Author Topic: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?  (Read 22747 times)

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Offline BreakingOhmsLawTopic starter

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What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« on: October 31, 2021, 12:27:26 pm »
Hi fellow engineers,

having to replace my trusty old calculator, I am trying to find out what current models are good for daily use by EEs.
I don't have any restrictions on functionality as a student may have. What I'm looking for are features like:
 - Easy to access constants (light speed, Boltzmann, elementary charge etc.)
 - Engineering notation
 - log functions preferably directly accessible (without using shift key)
 - Multiple memory locations
 - reasonable battery life
 - obtainable as new unit - not something I have to hunt down at EvilBay.

Any input is appreciated.
 

Offline kripton2035

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2021, 12:42:45 pm »
casio fx991ex
 
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Offline isometrik

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2021, 01:42:38 pm »
HP 35s if you like to use RPN. Available at around $60 USD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_35s
 

Online TimFox

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2021, 02:14:16 pm »
For those who prefer RPN (and for those who have never tried it), Swiss Micros has put out a modern line of calculators based on the older -hp- models.
They use modern hardware and batteries, and their newer models have excellent pushbutton switches.
For normal hand-held calculations, my current model is their DM41X.

https://www.swissmicros.com/
 
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Offline kripton2035

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2021, 02:21:22 pm »
HP 35s if you like to use RPN. Available at around $60 USD.
log needs shift key on the hp35s (even if it's a very good calculator !)
I have one hp35s, one fx991ex, one ti84 and one casio fx-cp400
love all of them.
the fx991 is the one I use most often because it never has dead batteries !
 

Offline David Hess

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2021, 02:50:10 pm »
I currently use an HP50g.

Those Swissmicros RPN calculators look nice though.

 

Offline BreakingOhmsLawTopic starter

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #6 on: October 31, 2021, 02:55:49 pm »
I know RPN has some advantages, but having used PN all my life that's probably an exercise in frustration.

Does anyone use a HP Prime and can report whether it's good for EE?
 

Online Jeroen3

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #7 on: October 31, 2021, 03:17:30 pm »
Depending on what you want to do, I have the fx-991MS with the SI-prefix buttons and output. Which is nice.
 

Offline coppercone2

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #8 on: October 31, 2021, 03:35:30 pm »
honestly web programs, you can't beat stuff with hard core diagrams, text boxes, etc. I keep those view tickers running on the engineering calculator websites.

I.e.
https://hamwaves.com/inductance/en/index.html#input

You get a 20+ entry calculator and effectively MAN pages. There are some advanced useful suites for graphing calculators but honestly most places now.. the electronics lab is loaded with internet enabled computers. And the graphics on the websites help keep other engineers aligned.

If it had to be offline I would get a tablet with the websites saved on it, if possible. The heat sink designer programs some websites have are wonderful too, but its processed on their end through CAD sim so you NEED the connection and their servers to be up.

And since I often have many numbers to fill in parametric equations? if you can call it that, excel is the calculator of choice over a graphing calc because simply put the color/resize/etc functions of excel make it more clear and presentable and sharable.

What I would want though is a magic notebook that has the different pages that look like blank physical paper worksheets, so you flip to the correct page and pencil stuff in, then the answers appears, but it has the same consistency, weight, feel, etc.. of actual paper that I can bend the edges of and stick physical indexing marks into and so forth. But I suppose you need Merlin for that?
« Last Edit: October 31, 2021, 03:41:03 pm by coppercone2 »
 

Offline tooki

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #9 on: November 01, 2021, 12:52:31 pm »
I know RPN has some advantages, but having used PN all my life that's probably an exercise in frustration.

Does anyone use a HP Prime and can report whether it's good for EE?
I use the HP Prime.

I chose it above all because of the excellent keypad (RSI issues require this), but I’ve been doing well with it for my electronics apprenticeship.

It does some things extremely well (like using the touch screen to easily select prior results or formulae to copy them into a calculation), others could use improvement (like the brain-dead engineering notation implementation). Overall, I’d say it’s a very, very productive calculator to work with.

Pictures don’t do justice just how much smaller it is than the TI nspire. It’s a gorgeous piece of hardware. It’s really no thicker than a typical non-graphing scientific calculator.  (It is actually thinner than my TI-30X Pro MathPrint!)

The latest firmware for it added Python support. I’m curious as to whether that will lead to more apps for it; there aren’t exactly a ton of them now, and they’re not especially exciting.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2021, 11:03:36 am by tooki »
 
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Offline PlainName

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #10 on: November 01, 2021, 07:19:31 pm »
casio fx991ex

I use a fx991es mostly because it's quicker to switch between decimal, hex and binary answers.

But I also use OpenCalc on the PC. And Electrodroid on my phone. And Omni Calculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/
 
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Offline Sal Ammoniac

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #11 on: November 02, 2021, 04:40:17 pm »
I don't bother with a physical calculator anymore. I use an HP-41CX app on my iPhone. It's a nearly perfect emulation of the real thing (except it runs many times faster than the original) and it's always at hand.
"That's not even wrong" -- Wolfgang Pauli
 
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Offline TimNJ

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #12 on: November 02, 2021, 05:39:28 pm »
 

Offline blubillcanada

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #13 on: November 02, 2021, 06:26:54 pm »
I have a couple HP Prime calculators, they can do pretty much any sort of calculation thrown at them. It's a fantastic device and there's a free emulator for windows.
The Prime is super fast, color graphing & programmable.

That said, my daily driver is the cheap and cheerful Casio FX-260 Solar II $9CDN. No built-in constants though and only one memory. Dave has a review on Youtube.

For $30 the Casio FX-991EX is quite a bargain with plenty of built-in constants and a nice GLCD display.
 
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Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #14 on: November 02, 2021, 06:38:11 pm »
I don't bother with a physical calculator anymore.

Same here. Using tools on computer is much more comfortable and powerful these days. This is a discussion that comes up on a regular basis.

As far as physical calculators, I've had quite a few over the years. The ones I have left currently are: one HP48G+ and one HP39gII. Both are nice in their own ways, but I almost never use them anymore.
 

Offline xrunner

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #15 on: November 02, 2021, 07:03:31 pm »
I don't bother with a physical calculator anymore. I use an HP-41CX app on my iPhone. It's a nearly perfect emulation of the real thing (except it runs many times faster than the original) and it's always at hand.

Same here except I use the hp 42S iPhone app.  8)
I told my friends I could teach them to be funny, but they all just laughed at me.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #16 on: November 02, 2021, 07:24:43 pm »
Quote
Same here. Using tools on computer is much more comfortable and powerful these days.

They are, but suffer from the same issue that oscilloscopes on a PC have: there is nothing like stabbing actual buttons. I can type in a problem on a calculator far quicker than I can point to the keys on a PC, and also faster than using the numpad. And that's without dealing with the shift functions which could be anywhere on a PC keyboard.

Further, the calculator is divorced from the PC, so it's never hidden behind some window or obscuring a window itself, and I like being able to put it down wherever the hell it falls, and pick it up to do some sum without interrupting what I'm typing on the PC.

But copy'n'paste to the clipboard is a bitch.
 
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Online nfmax

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #17 on: November 02, 2021, 07:37:29 pm »
There ought to be a way to send a calculator result to the computer clipboards - Bluetooth or something
 
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Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #18 on: November 02, 2021, 08:05:41 pm »
Quote
Same here. Using tools on computer is much more comfortable and powerful these days.

They are, but suffer from the same issue that oscilloscopes on a PC have: there is nothing like stabbing actual buttons. I can type in a problem on a calculator far quicker than I can point to the keys on a PC,

Uh. A computer keyboard is infinitely more comfortable and faster to type on than any calculator's keyboard, unless your computer keyboard is utter crap, in which case, ditch it.
But seriously, if you can type faster on a calculator, good for you. I've never seen that except maybe for old people these days - maybe you are, and that's ok!
 

Online TimFox

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #19 on: November 02, 2021, 08:12:55 pm »
Back when my go-to calculator was an -hp- 25, I could hold it in my right hand and hit the keys with my thumb.  That was back in the day of LED displays to run down the battery and before arthritis.
 

Offline Sal Ammoniac

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #20 on: November 02, 2021, 09:00:53 pm »
I've got two vintage HP-25's here, but the batteries have long ago failed to hold a charge and I can't find replacements, so they're just paperweights now.
"That's not even wrong" -- Wolfgang Pauli
 

Offline Just_another_Dave

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #21 on: November 02, 2021, 09:30:03 pm »
I know RPN has some advantages, but having used PN all my life that's probably an exercise in frustration.

Does anyone use a HP Prime and can report whether it's good for EE?
I use the HP Prime.

I chose it above all because of the excellent keypad (RSI issues require this), but I’ve been doing well with it for my electronics apprenticeship.

It does some things extremely well (like using the touch screen to easily select prior results or formulae to copy them into a calculation), others could use improvement (like the brain-dead engineering notation implementation). Overall, I’d say it’s a very, very productive calculator to work with.

Pictures don’t do justice just how much smaller it is than the TI nspire. It’s a gorgeous piece of hardware. It’s really no thicker than a typical non-graphing scientific calculator.  (It is actually thinner than my TI-30X Pro MathPrint!)

The latest firmware for it added Python support. I’m curious as to whether that will lead to more apps for it; there aren’t exactly a ton of them now, and they’re not especially exciting.

I also use the HP prime, but finding programs for it is a bit harder. Do you know if there is any website dedicated to it?
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #22 on: November 02, 2021, 09:55:40 pm »
Quote
Same here. Using tools on computer is much more comfortable and powerful these days.

They are, but suffer from the same issue that oscilloscopes on a PC have: there is nothing like stabbing actual buttons. I can type in a problem on a calculator far quicker than I can point to the keys on a PC,

Uh. A computer keyboard is infinitely more comfortable and faster to type on than any calculator's keyboard, unless your computer keyboard is utter crap, in which case, ditch it.
But seriously, if you can type faster on a calculator, good for you. I've never seen that except maybe for old people these days - maybe you are, and that's ok!

I think it's not that simple. Yes, a computer keyboard is faster to type on, but you're either looking at the keyboard or the screen. I am pretty sure you can't touch-type the shift-key'd cosine function on the PC though, so you're looking at the keyboard for that (assuming you can remember where it is). On the calculator it's a one-finger stab job (better for not getting digits out of order) and you can see all of the keys and all of the screen at the same time.

And, like I said, you're not interrupting whatever you were doing on the PC - switching to the calculator app then back to whatever it was and making sure the cursor is still where it was is not an instantaneous thing and probably takes longer than the calculation.
 
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Offline BigBoss

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #23 on: November 02, 2021, 10:25:25 pm »
I've been using scientific calculators since 1977 and I've used many such as Casio P3600, FX750, HP48GX, TI-nspire CX CAS ( actual one) etc.
Finally found the best one. :)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.hipercalc.pro&hl=en&showAllReviews=true
It's only 2.89 Euros for all kind of math computations.
 
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Offline kevin original

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Re: What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
« Reply #24 on: November 03, 2021, 02:36:14 am »
TI-36X Pro
- Cheap $20
- Lots of physical constants
- Complex numbers
- Battery and Solar
- Not too big
- Easy to use
- Does most everything except graphs
 


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