Sometimes small is just too small.
potatohead
Posts: 10,261
Ok, so I'm having a good time today. Programming propeller, and family calls. No worries right?
Well, not exactly. The family dog just got done chewing on my better video capture device. The good news is the body of it, containing the complexity, survived nicely. It has a coupla war scratches, and that's it. Just character. Now I KNOW it's mine. [noparse]:)[/noparse] Not sure how the dog got it. Maybe the cat had something to do with it. All I know is I've a mess now. Thankfully, I did snag a spare. Just didn't expect to have to use it so soon.
The little female cable assembly got just thrashed. Of course, thrashed right near the molded plastic connector, nicely preventing any kind of mechanically sound splice. So I figure I'll just solder up a new one and call it all good. No dice! This connector is smaller than the little USB ones seen on most devices, and it's keyed rather than trapezoidal. I can't find one of these things anywhere, and buying one, and soldering it is going to be extremely difficult. Had it been the USB, chances are 5 conductor cables would be plentiful, avoiding a rather tedious and challenging retrofit solder job.
Deconstruction of the mangled cable end was revealing. On the outside bus, there are 5 slots, 4 of which have what appear to be slide 'n snap in headers that one could solder a wire too. The proximity of them is on the order of 1mm or so. The solder job was done, blob of silicon, encased in metal with a clamp (and I like that --easy to deal with), then encased in a blob of molded plastic that flows in and around everything. I don't like that.
On one hand, I'm impressed at the small scale, on the other, I'm not sure it bought the manufacturer much as there was board space for the better connector.
It seems there are a growing number of these and that they are just hard to find. Looks like I'll make an attempt to scrounge the local thrifties to see if I can get lucky. Maybe somebody lost a camera, or phone with something similar.
Or... fab up a break out board with sturdy female connectors, glue up an ugly mess and wrap with tape?
Not sure which way it's all going to go just yet, but I thought I would rant a bit over perfectly useful tech, hobbled by what appears to be over engineered connectors. I know that most everybody will just toss their device and get another. But still... Size was not the primary engineering criteria on this connector. Might have been the spec, but that was not needed either. Ugh...
I've got an old DAZZLE that has the right female connectors on it. Maybe I can shoehorn this stuff into that little case and get off fairly easy with some epoxy, and some careful soldering right to the main board, bypassing that annoying connector. That thing is near worthless. Worth a shot.
Replacing the device is over $80! (see most expensive propeller add on for comparison between good capture and inexpensive capture) Of course, you can't just buy the cable assembly.
Don't get me wrong. Small is pretty good. We have a lot of nicely sized devices now, and I appreciate that. However, there is a limit to small, and I don't think that gets enough consideration...
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Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
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Safety Tip: Life is as good as YOU think it is!
Well, not exactly. The family dog just got done chewing on my better video capture device. The good news is the body of it, containing the complexity, survived nicely. It has a coupla war scratches, and that's it. Just character. Now I KNOW it's mine. [noparse]:)[/noparse] Not sure how the dog got it. Maybe the cat had something to do with it. All I know is I've a mess now. Thankfully, I did snag a spare. Just didn't expect to have to use it so soon.
The little female cable assembly got just thrashed. Of course, thrashed right near the molded plastic connector, nicely preventing any kind of mechanically sound splice. So I figure I'll just solder up a new one and call it all good. No dice! This connector is smaller than the little USB ones seen on most devices, and it's keyed rather than trapezoidal. I can't find one of these things anywhere, and buying one, and soldering it is going to be extremely difficult. Had it been the USB, chances are 5 conductor cables would be plentiful, avoiding a rather tedious and challenging retrofit solder job.
Deconstruction of the mangled cable end was revealing. On the outside bus, there are 5 slots, 4 of which have what appear to be slide 'n snap in headers that one could solder a wire too. The proximity of them is on the order of 1mm or so. The solder job was done, blob of silicon, encased in metal with a clamp (and I like that --easy to deal with), then encased in a blob of molded plastic that flows in and around everything. I don't like that.
On one hand, I'm impressed at the small scale, on the other, I'm not sure it bought the manufacturer much as there was board space for the better connector.
It seems there are a growing number of these and that they are just hard to find. Looks like I'll make an attempt to scrounge the local thrifties to see if I can get lucky. Maybe somebody lost a camera, or phone with something similar.
Or... fab up a break out board with sturdy female connectors, glue up an ugly mess and wrap with tape?
Not sure which way it's all going to go just yet, but I thought I would rant a bit over perfectly useful tech, hobbled by what appears to be over engineered connectors. I know that most everybody will just toss their device and get another. But still... Size was not the primary engineering criteria on this connector. Might have been the spec, but that was not needed either. Ugh...
I've got an old DAZZLE that has the right female connectors on it. Maybe I can shoehorn this stuff into that little case and get off fairly easy with some epoxy, and some careful soldering right to the main board, bypassing that annoying connector. That thing is near worthless. Worth a shot.
Replacing the device is over $80! (see most expensive propeller add on for comparison between good capture and inexpensive capture) Of course, you can't just buy the cable assembly.
Don't get me wrong. Small is pretty good. We have a lot of nicely sized devices now, and I appreciate that. However, there is a limit to small, and I don't think that gets enough consideration...
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Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
Chat in real time with other Propellerheads on IRC #propeller @ freenode.net
Safety Tip: Life is as good as YOU think it is!
Comments
I try to hang on to as many DIPs as I can conveniently get my hands on. I use 1/8th watt axial resistors, but the SMDs are a bit daunting. In some cases I have seen them stood on end with a 30 gage wire from the top to another place in the circuit. And batteries seem to be taking up the lion's share of chassis space, rather than circuitry.
We've come a long way since Heathkit first offered DIY electronics. My first VOM was a Heathkit and worked just fine. The ARRL Handbook now looks more like a catalog than a DIY guide to good projects.
Sometimes I feel like I should just switch to building log cabins for fun. Alice in Wonderland had it easy - just eat one side of the mushroom to get big and the other side to get smaller.
At least transistors are cheap and powerful these days. especially MOSfets, though the darn things are now coming in multiples in one package. Tubes, if you can get the right ones are astronomically priced. I am just sorry I dumped all the matched pairs of 12AX7 from Techtronics that I bought for 25 cents a pair in a ham swap meet.
But I am NOT sorry to get rid of foul smelling chokes and transformers soaked with PCBs. WWII surplus electronics were a toxic waste dump smorgasboard. A lot of that stuff was sized for use as boat anchors. Remember 19" rack mounts?
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
(2) Shoot the dog.
(3) Strangle the cat.
(4)· I not only remember 19" rack mounts, but my ham radio station is mounted that way (very convenient), and my audio equipment is mounted that way too (also very convenient unless I have to move those four 60-pound·SAE A502 amplifiers).
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· -- Carl, nn5i@arrl.net
Post Edited (Carl Hayes) : 10/12/2009 2:11:27 PM GMT
1. Dogs are okay. They just need to chew.
2. Cats...... dunno
3. If a device is trashed, it is an opportunity to hack.
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Ain't gadetry a wonderful thing?
aka G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse] 黃鶴 ] in Taiwan
Well, I'm not inclined to toss the thing. It's a top notch capture, and I'm pretty tight right now. I've
time, but not money, so... let's just say it's gonna be a mini-adventure I will be better and develop some character from and call it good.
As a farm kid (I'm a 40 something now), I had to shoot my share of things. These days, I'm a complete left leaning, bleeding heart, animal loving softie, where animals are concerned. So, they live for the grace of advancing age and my increased sensibilities.
In the early 80's I was working with tubes regularly. Seems the little backwater down I lived in was filled with the things. Remember in the late 70's going to the market to test the ones I pulled out of gear queued for the land fill. I too regret ditching them. I had a 1K inventory, including a ton of smaller tubes from a dead Tek 4xx series scope. At least 20 pairs of those, very well matched that would make great project fodder today. The hobby then was repairing and retrofitting old tube radios and TV's. Loved it. When the scope was operating, I also did lots of CB radio tuning, modulation checking, and early video projects with the 8 bit computers of the time.
At one point, I had a great Zenith color TV, modified so that it would display an entire frame, not just the safe area, 1K AM transmitter, several tube power supplies, one to run ancient 17" speakers, pulled from some kind of concert grade PA from god knows when, tube crystal reference (for the xmitter), tube scope, Hammerlund tube HF receiver, mixed in with an Atari 8 bit computer, Disk drive, various tape devices, various transistor CB rigs, and one really excellent FM tuner all crammed into the lab, otherwise known as that place where I've left enough room to sleep, or my bedroom.
During the winter it got cold, and my family didn't have much. All the gear was either pulled out of the trash by me, or donated by HAMs, who saw the place and just loved what I did with it. Oh, there was a very low frequency generator, that used to disturb the family pets when fed through the old speakers, which had such good response at the low end, I would watch the cone
move from the generator, or a warp from vinyl album! Anyway, during the cold months, I would come home from school, fire up several of those and be just toasty after an hour or so. Had that nice old, probably toxic, electronics smell too.
12Hz or so, at perhaps 50 watts is an amazing thing when it comes to clearing the area of distractions! The TV was great. It was made at the perfect time where a mix of tubes (for the flyback), transistors (audio and various detector stages) and ICs were all used in the design. (chroma - early video filter) It was capable of about 320 lines color, and was my primary computer display device at that time. (the computer would do overscan, so I modded the TV to get the extra screen real-estate)
That bedroom was fitted with it's own 30A breaker, and 10GA wire, BTW. I had to do that with the arrival of the xmitter. [noparse]:)[/noparse]
My parents were loving, but largely ignorant of these things. Thankfully, they just let me go, and I didn't kill myself or anybody.
All of the stuff was very big and accessible. Too damn big. For a time, tech was all perfect (90's), and now it's just getting nuts small. Too small, as in I think part of the business model is simply people losing stuff often enough to warrant additional design focus on them losing more of it, but maybe that's just me.
Interestingly, the only thing I managed to keep from that time was the small xtal reference, in need of a 12AX--something tube, and the Atari computer. The rest simply couldn't exist in my on the go 20's. Had I known where life would eventually take me, I might have seriously stored some of the stuff as it would be absolutely great to have today.
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Propeller Wiki: Share the coolness!
Chat in real time with other Propellerheads on IRC #propeller @ freenode.net
Safety Tip: Life is as good as YOU think it is!
Post Edited (potatohead) : 10/12/2009 3:28:08 PM GMT
Tubes! Transformers! Crystals in FT-243 holders! Sticky paper-and-wax capacitors! It's enough to make you drool, even if the smell from the landfill didn't make your nose run.
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· -- Carl, nn5i@arrl.net