Reels of parts are the way to go when you need a lot of boards built. It's just not practical to deal with a bunch of cut strips when building hundreds or thousands of boards. It's even easier to use... Read more
There was a time when I relied pretty heavily on the libraries that came with my CAD software. At first, I exclusively used what came with the package. Next, I started downloading libraries for new components from user contributed content.... Read more
I have in my bookshelf, an autographed copy of "The Inventor's Dilemma, The Remarkable Life of H. Joseph Gerber." I purchased the book, written by the subject's son, David Gerber, in early April 2016 with the knowledge that I would... Read more
I've read various opinions on schematic technique regarding the illustration of nets and nodes. Some folks want to route as much as is possible with net lines and some folks think it's clearer to use a lot of node symbols... Read more
I pulled up an older MCU and motor driver board of mine this morning. It's a project from about ten years ago that I haven't had built since 2016. It's still a nice design. In 1.3" x 2", I have... Read more
I've been called many things: Spock, Sheldon, weird, nerd, dork - probably too many names to list, and some not fit for print. The names aren't the point of this article, but the angst and anxiety that comes along with... Read more
When you sell a house, the offer they make sounds great until you realize that the big number gets a lot smaller after accounting for replacing the roof, digging out the 60-year-old heating oil tank and fixing the 80-year-old plumbing.... Read more
The language of the engineer and the marketeer don't always mix well. It's understandable. The two disciplines have different vocabulary sets and different objectives. To make matters worse, there is a lot of bad marketing floating out and about. Some... Read more
In five years, plenty of new chip fabs will be online and we'll be able to buy those microcontrollers again. Of course, the brand new AugInt drive chips will still be hard to come by, but what breakthrough new technology... Read more
To all of you out there who design, manufacture and sell microcontrollers - I'm talking to you! Actually, I'm talking to anyone who makes chips that have programmable configuration bits and overlapping model numbers. What do I mean by "overlapping... Read more