski.... thank you for pointing to that interview on YouTube. I really liked the guys view on what the ltspice program is for which is so that the engineer can get better intuition as to how his circuits work. It is a piece of verification but should not be used is the sole purpose of verifying. I guess I like it because it resonated with my viewpoints about use of such a program
> 
> Being an IC guy, he did miss that a little as regards PC boards. I
> often use LT Spice as the only process before I go to a PC board, but
> then PC boards can be modified a lot easier than linear ICs, and parts
> are mostly temperature stable as purchased.
> 
> And I design using LT Spice. Once one has some intuition, one can just
> throw parts around in the sim and see what happens. That works
> surprisingly well. I have several circuits in production that I don't
> really understand. 
> 
> I do much less math than I used to do. I guess rough values and tweak
> in LT Spice. Voltage dividers, filters, oscillators this week. So it's
> a calculator, too.
> 
> It also draws presentable diagrams to include in emails and manuals.
> It's a drawing program.
> 
> I've had his same thought before: Romans built waterworks, people
> built bridges and cathedrals and cannons and sailing ships, before
> Newton invented calculus. Most science explained what people had
> already built.
Sure, You'll also agree that generations of wisdom went into 
mixing the right mortars, smelting iron/steel 
and breaking masts with sails*.  

I totally agree about intelligent fiddling. (intuition) 
which you only get by fiddling with stuff.  

I should do more ltspice.  I mostly fiddle with solder.  

George H. 
Oh Przemek, thanks for the video.    
  


> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc
> 
> The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet. 
> "Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

John Larkin wrote:

---------------------
 
> >Bill Sloman is Totally Weird wrote:
> >
> >---------------------------------
> >>
> >> > 
> >> > "Intuition is the most important part of engineering."
> >> > 
> >> > That's great.
> >> 
> >> It's actually insane,
> >
> >
> >** What an absurd claim. 
> >
> >Makes it very clear that Bill has none so has no clue what it is - apart from reading a dictionary. 
> 
>
> One of Jim Williams' books has a great chapter by Barrie Gilbert,
> "Where do little circuits come from?"
> 
> I've known lots of engineers who just tweaked circuits they found on
> data sheets or on eval boards. One guy I know has a nice little
> business basically repackaging eval boards.
> 
> >
> >Good engineers have "insight" = a deep understanding of how stuff works. 
> >
> >This leaves all the software guys gasping. 
> >
> >Insight informs one's "intuition" -  so your assessment of what might be possible with what is currently available is very good. 
> >
> >
> >
> >> but if intuition is all you've got, you might agree.
> >
> >
> >** And if you have none you are stuffed. 
> 
> Most people get along fine without ever having original ideas. Society
> only needs a small minority of creative lunatics.
> 
> Spice hugely improves creating and testing wild ideas.
> 
> I'm just now iterating a complex design using a soldering iron. It's a
> huge pain. The parts I'm battling don't Spice well.
> 
> 

** JL leaves you wondering if he is in agreement  - or not. 

 Guess he just likes to "have an edge" as Mr Eastwood remarked. 



....   Phil 

On Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 8:20:49 AM UTC+11, Phil Allison wrote:
> Bill Sloman is Totally Weird wrote:
> 
> ---------------------------------
> >
> > > 
> > > "Intuition is the most important part of engineering."
> > > 
> > > That's great.
> > 
> > It's actually insane, 
> 
> ** What an absurd claim. 

Engineering involves thinking about what you are doing. If you rely only on intuition you are an artist, not an engineer.
 
> Makes it very clear that Bill has none so has no clue what it is - apart from reading a dictionary. 

Like any experience engineer, I've got loads of intuitions about what will and won't work, most of them pretty good. Electronic design is the process of systematically testing those intuitions, eventually by building and testing a real  device, but it's a lot cheaper to check them out on paper and with computer simulations.
 
> Good engineers have "insight" = a deep understanding of how stuff works. 

Useful engineers can articulate this insight, and spell out to other people what they think is going on. Intuition doesn't lend itself to that kind of communication.
 
> This leaves all the software guys gasping. 

Why?
 
> Insight informs one's "intuition" -  so your assessment of what might be possible with what is currently available is very good. 

It can be, but it pays to test it against mathematical models - and not just the ones built into your Spice simulation engine.
 
> > but if intuition is all you've got, you might agree.
 
> ** And if you have none you are stuffed. 

Probably. But nobody lacks it completely - humans are great at making sense of what they see, though sometimes their scheme for making sense of the world can be pretty wonky. John Larkin has clear intuitions about climate change, which he's got from climate change denial propaganda.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 9:42:20 AM UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Mar 2020 14:20:43 -0700 (PDT), Phil Allison
> <pallison49@gmail.com> wrote:

<snip>

> Most people get along fine without ever having original ideas. Society
> only needs a small minority of creative lunatics.

There's no association between creativity and lunacy.

Alan Dower Blumlein was a remarkably creative engineer, with 128 patents to his name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Blumlein

He was about as far from being a lunatic as one can imagine. I've known two people who have chalked up 25 patents each - my father and a friend from EMI Central Research (where Blumlein wa working when he died). Both were perfectly sane
 
> Spice hugely improves creating and testing wild ideas.

It makes it cheaper and quicker, but Spice models are never entirely prefect.
 
> I'm just now iterating a complex design using a soldering iron. It's a
> huge pain. The parts I'm battling don't Spice well.

There are other ways of predicting what a circuit will do, and you can - in principle - create you own Spice models of parts which better reflect what they do in the circumstances in which you wish to use them.

Commercial Spice is optimised for the sorts of circuits that most people test. If you want to do something unconventional, you are likely to need unconventional device models.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

> Engineering involves thinking about what you are doing. If you rely only on intuition you are an artist, not an engineer.

No. No good efficient engineering without intuition.

There are 37 possible solutions to my problem. I could try them one by one and finish in 2027. I could simulate for hours, do analysis and calculations, to determine where to start.

Good intuition and experience 'might' make me choose the right one at the startoff. 
And then, combine that with good engineering and simulation and soldering and ....

Klaus

buecherk@gmail.com wrote in
news:22bc8f63-d755-4b3d-830f-6eeadee6b608@googlegroups.com: 

> 
>> Engineering involves thinking about what you are doing. If you
>> rely only on intuition you are an artist, not an engineer. 
> 
> No. No good efficient engineering without intuition.
> 
> There are 37 possible solutions to my problem. I could try them
> one by one and finish in 2027. I could simulate for hours, do
> analysis and calculations, to determine where to start. 
> 
> Good intuition and experience 'might' make me choose the right one
> at the startoff. And then, combine that with good engineering and
> simulation and soldering and .... 
> 
> Klaus
> 

  Yes.  Many inventions are not new, but are variations on previous 
themes.

  Everything is one step at a time, but even though we know so very 
well how to walk, we still do not venture forth blinfolded.

On Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 6:45:53 PM UTC+11, buec...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Engineering involves thinking about what you are doing. If you rely only on intuition you are an artist, not an engineer.
> 
> No. No good efficient engineering without intuition.

Perhaps not, but John Larkin was boosting the claim that  "Intuition is the most important part of engineering." 
 
> There are 37 possible solutions to my problem. I could try them one by one and finish in 2027. I could simulate for hours, do analysis and calculations, to determine where to start.

You'd have to be entirely bereft of judgment to try them one by one in random order.
 
> Good intuition and experience 'might' make me choose the right one at the start off.  

Since all of us have chosen the wrong one from time to time, and had to back off an start over, it would seem that intuition and judgement aren't entirely reliable tools.

Promoting an aspect of the job that doesn't work out all that reliably as the most important part of the process isn't an exhibition of sound judgement.

> And then, combine that with good engineering and simulation and soldering and ....

So which aspect strikes you as the "most important part of the process"?

Intuition is just  unorgansied experience. The difference between art and engineering is that we try to rationalise what we are seeing, so that we can tell other people how to do it.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 7:10:45 PM UTC+11, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:
> buecherk@gmail.com wrote in
> news:22bc8f63-d755-4b3d-830f-6eeadee6b608@googlegroups.com: 
> 
> > 
> >> Engineering involves thinking about what you are doing. If you
> >> rely only on intuition you are an artist, not an engineer. 
> > 
> > No. No good efficient engineering without intuition.
> > 
> > There are 37 possible solutions to my problem. I could try them
> > one by one and finish in 2027. I could simulate for hours, do
> > analysis and calculations, to determine where to start. 
> > 
> > Good intuition and experience 'might' make me choose the right one
> > at the startoff. And then, combine that with good engineering and
> > simulation and soldering and .... 
> 
>   Yes.  Many inventions are not new, but are variations on previous 
> themes.

Less than obvious variations - "not obvious to those skilled in the art".
 
>   Everything is one step at a time, but even though we know so very 
> well how to walk, we still do not venture forth blindfolded.

If you don't think about what you think you know, and haven't got a clear idea of why you think that, you are working in the dark.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Bill Sloman wrote...
>
> There are other ways of predicting what a circuit will do,
> and you can - in principle - create you own Spice models of
> parts which better reflect what they do in the circumstances
> in which you wish to use them.

 I like to make small SPICE models of parts, derived from
 analytical expressions of a few critical things that're
 going on in the aspect of the circuit I'm evaluating.

 For example, consider an op-amp driving a power MOSFET to
 create a controlled current source.  The FET's high gate
 capacitance, along with the bootstrapped source resistor,
 creates a confusing control loop.  My RIS-796, a 250-amp
 LED pulser project, uses this.  If you want, sets of files:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/tcmiahzzughadfk/AABtgFDy01cuTDWDRjujP6jva?dl=1

 In AoE x-Chapter 4x.26, we struggled and derived a set of
 analytical equations for this circuit.  See article here.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o4g4mhzl70rsi9t/4x.26_MOSFET_CS_nodal-analysis_final.pdf?
dl=1

 The circuit basis for the equations uses the MOSFET's gm,
 equation id = gm (vg-vs), and its gate capacitance, Ciss.
 The equations are hairy.  But we also suggest you can make
 a simple SPICE circuit with the op-amp, the FET's id and
 Ciss, plus additional Rs and Cs, to evaluate the circuit.

 Such a scheme may only works well over a limited range of
 conditions, e.g., using the value for gm at the FET's 250A
 current, means that the reduced-current startup won't be
 accurately modeled.  But it's still quick and useful.  And
 you can repeat the SPICE run, with lower values of gm, to
 get an idea of what's happening during the pulse startup.


-- 
 Thanks,
    - Win