stunningly stupid Electronics Design article

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
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John Larkin
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Maybe they desperately needed a filler article, desperate as in "right now".

Interesting that anyone uses the 5401 and 5551. I do, too, but only because they have rad-hard brethren.

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Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

Perhaps the article is aimed at the technical level one might expect from management as in Dilbert's PHB (pointed hair boss)?

The article does serve a useful purpose for the magazine by attracting the readers attention to the ads. I was falling asleep by the time I was half way through the article. My eyes kept wandering towards the ads, which seemed far more interesting than the article.

Hmmm... 500mv p-p of noise from a 12V power supply with no load is rather high. However, it's acceptable from the power supply manufacturers perspective. Why bother putting ANY filtering in the power supply, when there's always a nice big electrolytic filter capacitor across the power supply input in the device being powered?

Methinks it's odd that the author didn't just find another source of

12V power and just recycle the junk power supply. That package style of power supply is very common on eBay and is sold in a variety of functions, voltages, currents, and connectors as a replacement for lost wall warts and chargers. My expeience with them has been dismal, particularly the cell phone charger variety.
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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Probably true. Using a cell phone photo of the Rigol scope, instead of a screen grab, certainly indicates a rush job. Cabe Atwell has been a "content producer" for a wide range of technical magazines for many years: He's also written a soon to be released book for Make: magazine:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Wasn't it you that said a good number of recent degreed EEs couldn't answer some questions about the emitter follower topology?

Maybe a refresher isn't a bad idea. Rome wasn't built in a day I suppose...

Reply to
bitrex

I like the caption for the PSU picture...

"The supply was made in China!"

Now that's one exotic power supply.

Cheers

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Clive
Reply to
Clive Arthur

Rush job because they needed something like *NOW*.

There is hardly any electronics engineer or hobbyist who doesn't have a drawer full or old laptop supplies and wall warts for long dead modems, mobile phones, shavers and drills kicking about. I can't bring myself to throw them out if they are still working. I can fairly often find someone a suitable replacement PSU from that drawer when the need arises. They are not built to last - at least not in the hands of consumers.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

These articles are clearly written for the audiophile/music technology enthusiast so after reading it they will be able to speak from a position of education and empowerment when they tell you you're wrong on the Internet about an unrelated topic. clearly you don't understand the emitter follower and the characteristics it confers to your sound. I cannot bring myself to discuss these topics with these so-called engineers

Reply to
bitrex

I used to fix them. No more. It's easier to buy a replacement power supply, than to try and find the right voltage, current, and connector on a power supply.

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

The explanation is there to assist people who never learned to read.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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John Larkin

here usual the paper garbage you get in your mailbox has to be 20% "editorial content" to be classified as newspaper/magazine and be exempt from VAT

Reply to
Lasse Langwadt Christensen

Right, 100% of the kids that I've interviewed. Only one understood a

2-resistor voltage divider.

Sure, but that article was super dumb. The bias was probably tweaked in Spice. I guess he used 0.1 uF coupling caps because that's all he had.

I'd sure like to hear the loudspeaker that he drives with that.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
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John Larkin

ier-and-emitter-follower

I lost all respect for him when he displayed complete ignorance of the inpu t bypass capacitors and their role in reducing ripple induced by the loadin g and NOT the power supply. Here's another one written by a similar dummy. The fool is shooting his mou th off about every- and any- thing except the real issue which is quiescent bias current as it relates to the loading. Load lines are hieroglyphics to these people:

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Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

And then they probably fill it with "bought articles" where, in exchange for placing a nice full-page ad someone writes a glowing story with lots of sentences like "This is the best bike I've ever ridden!".

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Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Reply to
Joerg

He's right about the importance of the paper design, though.

It would have been good to show that, of course. Some discussion of the loading sensitivity of the phase splitter stage would have been good, too.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Reply to
pcdhobbs

the resistance of the divider resistors in parallel to be about 1/10th the impedance looking into the base of the transistor was the rule of thumb I recall from AoE II. of course then you have to know what the impedance looking into the base is...

Reply to
bitrex

Your handy guide to emitter followers: don't

Reply to
bitrex

I wonder why he has to download his sine waves from Youtube.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
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John Larkin

He look like he should be playing keyboards in Flock of Seagulls:

I can't say I trust the engineering credibility of these clean cut types who clearly spend more time at the salon than my girl friend

Reply to
bitrex

Same here, editorial content between the ads gets a cheaper postal rate.

The EE mags - ED, EDN, ECN, are almost gone.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
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John Larkin

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