When is a deal not a deal? Well, a sub-$5 powered USB Hub is no longer a good deal when it requires: an engineer, a >$5 debugging device, and spare parts from the basement to get it working. Plug-and-play did not accurately describe my experience.
Click here to read my Amazon review.
But, product complaints aside, I guess I have to acknowledge the existential satisfaction which I derived from receiving a puzzle, finding the solution, and sharing it with others. There you go folks, next time you need a gift for the engineer who has everything, skip the Comic Book store, stroll right past the Strategy Games aisle. Give them some cheap electronics paired with the challenge, "I'll bet you can't figure out what's wrong with THIS!"
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Thursday, September 17, 2015
The Lab is Getting Respectable
First, there was just me, a laptop, and a license for OrCAD. No pic needed :)
A little discussion here: I've created past designs using (in order of preference): Altium Designer, OrCAD/Allegro, and Mentor Graphics. When it came time to spend my own money, I REALLY wanted to work in Altium, but I simply couldn't justify the buy-in premium over OrCAD/Allegro. One subtle plus for the now-integrated OrCAD/Allegro - the entry-level PCB Designer/PCB Editor uses the same *.brd format that the high-end Allegro suite does. The more expensive licenses simply unlock more constraint-driven routing tools etc. I'd say, right now, I can sketch a schematic more quickly in OrCAD but I can route a board faster in Altium. So, I guess it's kind of a wash.
But, if you design a board, sooner or later the time comes to power it up and verify functionality.
So, I bought some stuff.
But now, things are now organized and ready for productivity!
Better yet, the white desk is a sit/stand model. With a little cranking, the work surface can be raised/lowered to reduce single-posture fatigue.
I've noticed that some folks wonder about what to buy for their first electronics workstation. This is, admittedly, the most equipment I've ever purchased for myself. But, I've worked in a variety of labs and manufacturing environments. So, perhaps my choices can benefit others. Here are some of the key elements I chose:
Quality signal measurement
Rigol DS1102E
100MHz bandwidth should cover basic communication busses and clock sources with a little extra headroom to observe transients on said lines.
Quantity signal measurement
BitScope Micro
What it lacks in bandwidth, it makes up for in affordability and plentiful digital inputs. Good for sniffing an entire SPI bus, performing packet decode on I2C/CAN, or even serving as a simple function generator. I also like that they publish their API.
Bench supply.
TMS 30V 5A
I probably could have gotten by with the array of wall-warts I have sitting around, but it's really nice to be able to turn the current limit waaaaay down during initial bring-up.
Programmer
Olimex ARM-USB-OCD-H
My firmware collaborator is a big open source fan. End-to-end open source with Eclipse IDE, gcc compiler, and Olimex programming pod.
Soldering Iron
Hakko FX-888D
The smaller components and traces get, the more sensitive everything is to over-cooking. Hakko is a trusted name for accuracy and durability.
Hot air rework tool
Yihua 878AD
In the age of BGA's, QFN's etc, hot air is a must. As a bonus, it includes another soldering iron whose tips are compatible with the Hakko. Having two irons is nice if you want to use "tweezer" a component off... I felt validated in my choice when I read this recent article on Hackaday.
Adafruit USB Isolator
With two different USB peripherals connecting to my target board, I decided that isolation might be a good idea. I looked at some nice enterprise-class isolated hubs, and came to the following conclusions. 1) Nobody has isolated high-speed USB. It simply isn't a thing. You can spend $35 or $350, and you won't get beyond full-speed. 2) The price is right! I have high hopes for the low-cost isolator, but even if it doesn't work out, it's no great loss. My hopes ARE founded in a bit more than blue sky optimism though... one of Adafruit's marketing images shows an Isolator, Bitscope, and RasPi connected to one another.
And finally, with all this goodness on one desk, I needed to go find another power strip in the garage.
A little discussion here: I've created past designs using (in order of preference): Altium Designer, OrCAD/Allegro, and Mentor Graphics. When it came time to spend my own money, I REALLY wanted to work in Altium, but I simply couldn't justify the buy-in premium over OrCAD/Allegro. One subtle plus for the now-integrated OrCAD/Allegro - the entry-level PCB Designer/PCB Editor uses the same *.brd format that the high-end Allegro suite does. The more expensive licenses simply unlock more constraint-driven routing tools etc. I'd say, right now, I can sketch a schematic more quickly in OrCAD but I can route a board faster in Altium. So, I guess it's kind of a wash.
But, if you design a board, sooner or later the time comes to power it up and verify functionality.
So, I bought some stuff.
 |
| What a mess! |
But now, things are now organized and ready for productivity!
Better yet, the white desk is a sit/stand model. With a little cranking, the work surface can be raised/lowered to reduce single-posture fatigue.
I've noticed that some folks wonder about what to buy for their first electronics workstation. This is, admittedly, the most equipment I've ever purchased for myself. But, I've worked in a variety of labs and manufacturing environments. So, perhaps my choices can benefit others. Here are some of the key elements I chose:
Quality signal measurement
Rigol DS1102E
100MHz bandwidth should cover basic communication busses and clock sources with a little extra headroom to observe transients on said lines.
Quantity signal measurement
BitScope Micro
What it lacks in bandwidth, it makes up for in affordability and plentiful digital inputs. Good for sniffing an entire SPI bus, performing packet decode on I2C/CAN, or even serving as a simple function generator. I also like that they publish their API.
Bench supply.
TMS 30V 5A
I probably could have gotten by with the array of wall-warts I have sitting around, but it's really nice to be able to turn the current limit waaaaay down during initial bring-up.
Programmer
Olimex ARM-USB-OCD-H
My firmware collaborator is a big open source fan. End-to-end open source with Eclipse IDE, gcc compiler, and Olimex programming pod.
Soldering Iron
Hakko FX-888D
The smaller components and traces get, the more sensitive everything is to over-cooking. Hakko is a trusted name for accuracy and durability.
Hot air rework tool
Yihua 878AD
In the age of BGA's, QFN's etc, hot air is a must. As a bonus, it includes another soldering iron whose tips are compatible with the Hakko. Having two irons is nice if you want to use "tweezer" a component off... I felt validated in my choice when I read this recent article on Hackaday.
Adafruit USB Isolator
With two different USB peripherals connecting to my target board, I decided that isolation might be a good idea. I looked at some nice enterprise-class isolated hubs, and came to the following conclusions. 1) Nobody has isolated high-speed USB. It simply isn't a thing. You can spend $35 or $350, and you won't get beyond full-speed. 2) The price is right! I have high hopes for the low-cost isolator, but even if it doesn't work out, it's no great loss. My hopes ARE founded in a bit more than blue sky optimism though... one of Adafruit's marketing images shows an Isolator, Bitscope, and RasPi connected to one another.
And finally, with all this goodness on one desk, I needed to go find another power strip in the garage.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)