Recent Posts

1

Repair / Re: FE5680A Rubidium Standard: No Output and Not Locking

« Last post by ZGoode on Today at 04:12:17 am »

I measured an internal test point according to the document I found here (on page 3), and it measured 8.39109MHz without locking.  That is extremely out of tolerance, but I have no clue as to what that could be from.  Another thing I noticed is that even though it has all the parts that would take 5V, the pin on the DE-9connector which is supposed to take 5V does not actually draw any current at 5V.  This could explain why I am not getting an output on the DE-9, but not why the frequency way out of tolerance.

2

General Technical Chat / Re: FranLab is getting evicted

« Last post by Bud on Today at 04:02:10 am »

If you follow Fran's story, this is not what is going to happen.

3

Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: has anyone tried to make a vacuum tube in space?

« Last post by coppercone2 on Today at 03:59:40 am »

is this perhaps a problem with making things out of aluminum?

Sat chassis loves adhesives tapes etc. their built like a cheap laptop IMO

4

Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: has anyone tried to make a vacuum tube in space?

« Last post by ejeffrey on Today at 03:50:11 am »

From what I have heard, the vacuum,
 inside a satellite chassis isn't that great.  Unless you build it like a UHV system there is still outgassing and in the free molecular flow regime there is a limit to how fast you can pump those particles out no matter how good the vacuum is outside.

5

Altium Designer / Component Links Dont open in External Browser

« Last post by mengfei on Today at 03:31:52 am »

Component Links Don't open in External Browser or even locally, another tab just opens & then the tab has a %2A naming

I just added Manufacturer links to our components so when SCH part > right click > References > URL of Vendor > %2A
open external browser has been checked, tried key combi still nothing

has anyone faced similar problem & how to fix this? is there a setting needed for the external browser to see Altium Links?
thanks
 

6

Other Equipment & Products / Re: Automatic Tip Cleaners (less expensive options)

« Last post by shabaz on Today at 03:31:15 am »

Going back to the brass/steel discussion (and my question about whether the latter might be too aggressive for an automatic tool), it seems there is prior art for automatic cleaners with steel brushes, so it must work, at least with some combination of brushes and speed. The attached screenshot is from an 'Apollo-Seiko' tip cleaner for soldering robots.
There's even an automatic sponge machine for those who really want that!

This video was interesting; it's a vortex cleaner and needs an air supply, so none of that is cheap, but it was still interesting to see how it works; the presenter does a teardown, which reveals how the tip is sensed; there's likely an inductor there, and it (probably) detects the change in inductance caused by the metal tip/shaft.

7

General Technical Chat / Re: The nightmare reality price of cars now tracking and selling your every move.

« Last post by BrianHG on Today at 03:27:00 am »

   Suppose you could 'sign up' for driver's licence, but the gov insists you have a traffic COP trailing you, every move.   That's an old instinct, to want privacy.   You give up a little bit.

I would take a live cop trailing me.  At least that cop will see that I had to slam on my brakes here and there legitimately because of an idiot in front of me, or an unforeseen obstacle like a cat or dog running out on the street.

There is no such defense with the current blind data acquisition system where I my brake line fails while still under warranty, the car manufacturer will claim I stepped too hard on the brakes at one or more points in history, so no warranty for you.  You weren't supposed to use our car brakes like that while my insurance company will raise my rates by 10% for every time I braked heavily in the past year.

Even if I choose not to share my data with third party resources, the car manufacturer still can use it for themselves when determining if they should warranty repair my car.

It's like those laptop manufacturers who wont warranty blown speakers if they detected VLC Media Player was installed since it can play audio too loud with its boost feature.  What's next, you played a video with a black and white snowy image, so we wont warranty your monitor or TV since showing snow is too harsh for LCD pixels to modulate so often?

8

Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: has anyone tried to make a vacuum tube in space?

« Last post by coppercone2 on Today at 03:22:14 am »

that too, it seems ridiculous to do terrestrial vacuum experiments compared to how good it is up there lol

9

Work Wanted / Re: Hardware Design Engineer Looking For a Job

« Last post by chaplin887 on Today at 03:14:26 am »

what are you looking for exactly? investment or a professional job? Btw, can you say more about your project? I'm interested.

10

Manufacturing & Assembly / Re: Which soldermask colour has best component visibility

« Last post by NorthGuy on Today at 03:10:26 am »

White is the best. Black is the worst. Obviously.