Entry, ugliest ECO competition

I was hoping for some serious competition.

So few people post their own work. I like it that you do.

(I would like to see a picture of your water-cooled Pockels Cell driver.)

hahaha I can hear manufacturing whining from Idaho!

This isn't quite in the full "BAD ECO" spirit since it's a prototype (but there are three very similar ones that had to be shipped).

There are two horrors apart from a few errors of the usual kind. The first is the unexpected piggy back PSU board, required because I couldn't get the LT switchers when the boards were ready although there seemed to be plenty of stock when I did the design.

The other horror is just visible where there is some creative linking around the two dual MOSFETs in the TEC driver.

I like seeing other peoples mess ups too.

(This must have been OK in the end since the customer is about to buy 50 of them).

MK

Well I could post a picture of the first instrument (well second) I designed. No ECO, but it starts out as a mess inside... so many mistakes.

There's this lockin that has gone through several generations of caps all stuffed into the original (and by the end, too small) foot prints So caps seem to blossom from one section of pcb

OK well I went to take a pic of the current version and it's gotten better ceramic caps to the rescue.

Here,

George H.

Looks like you put most of the interesting parts on the "top", the side facing the panel. Better if bottom faced the panel.

Right, well I learned a lot about what *not* to do with the lockin. (In defense it was my bosses idea, that this would lead to better shielding... nope. But I went along with it.) I mostly embarrassed by what I did previously... If only I could do it all again. :^)

George H.

Lots of my kluges can be looked on as ECs, starting from a blank piece of Cu clad, e.g.

(single channel adjustable phase analogue lock-in for a transcutaneous blood glucose/alcohol sensor)

or blob board, e.g. (bootstrapped pHEMT / SiGe cascode photoreceiver)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Oh that's 'nice'. Here is the first thing I did.. way back in gradual school. It's a digital thing. Home made circuit boards ughh!

At some time in the distant past it worked.

George H. (ugly circuits... I've got a million of 'em :^)

We put a lot of test points (just big vias) in our power supplies so we could suspend a baby board if needed, up on wire stilts.

One recent board, I got clever and terminated some digital busses to the +1.2 supply. Bad things happened before the FPGA configured. So I added a dump resistor across handy test points. Should of used Thevenin terminations.

Being able to sell rev A is victory.

I like the innovative electrical/mechanical suspension system. ;)

Did you do the board with that decal transfer stuff?

Don't we all! I have two Rubbermaid tubs full under my bench.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Right. I hated that stuff. This is two sided and (I think) I lined up the two sides with pins. PITA.

Hey I just got an old on of these in for repair. (push button switches fail.)

It looked better in production.

George H.

"Nothing in the world is so bad, as something that is 'not so bad'."

-The Scarlett Pimpernil

Ah. Left pondian vs right pondian.

Over here "that's not bad" means it is good. And "not bad... not bad at all" means /really/ good.

More examples at

Over here, "Not so bad" is several notches below "not bad!", and nowhere near as good as "so bad!". ;)

In the 21st century, you really need a program.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

baaaad means good.

Badass means very good.

Nah. Too static. Some form of database.

Updating it would be fun; either the Wackypaedia or XP development models could be used (and abused).