Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff

Projects to find the limits of what is possible right now?

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Nominal Animal:
Have you ever done an electronics project just to see if it is possible to do that specific thing better than anything already existing on the market?  What was it?  For what definition and value of "better", other than cheaper/smaller BOM/easier to manufacture?


In the programming world, one of my interests is finding out ways to speed up certain types of simulations (high-performance computing stuff).  It is not a commercially viable approach, because it is much easier to spend $10x in hardware than $x in wages.  However, there is a fraction of programmers that do this constantly, just the same.  See git as an example.  It was not a case of NIH as some believe, but more borne out of frustration of lack of proper tools that could handle the Linux kernel code base distributed over dozens or hundreds of developers.

(I don't mean NIH is not a thing with us code monkeys, because it is.  This is, however, unrelated to NIH: this is about doing stuff better than before, for some definition of better that is not related to commercial value.)

Recently, I asked a question here about a similar situation with USB wall warts and LED lights. Essentially, I was wondering what is currently technically possible and feasible; ignoring what makes sense commercially.  I noticed that all answers basically seem to hint that a thing makes sense if and only if it makes commercial sense, and that if a thing does not make commercial sense, there is no reason to think about or discuss such thing.  (At least that is the way I read the answers; but do note me fail English often.)  I am wondering whether that is a prevalent way of thinking in the electronics world, or whether there are designers and hobbyists that do like to push the envelope just to see how far it stretches, ignoring any considerations for commercial viability.

Don't get me wrong: it is not a bad thing, to consider only viable stuff.  It is a very rational way of looking at things.  I'm just asking, in this particular question, who and how electronics designers and hobbyists "push the envelope", so to speak.

Note that the "maker" world is a different thing altogether, because they are trying to solve some problem, or achieve some specific purpose, and not just to see if the thing can be done better.  (You could say that git is then not a very good example. True. It was just the closest thing I could come up with, other than my own experiments and computational schemes for molecular dynamics simulations. I could show the way I devised for MCMC simulations using Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, allowing efficient parallelization and simultaneous communication and computation, without compromising overall detailed balance; but it's extremely dull for anyone not particularly interested in that, and even the simplest version uses 21/64 sub-steps for each cycle with a sliding 3D window to the data, with detailed balance retained over full cycles only.  It's too deep into software engineering to fit into computational papers, and too much about a specific data structure and use case to interest any computer scientists.  So there is no hope for even publishing it.  Yet, it beats the shit out of current widely-used simulators in efficiency and speed in comparison.  But, because the code is about two orders of magnitude more complex, it is not really viable even in the simulation world.  As an example, I have still not proven, mathematically, that detailed balance is truly retained. I can only show it numerically, in the statistical sense. So, objectively speaking, it's just me waving my hands around vigorously.)

David Hess:
I have designed and prototyped low noise DC amplifiers which were comparable to the best that you can find for sale.  Noise was so low that low values of resistance could be measured from the Johnson noise of the resistance.  What was more interesting was verifying this level of performance with basic bench instruments.

I have designed some non-traditional audio power amplifiers which were better than my ability to measure but honestly that was not saying much.

I once replaced the voltage regulator on my car with a custom designed unit which regulated the battery voltage to a change of less than 10 microvolts over a 20 amp load change.

The untuned field strength receiver shown below combines a single stage wide range AGC circuit with a temperature compensated square law detector to operate over an incredible range of signal levels from ambient RF to 10s of watts.

rstofer:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on January 23, 2019, 08:57:55 pm ---Essentially, I was wondering what is currently technically possible and feasible; ignoring what makes sense commercially.  I noticed that all answers basically seem to hint that a thing makes sense if and only if it makes commercial sense, and that if a thing does not make commercial sense, there is no reason to think about or discuss such thing.  (At least that is the way I read the answers; but do note me fail English often.)  I am wondering whether that is a prevalent way of thinking in the electronics world, or whether there are designers and hobbyists that do like to push the envelope just to see how far it stretches, ignoring any considerations for commercial viability.

--- End quote ---

Basically, if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing for money.  Sure, I'm up for that!

Projects that tweak intellectual curiosity are also important but they don't pay the rent so maybe they get pushed to the back burner.

Then too, it depends on where you work - if you work for Bell Labs, you can do pretty much anything you want!  Nine Nobel Prizes kind of gives a hint of their scope.  I suspect the janitors have Master's Degrees and a desk job probably requires a PhD.

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

There are many jobs that pay you to play with stuff.  Or you can do it on your own time, with your own equipment, and see what happens.  The problem, of course, is that you might not have cutting edge tools.

Universities are a good choice but the fun stuff is usually left to the professors and their prodigies.  It would be an exceptional outsider to get into much of the fun stuff.

One area that is wide open is computer science.  The cost of entry is low, the playground immense and the need for improved algorithms is vast.  AI is the new 'flashy thing' and we see applications with self-driving vehicles.  As soon as they get the 'swarm' component working, it may actually be possible to improve traffic flow.  Of course, we will have to wait for the dinosaur cars to wear out...

tpowell1830:
Just to be clear, I am old, 65 years. I have tried a couple of times to do what you are suggesting when I was young, can't remember exactly what the projects were now. However, the thing that kept me from completing those projects was the fact that when I get home from working an engineering job all day, the last thing that I want to do is spend a lot more time in my head trying to solve some serious equations or inventing new ways of doing things.

Like many here, doing engineering work for a company is very taxing because there are some serious thought processes that have to occur in order to do what I do for a living. I find myself thinking about doing things that you are talking about occasionally, but I find the wear and tear of everyday problems at work to be too much, and all I want to do in my spare time is watch some educational videos from time to time and tinker with electronics that I am curious about occasionally, outside the infrequent repair that sometimes pop up.

The type of grind that I am now seeing in my job is typical of my entire career (although it seemed much worse when I was a nube back in the Paleolithic period, sooo much to learn). I have often wondered if other engineers had the same outlook as I do, however, I never asked.

Electro Detective:

MOST real hackers, hobbyists, tweakers and backyard/farm cobblers do not concern themselves with petty "commercial interests" (GREEDtardery) when they are busy improving on a design or tool or software/firmware etc
be it out of user frustration with an item,  |O
or just sensing/knowing it can be done better with a bit of head scratching, elbow grease
and perhaps a bit of trial and error destructive testing thrown in along the way   :-[

I've improved and or re-invented half baked stuff over the years that many might appreciate, but being a realist I know that I don't have the right commercial interests 'connections' 

i.e. unless you have those 'connections' it's a waste of time and money trying to get anywhere,
and if the 'better' product interferes with a marketed inferior product, which is usually the case, the commercial interests won't be rolling out any welcome mats for yours...  :--

That said, if it wasn't for many good spirited people 'having a go' at doing something 'better' over the last few centuries,  :clap: :clap:

the so called "commercial interests" of today would be busking on the streets or flogging favours in back alleys for a feed  :popcorn:

MOST "commercial interests" only know how to exploit no matter what their clever apologetic jargon and spin BS is,
they are parasites that feed off financially clueless inventors and workers, and not doing the general population any favours

Good useful products sell themselves, they don't need suspect "commercial interests" playing go-between and taking an unfair cut of the profits and stifling R+D
'just because they can...'  >:D


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