Step Recovery

I seem to be in slightly parallel universe where our purchasing folks would actually be a little disappointed if everything were trivially easy to obtain. They seem to enjoy having to make up fancy multi-part purchasing schedules that coordinate with our delivery deadlines and funds availability. :-)

Yes, they do enjoy challenges. But the fun stops when a single-sourced part goes on allocation, your company isn't a high-roller in terms of order volume and thus low on the pecking order, and it's two days before your vacation trip with non-refundable tickets ;-)

BTDT. I didn't design it in but I was the one who had to cancel the vacation trip in order to do an emergency re-design instead of playing at the beach.

There are at least three reliable sources for SRDs, and one can usually find footprint-and-electrical compatible parts from 2 or 3 sources, at least for non-exotic applications. So using SRDs is not a big risk.

M/A-com, Metelics, M-Pulse, MicroMetrics. All SRD makers start with the letter "M" which is why GE and HP don't sell them any more.

We have a couple of products that use SRDs and haven't had any problems.

We sometimes use SRDs in series, which for some reason works.

John

Aha! Now we're starting to understand why you're so obstinate in these matters! :-)

I have noticed in, oh, say, the past decade that delivery deadlines seem to be a lot "softer" than they once were... customers are actually surrprised if you make the original shipment dates, fully expecting you'll slip at least a little, and management seems to accept that slipping deadlines occasionally it not a big deal either.

I sure wasn't a happy camper the first time that happened. And it wasn't the last. As a consultant it gets worse because many will wait to call you in after something really bad happened. Like two days before an imminent line stop. Much of it is so avoidable.

Yes. I make sure my designs are prototyped and at the ready before the projected date. But then it all just sits there, waiting for this, that and the other system module. One large board is now idling for almost two months because some optical part was promised to arrive a month ago.

But I bet you never had to order a batch of 35000 of them. That's when a PIN diode design almost flew into my face, on production ramp-up for a hybrid run where you must have the full batch or you can't do the run. If that happens the dispatcher at the hybrid line gets very pissed and you can end up in what equates to standby for air travelers. The guy from purchasing said that when he called in the order he could swear he heard someone falling off the chair at the other end.

Wanted to take Friday off. No dice, no parachuting :-(

Finally we found enough of them in Asia. Whew!

Unorthodox designs are the most fun.

They should really sell the 50-75c device at Digikey. Also gets it into the hands of hobbyists and many of those will be tomorrows design engineers. Plus I want to see a nice screen with the exact quantity in stock, preferably a five-digit number.

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Is that a metaphor, or do you really jump out of airplanes?

I tried that a couple of times, beginner static jumps. Cool, but I found the duty cycle to be low, as in too much waiting around for a tiny bit of action. I'd rather hike or ski or wreck motorcycles in the dirt, which you can do for more than minutes at a time.

We're thinking of signing up for the 4-day Rubicon Trail jeep run this summer. That should have a decent n.

John

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I used to back then. Pretty much until I married ;-)

Static line isn't that much fun because it's done from less than 5000ft so that they all land on the drop zone, more or less. The real fun begins >12000ft. Sometimes when there was some thermal activity and nobody to do formation jumps with I went out last, pilot chute already in hand. Let the pilot chute go the millisecond I saw I was clear of the aircraft and then enjoyed 10-20 minutes of sightseeing from way up there. One guy even netted >30mins. It was an industrial area so you could do things such as looking into one of those cooling towers from above. Once I and another guy miscalculated the wind when we still had slow parachutes. Had to land inside a huge scrap yard full of extended (!) old cranes, trying not to smack ourselves into a boom or get tangled up. Whew! Then, a growling and snarling shepherd came. Luckily I grew up with big dogs so after some time of getting acquainted with him he guided us to the gate (we had no clue where that was).

Oh yeah! For those who don't know it:

for say 2 ghz:

mpn 3401

see:

comes from Down East Microwave, and I've bought them on ebay

Steve Roberts

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You didn't spot the gate while aloft? Shame on you! ;-)

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He spotted spot first.

I though Spot was second, right after he radioed for clean underwear?

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There are two kinds of people on this earth: The crazy, and the insane. The first sign of insanity is denying that you're crazy.

Usually I did, like when the bush pilot type chauffeur dropped us somewhere into the fog. Looked for logging roads, bus stops, and such. Then we landed, packed the chute, trudged to the bus stop, read the schedule, sez "except on weekends".

But here I was frantically busy avoiding all the booms. Had a Paracommander (round) which wasn't exactly a Ferrari.

That was why I added the ;-)

. . Why would you jump out of a perfectly good airplane unless the sumbitch was on fire?

Jim

-- "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --Aristotle

Its not 'a perfectly good airplane' if its on fire.

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aioe.org, Goggle Groups, and Web TV users must request to be white listed, or I will not see your messages.

If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in your account:

There are two kinds of people on this earth: The crazy, and the insane. The first sign of insanity is denying that you're crazy.

Someone once said that his Lt.Col. countered with the same question. He: "Which one of these is perfectly good then?" Lt.Col.: "Ahm, well, good point".