On 9/13/2021 7:43 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:> On Mon, 13 Sep 2021 07:44:38 GMT, Jan Panteltje > <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> On a sunny day (Sun, 12 Sep 2021 13:10:38 -0700) it happened >> jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in >> <ahnsjgl1mqcb9s7fsde3engj9rkkgl9cb3@4ax.com>: >> >>> Parts research is boring. >> >> No, it may give you new ideas > > Sometimes. But finding sources for a suitable, reasonably priced, > multi-sourced SPDT relay is unlikely to be inspirational. Or a jumper > cable. Or a #2 stainless spacer. Or an SMA feedthru with a cap and > chain. > > I do periodically review the "new products" pages on the semi web > sites, and check the few, mostly pitiful, ee news sites. Most of my > inspiration comes from customer problems. > > I have to design 8 very demanding boards in the next 2 months, > world-class picosecond stuff. And architect two new product lines. > Hunting for relays and SMA caps is just a waste of time.But posting about covid on USENET isn't?
parts researcher
Started by ●September 10, 2021
Reply by ●September 13, 20212021-09-13
Reply by ●September 14, 20212021-09-14
On Mon, 13 Sep 2021 12:00:47 -0700, Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:>On 9/13/2021 7:43 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: >> On Mon, 13 Sep 2021 07:44:38 GMT, Jan Panteltje >> <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote: >> >>> On a sunny day (Sun, 12 Sep 2021 13:10:38 -0700) it happened >>> jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in >>> <ahnsjgl1mqcb9s7fsde3engj9rkkgl9cb3@4ax.com>: >>> >>>> Parts research is boring. >>> >>> No, it may give you new ideas >> >> Sometimes. But finding sources for a suitable, reasonably priced, >> multi-sourced SPDT relay is unlikely to be inspirational. Or a jumper >> cable. Or a #2 stainless spacer. Or an SMA feedthru with a cap and >> chain. >> >> I do periodically review the "new products" pages on the semi web >> sites, and check the few, mostly pitiful, ee news sites. Most of my >> inspiration comes from customer problems. >> >> I have to design 8 very demanding boards in the next 2 months, >> world-class picosecond stuff. And architect two new product lines. >> Hunting for relays and SMA caps is just a waste of time. > >But posting about covid on USENET isn't?I'll get it all done. -- Father Brown's figure remained quite dark and still; but in that instant he had lost his head. His head was always most valuable when he had lost it.
Reply by ●September 14, 20212021-09-14
On Mon, 13 Sep 2021 20:37:09 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:>On Mon, 13 Sep 2021 12:00:47 -0700, Don Y ><blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote: > >>On 9/13/2021 7:43 AM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: >>> On Mon, 13 Sep 2021 07:44:38 GMT, Jan Panteltje >>> <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote: >>> >>>> On a sunny day (Sun, 12 Sep 2021 13:10:38 -0700) it happened >>>> jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in >>>> <ahnsjgl1mqcb9s7fsde3engj9rkkgl9cb3@4ax.com>: >>>> >>>>> Parts research is boring. >>>> >>>> No, it may give you new ideas >>> >>> Sometimes. But finding sources for a suitable, reasonably priced, >>> multi-sourced SPDT relay is unlikely to be inspirational. Or a jumper >>> cable. Or a #2 stainless spacer. Or an SMA feedthru with a cap and >>> chain. >>> >>> I do periodically review the "new products" pages on the semi web >>> sites, and check the few, mostly pitiful, ee news sites. Most of my >>> inspiration comes from customer problems. >>> >>> I have to design 8 very demanding boards in the next 2 months, >>> world-class picosecond stuff. And architect two new product lines. >>> Hunting for relays and SMA caps is just a waste of time. >> >>But posting about covid on USENET isn't? > >I'll get it all done.Actually, I haven't posted about the virus much. Covid is really boring, but the science-as-a-social-activity aspects are interesting. -- Father Brown's figure remained quite dark and still; but in that instant he had lost his head. His head was always most valuable when he had lost it.
Reply by ●September 14, 20212021-09-14
On Tuesday, September 14, 2021 at 2:20:54 PM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:> On Mon, 13 Sep 2021 20:37:09 -0700, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: > >On Mon, 13 Sep 2021 12:00:47 -0700, Don Y <blocked...@foo.invalid> wrote: > >>On 9/13/2021 7:43 AM, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: > >>> On Mon, 13 Sep 2021 07:44:38 GMT, Jan Panteltje <pNaonSt...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >>>> On a sunny day (Sun, 12 Sep 2021 13:10:38 -0700) it happened jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in <ahnsjgl1mqcb9s7fs...@4ax.com>:<snip>> >>But posting about covid on USENET isn't? > > > >I'll get it all done. > > Actually, I haven't posted about the virus much.But more than you should have done. You don't know much, and most of what you think you know is wrong.> Covid is really boring,Less so if you appreciate what's actually going on. It's a life or death subject, and the USA has seen rather more Covid-19 deaths than it should have, partly due to the American enthusiasm for adopting very silly ideas, all of which seem to have been advanced here over the past year or so.> but the science-as-a-social-activity aspects are interesting.It's unfortunate that you don't know much about science either, and even less about science as a social activity, which it most certainly is. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply by ●September 14, 20212021-09-14
On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 15:34:53 -0700, jlarkin wrote:> On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 18:09:42 -0400, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net> > wrote: > >>On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 14:49:29 -0700, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com >>wrote: >> >>>On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 14:06:44 -0700 (PDT), "John Miles, KE5FX" >>><jmiles@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>>On Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 1:10:47 PM UTC-7, >>>>jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: >>>>> Parts research is boring. >>>> >>>>I think there's some truth to every reply in the thread, which is >>>>darned rare around here. Yes, parts research is tedious, but it's >>>>also what product development *is* these days. I spend as much time >>>>looking for parts as I do using them. >>> >>>Then you could design more if someone did parts research for you. >>> >>>I need a particular 61-pin circular MS connector with PCB pins, that >>>mates with another particular MS connector. Price might be $85 but >>>might be $350. It won't enrich my life to hunt around for that one. >>> >>> >>>>Back in the 1980s-1990s, the DigiKey catalog was about the size of an >>>>issue of Electronic Design, maybe 200 pages at most. Now, it's almost >>>>3000 pages long and as thick as a metro-area phone book. >>>>The cover says it has 465,000 parts. >>> >>>Yes. And the search engine keeps getting worse. >>> >>> >>>>Oh, wait, no, that's the 2010 catalog, the last one I have. They >>>>stopped printing them ten years ago in 2011. The web site currently >>>>shows 13,000,000 parts. You can't actually GET most of them, but that >>>>still leaves millions of parts that you can specify. >>> >>>Not specify: hunt for. >>> >>> >>>>Meanwhile, Electronic Design is about half as thick and full of not >>>>much in particular. I don't know if they even bother to print it >>>>anymore. >>>> >>>>So I think I agree with those who say that part selection can't be >>>>delegated, or at least shouldn't be. It's tedious, but I hate to call >>>>it boring, because if you took the 2010 catalog back to 1980, >>>>nobody would complain that it was "boring." They would be too busy >>>>naming their firstborn son after you. We should count our blessings. >>> >>>Lots of big companies have components engineers. Big mistake? >> >>Kinda. Their often purpose is to tell people what components they >>cannot use. > > That's valuable information. > > >>There was a big push to standardize components several years ago, >>basically by generating and enforcing an approved component list. >>(Impendent of the approved supplier list.) At the time, one company had >>about 20,000 engineers, and their component engineering group had about >>20 engineers total. Turns out that those component engineers are not >>smarter than 1,000 ordinary EEs. And certainly not 1,000 times faster. > > We have about 7000 different parts in stock. That's too many. We > certainly don't want to add any new ones if it can be avoided. Sometimes > it can't. > > Imagine if 20,000 engineers started using any parts they could find > online. You might have 200K different parts in the stockroom. Or 2 > million.I've seen it done both ways. In a previous company, you did your own parts selection, but adding any new parts to the library, generating new schematic symbols, footprints, etc, was all funnelled through one guy, who also did the PCB layouts. So there was a strong pressure to re-use parts that were already in the library. It was a PITA. If the guy was out of the office, tough luck, that part of the design had to be parked until he came back and got around to your request. Then endless arguments about why similar-looking old part A couldn't be used in place of proposed new part B. Current place is more of a free-for-all, with twelve EEs all doing their own schematics, layouts and additions to the library as needed. Everything does get thoroughly reviewed, which catches a lot of the duplicates, but we could really use a 'librarian' to handle some of this stuff. It isn't seen (by senior mgmt) as adding any value at the moment. We'll see. We don't normally hold any production parts in stock, that all gets subbed out to 3 or 4 contract assemblers who we pay to hold stocks for us. That's also starting to change with the current parts shortage, for new designs we're buying 2-3 years worth of critical parts, MCUs etc.
Reply by ●September 14, 20212021-09-14
jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:> On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 21:09:26 -0400, Phil Hobbs > <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote: > >> jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: >>> On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 16:51:39 -0700 (PDT), "John Miles, KE5FX" >>> <jmiles@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> On Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 3:35:02 PM UTC-7, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: >>>>> Imagine if 20,000 engineers started using any parts they could find >>>>> online. You might have 200K different parts in the stockroom. Or 2 >>>>> million. >>>> >>>> Ideally you wouldn't even have a stockroom. You'd use the ones in Mansfield, >>>> Thief River Falls, and similar places. Why keep all that stuff on YOUR books? >>>> >>>> (Well, it worked for a while, at least...) >>>> >>>> -- john, KE5FX >>> >>> Most of our parts are on reels. We buy a reel and keep it in stock. >>> When we do a production run, we mount reels on the p+p machine, run >>> the lot of boards, count what's left on the reels, and put them back >>> in stock. >>> >>> Ordering the right number of parts from Digikey for every board run >>> would be an expensive nightmare. >>> >>> >>> >> Plus you not infrequently get some comedian in the warehouse sending you >> a bag full of short tape strips. (This happens even though we have a >> 'continuous tape only' note in our distributor accounts.) > > One reason the engineers are (theoretically) not allowed in the > stockroom is that it is claimed we mess up the leaders on tape+reel > parts. > > Buying full reels avoids breaks and problems like that. Some parts > cost $0.00 each rounded to the nearest cent.Yeah, we have reels of small stuff too. However, for client work we generally arrange things so that the customer buys the parts and pays for the PCBAs directly. (We basically just do pilot runs for clients--once they're happy they get the boards made on their own, under license.) Cheers Phil Hobbs -- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 http://electrooptical.net http://hobbs-eo.com
Reply by ●September 17, 20212021-09-17
"the concepts "male" and "female" are essentially social constructions" (Bill Sloman) Bozo the Clown... -- Anthony William Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:> X-Received: by 2002:a0c:b304:: with SMTP id s4mr8697679qve.34.1631506008372; Sun, 12 Sep 2021 21:06:48 -0700 (PDT) > X-Received: by 2002:a25:3d84:: with SMTP id k126mr12381167yba.43.1631506008068; Sun, 12 Sep 2021 21:06:48 -0700 (PDT) > Path: eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.mixmin.net!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!209.85.160.216.MISMATCH!news-out.google.com!nntp.google.com!postnews.google.com!google-groups.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail > Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design > Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2021 21:06:47 -0700 (PDT) > In-Reply-To: <i4tsjgpl9rgj4anhfles3sllqhjknobjoa@4ax.com> > Injection-Info: google-groups.googlegroups.com; posting-host=14.202.161.14; posting-account=SJ46pgoAAABuUDuHc5uDiXN30ATE-zi- > NNTP-Posting-Host: 14.202.161.14 > References: <eldnjgtslmpnbc9812hkl15ad2qi2ie88g@4ax.com> <4c94111c-5548-4b37-be60-889fcc2d064bn@googlegroups.com> <hrqnjg1tp212halnogvcj601gtovv5jos6@4ax.com> <i7hpjgtdvqoum1cith5s5qb69tb38ccvk2@4ax.com> <kkjpjghkgmamd3cvugm9lq74p6unjgg9os@4ax.com> <th9sjg53eg84734kib4qe7rb5h18bmg6mg@4ax.com> <shll19$iml$1@dont-email.me> <ahnsjgl1mqcb9s7fsde3engj9rkkgl9cb3@4ax.com> <3aa2a147-86a1-4cc1-aec8-e3679eb8de6dn@googlegroups.com> <i4tsjgpl9rgj4anhfles3sllqhjknobjoa@4ax.com> > User-Agent: G2/1.0 > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Message-ID: <b91270c4-dd26-4d07-8c0e-85a65a909246n@googlegroups.com> > Subject: Re: parts researcher > From: Anthony William Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> > Injection-Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2021 04:06:48 +0000 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > Xref: reader02.eternal-september.org sci.electronics.design:644587 > > On Monday, September 13, 2021 at 7:49:39 AM UTC+10, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote: >> On Sun, 12 Sep 2021 14:06:44 -0700 (PDT), "John Miles, KE5FX" >> <jmi...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >On Sunday, September 12, 2021 at 1:10:47 PM UTC-7, jla...@highlandsnipte > chnology.com wrote: >> >> Parts research is boring. >> > >> >I think there's some truth to every reply in the thread, which is >> >darned rare around here. Yes, parts research is tedious, but it's >> >also what product development *is* these days. I spend as >> >much time looking for parts as I do using them. >> >> Then you could design more if someone did parts research for you. > > John Larkin doesn't seem to do design. If you find a new part that fits you problem you can design a new - and unexpected - solution. > > An aspect of parts research is finding novel parts that can let you implement a new solution. > > I got to publish my 1996 millidegree thermostat paper in part because I used a newly available cheap 20-bit A/D converter to converter the voltage output from the thermistor into a digital number with enough bits to let me get to milli-degree accuracy. One of the software guys asked me why I wasn't using a bridge circuit, and I had to point out that the A/D converter used the same voltage reference as was connected to the resistor in series with the thermistor, so it was effectively the other arm of the bridge. > > Delegating finding new parts doesn't sound like a good idea. Delegating finding second sources and alternatives might work - to some extent - but tricks like double-pinning to accommodate two functional alternatives with different pin-outs might get missed. > > <snip> > >> Lots of big companies have components engineers. Big mistake? > > Depends on exactly what they are doing. > > -- > Bill Sloman, Sydney > >
Reply by ●September 17, 20212021-09-17
The John Doe troll stated the following in message-id <sdhn7c$pkp$4@dont-email.me>:> The troll doesn't even know how to format a USENET post...And the John Doe troll stated the following in message-id <sg3kr7$qt5$1@dont-email.me>:> The reason Bozo cannot figure out how to get Google to keep from > breaking its lines in inappropriate places is because Bozo is > CLUELESS...And yet, the clueless John Doe troll has itself posted yet another incorectly formatted USENET posting on Fri, 17 Sep 2021 12:05:26 -0000 (UTC) in message-id <si20a6$ktu$3@dont-email.me>.
Reply by ●September 17, 20212021-09-17
John Doe <always.look@message.header> wrote in news:si20a6$ktu$3@dont-email.me: same shit over and over. Definietely an abuser of this group and Usenet on the whole. John Doe, the Usenet Total Retard. GROW THE FUCK UP. You abusive punk fuck!
Reply by ●September 17, 20212021-09-17
On Fri, 17 Sep 2021 14:02:38 -0000 (UTC), DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno@decadence.org wrote:>John Doe <always.look@message.header> wrote in >news:si20a6$ktu$3@dont-email.me: > >same shit over and over.Yup. -- Father Brown's figure remained quite dark and still; but in that instant he had lost his head. His head was always most valuable when he had lost it.
