Electronic Pet Peeves
piguy101
Posts: 248
What are you electronic pet peeves? Mine is definitely stupid reviews of electronic parts on RadioShack. Two examples:
Review of infrared LED: the person said he could not see light from the INFRARED LED and so he put the LED on a 9 volt battery, he said it emitted a flash of light and then stopped lighting. He then [falsely] verified that he didn't mess up because he checked the polarity of the LED and he checked that the 9 volt battery was good with a voltmeter.
Another stupid review of a solar cell: the person was mad about his 6 volt solar cell because when he turned on his light where he was, the 6 volt solar cell wouldn't light a 6 volt incandescent lamp. (He forgot to mention that the lamp was probably rated at 0.3A and the solar cell was rated at 50mA.)
Explain what your electronic pet peeves are in the comments.
Review of infrared LED: the person said he could not see light from the INFRARED LED and so he put the LED on a 9 volt battery, he said it emitted a flash of light and then stopped lighting. He then [falsely] verified that he didn't mess up because he checked the polarity of the LED and he checked that the 9 volt battery was good with a voltmeter.
Another stupid review of a solar cell: the person was mad about his 6 volt solar cell because when he turned on his light where he was, the 6 volt solar cell wouldn't light a 6 volt incandescent lamp. (He forgot to mention that the lamp was probably rated at 0.3A and the solar cell was rated at 50mA.)
Explain what your electronic pet peeves are in the comments.
Comments
In looking for a bag of parts I bought the week before I found the Parallax servos that went missing the week before that. So the time spent wasn't a total loss.
-- Gordon
-Ron
That happens too often...
I really hate when a product says it only draws 500MA! 500 MEGA-Amperes is a little different than 500 MILLI-Amperes.
Do you have a URL for that?
Them: "This thing you built for me, it's a piece of Smile. It don't work."
Me: "What's it doing?"
Them: "It's not working. What do I have to do to make it work?"
Me: "I need to know what it's not doing that you'd like it to do. Does it come on? Is there a display? If so, what does it say?"
Them: "Oh, there's some error message with a number."
Me: "What was the number?"
Them: "Who the hell knows? I just want you to fix it."
//Shields Up
#1) how my day job keeps intruding into my hobby! Don't those people get it?!?!? I can't help it *MY* job description doesn't match the one *THEY* gave me!!
#2) how much smaller printing on boards and components is getting....it didn't used to be that small!!!!
The little m means milli, the big M means MEGA, and what have you ever used that draws even 1 MA, never mind 500MA.
Imagine how the rest of the world feels about getting most of the software in English.
Of course it was. It's just that your eyes really do get that bad as you age. I couldn't believe it when I finally broke down and got prescription reading glasses. I was able to read print that I didn't even know was there before.
1) Having to wade through a bunch of junk datasheet search results to get a PDF that is actually for the part number you searched on.
2) Why a simple project made from an Arduino can get more attention than a sophisticated project from any other micro.
3) Why people think the only way to contact me in this technology bombarded world is by saying "look me up on FaceBook". (I don't do FaceBook, which I refer to as the "anti-social" network)
4) When datasheet writers try to simplify things by using the same unit of measure for a matrix, only to make a joke of themselves.
IE: for a 9 volt power supply: Ripple=20mV, Tolerance=200mV, Output=9,000mV
5) When marketing people for equipment try to explain technical specs they don't understand. This one can be fun because you can always tell them that you are comparing their product with specs for GE's Turboencabulator before you make your final decision.
6) When I spend an hour looking for a bug in my code only to find out I forgot to declare the correct pin to match my wiring. This has happened 3 times in the last year. I must be getting old.......
And lastly, I second Gordon's post about trying to find something that was "put away". I have several organizer boxes, but have yet to be able to organize my stuff to the point where I know where things are. "So, let's see, my connectors are either in the blue organizer box, the bottom drawer of the green tackly box, that cardboard box over there, the blue tote up in the cabinet, or still in the Molex bag in my book bag....." After searching an hour, I find them in a small ESD bag thrown on my bench where I put them so they wouldn't "get lost".
Laying out all the surface mount components - then having a sneezing attack.
I believe it was a soundboard system; it said: Low current draw of only 350MA
Either a stupid person made the label or soundboards are really inefficient.
If you need help controlling an urge to swear I think one of these thermal printers might help.
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10438
I'm pretty sure that's what this line in the manual is claiming.
I can't think of a different way of interpreting it.
Duane
Dr Acular. LOL! on wearing shorts while soldering. Been there!
My electronic pet peeves are;
1) SMD components are "write only". You can identify them on the reel/in the bag, but on the table or in circuit they have a hidden code. Ever tried to fix a discrete SMD module with a burned transistor that reads "2AY"? what's that supposed to mean! Or you buy a couple of bags of SMD parts in quantity, loose the tag on the bag and can't work out if they are FETs, 3.3V regulators, Transistors, or diodes. And after giving up googling them you then start wiring them up to see how they respond in circuit!
2) The wife says on Saturday night, hey, you'd worked hard in the garden all day, how about you take some time to work on your hobbies tomorrow. Then on Sunday after about 1 hour of setting stuff up to actually start doing something (I planned the whole day!) she announces, "haven't you had enough time playing.....". Sigh. Never enough time.
3) Friends visit with broken electronic trash (flat screens, macs, whatever), and say, "it doesn't work. You've got a soldering iron, can you please have a look at it for me." DOH! So I add it to the pile and tell them the next time they visit to arrive 2 hours early so that we can look at it together (I no longer just fix things - that just gives you more things to fix. I make them suffer by joining in and seeing how much of my time it actually takes!
4) You accidently droped that SMD varicap diode which is about the size of a piece of sand, then spend another half day telling the wife not to walk into the kitchen while you sweep and look at the contents under a magnifying glass. And then find it's been stuck to your knee!
5) You see a special for component X (ie. 50A SMD FET) you buy it, and while there buy a bunch more stuff. Then when you go to unpack it realize you'd already previously bought most of the components elsewhere in quantity.
6) You lend someone a book from your personal technical library. Then when you want to use it you find that it's not in your bookshelf and you don't recall who has it! Arrrrgggghhhhh
7) First time using Press'n'Peel to make a prototype board. Express PCB to design a board, print it on Press'n'Peel, iron on, etch the board, solder the components and realize that something is wrong. Only to find that it's upside down! (should be the bottom layer not the top layer)
8) Then doing it again but cramming the page space with more boards so not to waste the expensive Press'n'Peel. Printing it out, putting it on the scanner to scan in, putting it in PAINT to flip it, then print on Press'n'Peel, iron on, etch the board then go to solder the components and find that the M#$SOFT Printer driver resized the image!
9) Finally then getting it right using a freeware print to a file to then rotate in PAINT then print (working out how to stop it from re-sizing the image) onto press'n' peel, then iron on, etch and finally have a working board. Though the whole way through this process the wife keeps reminding you that your "another 5 minutes" was actually 2 hours ago! Sob Sob!
I can definetly agree on the part about parents worrying about projects being safe.
when my little brother interferes with projects, and asks questions that i can explain, but he cant understand. then he always gets mad
when I knock a box of components that I just organized off my desk...
as someone said, when you spend hours debugging, and find out that it is just one in/output set to the wrong pin.
Dead batteries mixed in with the good ones.
Imagine how folks who spent the effort to learn English feel about getting material in "American"!
I always write a datetime stamp on batteries when I put them in the device "20110712". Sometimes "20110712-1120" if they have a very short like expectancy.
Helps me predict "time to replace". Very useful when checking the flashlights before storms and long trips. Wife cites this as evidence that I'm nutty.
All the electrical components (typically ICs) on ebay that are "Rare" "Vintage" and whatever other adjectives they use to justify selling for 10X the cost. One recently was a $12-$15 Toshiba optical sensor for $500.
Radio Shack is my peeve. I just went to purchase two SMA cables. An 8" cable costs $19!!! So I said, fine, I'll build one from connectors and a piece of coax..... $8 apiece for the connectors. WHAT!!!???