AoE 3rd Edition coming soon? A question for Winfield

Probably because I got it wrong; sorry about that. I meant... Rich Lyons (pretty far cry from Rick Carter), and his book here:

---Joel

Ahh.. I see. So probably still a couple of years at least then, right? I understand that technical texts take some time to do.

It's probably been suggested already, but why not make it 2 volumes? Just too much work for mortal men to do? I'm curious what the 'page count' is relevant of. Is this a publisher/editor requirement, bookbinder requirement, or time-and-materials requirement?

Excellent! Will that be out at the same time as the book is released, or sometime after?

Thanks for the replies and straight answers, Win. Your other post in this topic regarding the intended audience of the book confirms that it is the book for me :-D I'll be picking up the 2nd Edition here soon, to tide me over until the 3rd comes out.

I appreciate your taking the time.

-Phaeton

You're wasting your time then, or have no clue about how optimal applications arise, but if you think you can just jump in there and immediately produce anything remotely approaching a "good" technique, on the first or even 10th iteration, you're wearing blinders. And most of your so-called designs are some ugly electronics anyway.

A lot of application circuits and reference designs are plain silly. Their real value is that that's where many of the gotchas about the parts get hidden; when you see three power schottky diodes on a DAC application drawing (for real!) alarms should go off.

OK, show us something beautiful that you've designed lately.

John

The Analog Devices "Practical Analog Design Techniques" book by Walt Kester, Walt Jung et.al is very good. They have other ones for signal conditioning and other stuf too. Often given out free at AD technical seminars, but you can buy them.

A quick search bought up a downloadable version of the Designers Guide to Instrumentation Amps:

Dave :)

That statement really goes to the essence of your severe affliction with narcissism which refuses to acknowledge other-than-self. You apparently think you own electronics and everything else is a mere feeble shortfall of your capabilities.

Your work is woeful: guess and characterize.

When other-than-self designs a chip with ghastly SCR latchup problems, I certainly am interested.

I asked *you* to show us a design. C'mon Fred, show us something.

We had a bunch of meetings about the looks of our new line of VME modules. VME is an aesthetic challenge to start... a pcb with a tall skinny metal front panel. Most VME modules are coyote ugly, plain aluminum panels with black silkscreened lettering in random fonts.

We decided to spring for custom polycarb stick-on overlays, which is not as expensive as they used to be thanks to laser machining (the steel-rule dies used to cost well over a grand apiece.) We did a bunch of mockups to decide on colors and stuff, and tested a lot of right-angle surfmount led's and hole sizes and polycarb frostiness to get the backlight thing right. One of our customers asked for a "user" led that he could control, so all the modules have that now, a really nice rich amber color; he can load a 16-bit blink pattern register to flash all sorts of ways.

We also anodized a lot of covers in different colors before we settled on the right ones.

All our future modules will use this uniform design/color/font scheme. My VP of operations has an architecture degree and she used to publish an architectural design magazine, which is why this worked out well. Most engineers shouldn't be allowed to dress themselves, much less plan product aesthetics.

The pcb layout itself is beautiful, all the layers of it, but that was done to please nobody but ourselves.

I guess it doesn't appeal to you. Can't please everybody.

C'mon Fred, show us something.

John

OMG!!!!!! That is SOOOOOOOOOOOO boring- which is not to say you don't have to pursue your job, but damned that is mind-numbing boring:-)

I don't sweat the small stuff anymore, still in the research stages of my next whatever.

Designing stuff like this isn't boring to me. We actually had a lot of fun doing these two modules - a whole lot of give-and-take ragging, lots of silly dead-ends, savage whiteboard battles, lots of hard tradeoffs - and the specs are awesome. If that ain't your thing, OK, but we enjoy doing stuff like this and enjoy spending the money they generate.

Look at the a/d module specs; they're just numbers, but extreme numbers.

I have actually reached the point in life where I can and do turn down (or delegate!) work that threatens to be boring.

Craftsmanship can be absorbing in its own right. A master glassblower or a great chef can spend a lifetime perfecting his art without being bored by it. Electronics is even better, since it changes more and keeps getting better.

John

You're way too much of a "thing" oriented person- difficult to imagine how anyone could get excited about that.

But I understand, and it's not boring to me. I married a graphic designer... I suppose I have some graphic design in my blood by now myself.

I have kept it near at hand, and not because I need to design circuits.

Had one of my rare calls about a design that wasn't simulating and meeting specs. Looked at his circuit, asked what he needed to do, and then grabbed AoE. In a few moments, was looking at instrumentation amp configurations, and at his design, and realized why he was not getting very far. Suggested a configuration out of the book, showed him how it would help meet his needs, and soon had a happy designer back on his way...

Charlie