Recent Posts

1

General Technical Chat / HART Modem Texas Instruments DAC8742H is it suitable for new Design ?

« Last post by Dingle on Today at 12:20:13 pm »

Hi
My name is Dingle ,works for a small electronics company in Manchester UK. We manufacture scinetific instruments for water industry.

I am thinking of using Texas instruments DAC8742H Hart Modem chip into our existing 4-20ma current loop based on XTR116.
It is meant to do that job, I bought their EVM kit from Farnell and evaluated it and suitable for the purpose.

My question is the availabilty of TI chips through Farnell and RS in UK / Europe market. I don't see much TI chips in Farnell / RS , though many are avilable in Mouser / Digikey. It is the same case with DAC8742H. According to Texas Instruments it is a an active chip and they  do reccomed it for new designs.
Is  Arrow.com being used my PCBmanufacturing/assembly people in UK/ Europe ?, they have facility in London. Arrow is one of the distributors of TI chips in UK. TI being one of the giants and specialised chips comes from them mainly, but why Farnell / RS don't sell their stuff ?

Let me know your expert opinion in this regard..
Thank you
Dingle

2

Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: What is Popular smaller than 0.1 inch pin header and jumper cable

« Last post by Nominal Animal on Today at 12:11:16 pm »

Many common ribbon cables have 0.05" = 1.27mm pitch, which makes them particularly nice to use with 0.05"/1.27mm pitch headers.
2.0mm pitch headers are easier to solder to wires, though.

3

General Technical Chat / Re: H5N1 bird flu and how we're risking another global pandemic

« Last post by Wallace Gasiewicz on Today at 12:04:14 pm »

I have read about the 1918 Flu for many years. It is something that epidemiologists have focused on since then.  There have been countless papers written.   

Most of the response in 1918 was the same as the response in 2020.  It was just as ineffective.   
Only the death rates were far worse during the 1918 Flu.   
As I recall, there were a few isolated small communities in the US that did not become infected. They closed off all contact with the world early on.  Masks and "social distancing" did not work and were discarded by the populace. People ceased to listen to the authorities.  Also WW1 was raging and took all the media bandwidth (except in neutral Spain, where they reported on the Flu.)   
This Flu took many more lives than the war, however. There are all sorts of death data that can be inaccurate , but the death toll was horrendous. Probably 4% of the world died.

The COVID virus is a different virus than the H1N1 1918 virus.  Different Genome.   
1918 virus targeted healthy young people, unlike yearly flu. COVID targets older people, like yearly flu.       


There are all sorts of Hypotheses about why 1918 targeted young healthy adults. One Hypothesis is that the older population had some immunity due to previous Flu epidemics.   
 Another one states that the younger population had altered (bad) immunity due to previous infection but not good immunity because they were not old enough to have had an older previous Flu that offered at least some partial immunity.   

These are just rational "guesses" and please do not hold me to these Hypotheses. I do not believe anyone knows for sure.   
Also, I am purposefully not commenting on the various "vaccines".

4

Beginners / Re: How Current Limitation is happening in the circuit???

« Last post by xavier60 on Today at 11:55:16 am »

Sir,

I will check whether they are parallel.

i had 10ohm 50watt. i had an idea of keeping 20V output and check.

thank you.

Also include what test you might have in your profile or signature. It will save anyone having to ask.

5

Beginners / Lab PSU for learners

« Last post by AcdNrg on Today at 11:54:37 am »

Hi all,

I´m kinda new to Electronics, started with soldering by numbers for a number of Eurorack Modules. Now, after 50 or so successful builds with almost no magic smoke, I want to dive in a littler deeper and actually understand what these circuits are doing. Most of them are analog.

That said, 90% of my projects are going to be for this environment, ie power is +12V, -12V and 5V plus limited power consumption, typically a few mA to something under 300mA.

With a few obvious gaps in my knowledge, I´m looking to close those and this should always come along with practice. In other words:

I need a reliable PSU that
- offers said voltages without much hassle
- is forgiving stupid noob mistakes
- offers solid precision for later endeavours
- maybe offers power consumption graphs, but that´s not a must

From what I´ve found so far, Rigol DP832, DP832A look like good candidates, the siglent 3303X meets the specs, but got a not so great review.

What are your thoughts on that, any recommendations, warnings, comments?

6

Buy/Sell/Wanted / Re: FS: Affordable DMM Checkers: AC Reference, DC Reference, OHMS Reference, etc

« Last post by Brumby on Today at 11:53:21 am »

My expectations were set by the user name.  I was not disappointed.

It seems to me that the OP had a nice little suite of items that might provide sanity checks on a lot of the common gear you would encounter.  If they had stayed in the eBay arena, I expect they could have likely operated with some success as those who would be inclined to accept the claims made were likely not in a position to understand the actual detail of those claims and would have no way of verifying them anyway.

Even I, who am by no means a metrologist's bootlace, saw the claims and price point and just shook my head and said "Nope".

Posting here to promote the products for sale indicated two things, to me.  The first is that they did not really understand the claims being made.  The second is that they did not realise that there are many members here that do.  The consequential challenge was inevitable and, IMHO, appropriate for the EEVBlog.

If they were expecting endorsement, then they really did not understand what they were talking about - in the true and full sense of the terms they used - and the EEVBlog is definitely NOT the place to try.  This, together with their extremely immature response had me thinking along the lines of Dunning–Kruger.



This whole matter has ended up exactly where I expected it to after just having read the first post.

Edit: Title changed to original

7

Microcontrollers / Re: What 8-pin MCU might this be ?

« Last post by MathWizard on Today at 11:45:48 am »

I should leave it alone for now, I'd probably have to download a bunch of other software/etc. I just wanted to see what the program on it might look like. Somewhere I have the remote too. The LED's were thrown out years ago.

But yeah I could just make some strings of LED's for it, and it should all still work. And I want to see how the remote works and sends data. But I've never tried anything with a PIC before.

8

Computers / Re: Australian Government Invests $1BN on Aussie Quantum Computing Startup

« Last post by vk6zgo on Today at 11:44:17 am »

Australia will invest $940 million in Silicon Valley start-up PsiQuantum in a major bet that it will build the world’s first commercially useful quantum computer in Brisbane.

Is there any evidence of a quantum computer doing anything better than a traditional computer, or is it just all theoretical?

For fun see page 203 of the 2024 Sigbovik : "Quantum Disadvantage.  Or, simulating IBM's 'quantum utility' experiment with a Commodore 64"

A Commodore 64 would be more useful simulating a doorstop.

9

Microcontrollers / Re: What 8-pin MCU might this be ?

« Last post by mikeselectricstuff on Today at 11:32:46 am »

Most likely a cheap Chinese job like the Padauk PMS150- these are be pin-compatible with PIC12

10

Buy/Sell/Wanted / (FS) [EU] Siglent SDS1104X-E oscilloscope

« Last post by bateau020 on Today at 11:31:58 am »

And another one up for sale. Victim of an upgrade to 12 bits.
SDS1104X-E, "liberated" to 200MHz, and all options enabled. So you get a SDS1204X-E.

Clean, no (easily visible) scratches or discolorations, latest firmware, no intense use (see picture).
Included: new cables and probes (all from my new scope, PP510 100MHz probes), original box, original paperwork.
Bought new Dec 2021 from one of the official German distributors.

Price: 300 EUR, excl. shipping (at cost).

PM me if you are interested.