Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

the-dubster — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 10:53:10 GMT

I kinda love the way the magic of computers and the internets allows folks from around the globe to come together virtually to share a love for whatever they are into - but I hate it all with a passion when it fails to work because of poor design/programming/budgetary restrictions (yeah work, I'm looking at you there).

Even more annoying is when a bit of wind and rain makes your internets flaky (currently having to use my mobile hotspot to type this as my internets is up and down like a yoyo!!

I also love it when a thing I designed from the ground up in 3D actually works first time . . . . . . . and when someone else prints it and shares the love - even better!

Not so pleased when someone else moans because it needs fettling because it doesn't fit for them (try calibrating your printer, it's a tight tolerance part)!! [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/contentimage_5F00_3.png:16:16]

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

shivamgpl8824tiwari — Sat, 15 Feb 2020 01:43:33 GMT

I like to learn new technology and different audio technology

I am highly interested in electronics

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

ntewinkel — Sat, 15 Feb 2020 00:57:27 GMT

I love when electronics make life easier.

I hate it when they do so not-quite fully reliably, so you can't really trust them fully.

My biggest grumble right now is non-repairable and non-upgradeable hardware. I'm looking at you, Apple!

I was shocked when I first learned that Apple was making laptops that didn't have any way to upgrade memory, and then not much later they did the same for storage drives! It actually stopped me from upgrading as frequently as I used to, which I think is the opposite effect than they were aiming for.

I hear Tesla is starting to follow the same sort of worrisome pattern - not allowing 3rd party repairs, crippling features (fast charging) on some repaired vehicles.

I've also heard similar complaints about farm equipment having crippling tech like that in them.

-Nico

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

genebren — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 22:44:26 GMT

I love all of the possible ways that electronics can be used to create fun/useful projects. This really has been like adult Lego/Tinker Toys for me.

I love my 3D printer. It boggles my mind that I waited so long to jump into something so useful. I guess that I held out so long as my mill and lathe were so much fun to play with.

Where my love runs out and often turn to hate is when software packages that are supposed to make out lives easier don't really do that (thanks MicroSoft for inventing the almost complete software paradigm).

What I do love the most is having such a great place as element14 to hang out with like minded and highly creative people.

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

koudelad — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 22:23:17 GMT

I love it when I write a firmware program, do not rush it, test the components of the program and it works!

I also love it when I write a program and it doesn't work the first time - it makes me do the previous step. If it works the first time, I usually get a failure much later [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/7510.contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

I hate some component manufacturers that force you to install yet another Eclipse based IDE, so you have 10 of them on your PC.

I also hate datasheets that are just a stupid structure description of a component, not describing the behavior and process to properly use it (as intended by the designers).

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

paj — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 22:21:28 GMT

How do I love thee? Let me count the waves

I love thee to the resistance and volts and amps

My multimeter can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Your connections and signal trace.

I love thee to the level of everyday’s

Measurements of the sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Crowd funding;

I love thee as surely, as they burn for Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old ideas, and with my childhood’s dreams.

I love thee with an enthusiasm I often lose

With my lost logic,—I love thee with the stress

Smiles, tears, of all my coding!—and, if It is loose,

I shall but love thee better with a good earth.

sorry Ms Browning!

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

COMPACT — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 20:59:57 GMT

I love electronics because it is a real life challenge when you make things yourself.

There's no one else to blame it if doesn't work or isn't reliable.

I hate modern electrolytic capacitors that dry up and die!

I just had a 22,000uF capacitor measure 0.4 uF.

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

ankur608 — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 20:14:12 GMT

Passionate love for [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/contentimage_5F00_3708.png:16:16]FPGAs and [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/contentimage_5F00_3708.png:16:16]SDRs, still I hate the excessive [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/contentimage_5F00_1577.png:16:16] 'coding' part that makes the modern day electronics shimmer like the distant stars.

I recall the incident, when I got my first spiky-sigs in Radio-astronomy, though I assumed it to be the doppler-shift of Hydrogen-line, but it proved out to be a mere 'noise' in my SDRs pre-amp.[View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/7115.contentimage_5F00_53.png:16:16]

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

beacon_dave — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 17:27:11 GMT

Love standards but hate there being so many of them to choose from... ! [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/3250.contentimage_5F00_53.png:16:16]

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

Fred27 — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 16:14:53 GMT

I love it when you get a board back, populate it and... it works! I don't know why this still surprises me every time.

I hate it when it doesn't quite work. You've waited weeks on the slow (cheap) boat from China to find you have a little hardware bug.

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

14rhb — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 15:50:00 GMT

1. I love getting each block of an electronics project design working in isolation [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

2. I hate joining them together to find overall it doesn't work [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/contentimage_5F00_4751.png:16:16]

3. I love the first few hours of switching back and forth between 1 & 2 [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/contentimage_5F00_402.png:16:16]

4. I hate doing (3) after a day or two of getting nowhere [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/2086.contentimage_5F00_2.png:16:16]

5. I like doing some RF work, its super cool and fun [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

6. I hate doing RF work, as the magic part often makes (2) worse [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/contentimage_5F00_53.png:16:16]

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

mayermakes — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 15:29:03 GMT

I love designing pcbs, but I hate my stupid oversights that I will eventually discover after assembly.

I even made a dedicated element14presents video about it. And I should watch it more often, because I still make the same mistakes over and over again.

It is so satisfying to see a piece of custom electronics come to life and yet so frustrating when you need to bodge it!

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

dubbie — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 11:06:35 GMT

I had a little think about what I like most about electronics and I just like all of it. I can remember as a 5 or 6 year old making my first electronic(?) or maybe electrical project, which was a battery I had 'borrowed' from somewhere, a couple of bits of wire obtained from the local rubbish dump (in the days when you could just wander onto rubbish dumps to leave stuff or just rummage around in the rubbish and take stuff away) and a 3V bulb from a cycle lamp that I had gone to the village TV shop and purchased by myself (I was only 5!). Then lying underneath a deckchair in the summer sun trying to make a circuit using modelling clay to stick the wires on. Apart from one brief flash of light I failed as I did not understand that bulbs had two connections, one of the side and one on the bottom. It put me off doing any more for several years but I returned to it when I was a few years older with a clip together electronics kit. I made a small amplifier using a crystal earpiece and then ran wires all round my house from the TV to my bedroom in the hope of being able to listen to TV after going to bed. It didn't work either - but, unknown to me my parents had spotted this contraption stuck underneath the TV and quietly disconnected it when I went to bed! Sneaky!

Now, I think the thing I like the most is my 3D printer. After several years messing about with one at work and now my own for two years after retiring, I am just about getting to the point where I understand a bit of what is going on and I can make a Valentine card for my wife, see below:

[View:/resized-image/__size/620x463/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-69e86243-7378-463a-823e-10b8b759d7b0/4150.contentimage_5F00_206066.jpg:620:463]

Dubbie

PS Of course I also really like mobile robots!

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

Andrew J — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 09:38:03 GMT

My pet peeves are

devices built down to a price but designed to last just long enough to see out the warranty. I’ve had quite a few Nespresso machines that have lasted 3 years and 2 months - guess what the warranty is (I can’t help it, I like the convenience!). Or manufacturers who won’t stand behind their shoddy product: Dualit that releases a kettle that leaks after a year that is clearly a design fault judging by the number of similar complaints. Or Mercedes having to replace a convertible roof at the cost of £4500 albeit under warranty but not standing behind their work - i.e. it is covered as long as the rest of the warranty on the car holds.
Manuals that are just useless bits of paper (or even PDFs). Q. What is this Yc/Br/Ls feature? A. Check the manual: “Yc/Br/Ls: select this option to turn on the Yc/Br/Ls function”. Who approves this stuff???

From a purely electronics point of view, I’m in a loving relationship simply because it’s new to me so I’m really having to stretch myself to understand stuff without any formal education/mentoring support. I’ve always liked getting to grips with new things: there’s always something to learn and one never knows what’s around the corner. After 30+ years in IT, I kind of find computers boring and I’m not that interested in them anymore except to the extent they support any of my other learning activities.

RE: Happy Valentines Day! - What do you Love / Hate about Electronics?

Gough Lui — Fri, 14 Feb 2020 08:24:27 GMT

I generally have no major issues with electronics. I usually show them some love by keeping them clean, feeding them decent quality power, keeping them sheltered and in a comfortably cool environment. In return, they usually work, and when they don't, it's probably because I've done something silly so I end up "apologizing" in the end ... I'm only human, unlike my electronic overlords ...

Of course, when I don't do anything silly and yet it doesn't work ... that's like a challenge in disguise. Sometimes test equipment is like that - the manual documents remote control commands in a particular format, but when you come to use them, you find the manual has omitted many key details that need to be either reverse engineered or inferred from example ... but instead of being helpful, get it wrong by some subtle trick and the unit just "beeps" at you to let you know it didn't understand the command, but not how or why. "-200 Execution Error". Very helpful. Out come the voodoo debugging techniques - was it because of command sequence? is there some undocumented dependency? Eventually, you try the same thing as before and it works? But after a few minutes, it changes its mind again because of some unknown precondition ...

But the automation possibilities are amazing, so even though some instruments are really finicky to get working (e.g. I dislike your line endings!), it's definitely well worth the time investment.

Another thing I sometimes have a love/hate relationship with is Wi-Fi. In many situations, throughput is just not as fast as a cable, nor as reliable, so I live with speeds like a yo-yo despite strong signals (due to interference) or sometimes, some brands of equipment just won't reliably connect to a given network ... interoperability issues still seem to happen, although with less regularity compared with the past. I kinda dislike how mesh kits are being sold as "the bee's knees" when they're basically choking up the remaining 5GHz channels for everyone, and that 5GHz performs so much better but penetrates so much worse ... it's the good ol' CAT5e for me whenever possible.

Public Wi-Fi anyone? Captive portals that need a million details, APs with limited connection quotas, port-restrictions ... (grumbling peters out in the background).

- Gough