The unwritten laws and rules of Electronics

Soldering bare interconnect cable conductors to their jack lugs will always go the smoothest when you've forgotten to slide the piece of heat shrink onto the cable lead first

In any parts order, the part you need the most, that cannot be second sourced, will be missing, the wrong part, badly substituted, or backordered.

Lightning does not strike twice in the same place. Static electricity does.

Messy breadboards work great. Neat and organized breadboards never seem to work.

If one designs an oscillator, it acts more like an amplifier. If one designs and amplifier, it oscillates.

Having an instrument calibrated does not guarantee that it will be returned in working condition.

The first prototype will have (at least) one 'golden' part. It will work better than expected and you'll slap yourself on the back and move on. Then you'll go to production and find it doesn't work as well as you thought.

George H.

There was someone (I think it was John Woodgate) who had a tagline: "Oscillators don't. Amplifiers do."

"Hardware eventually fails. Software eventually works." -- Michael Hartung

Tim

-- Seven Transistor Labs, LLC Electrical Engineering Consultation and Contract Design Website:

The connector is the wrong sex, the wrong type, or only available on a cable that has the wrong end B.

... and I have a cable in service now that has three adapters in series to make the end B connection...

The connector is known by a name which is (a) a misnomer or (b) a reference to a former corporation or (c) a gobbledygook part number or (d) three different gobbledygook part numbers (one for catalogs, one for engineering, and one for Eris).

There's a standard for the connector. SCSI standards are the reason that "the SCSI connector" refers to only twenty-three possibilities that I know of.

In the Standard Model of particle physics, USB connectors are categorized as fermions of spin 1/2. This is why a 720-degree rotation is frequently required in order to match the quantum state of the mating connector.

-- john, KE5FX

He's *very* optimistic.

The connector and it's mate have the same pin numbering when looking at the top.

This is especially important for 25, 37, 50, 68, and 80 pin SCSI connectors, because they're all compatible. Somewhat compatible. With a few exceptions.

"It isn't a problem if you can give it to someone else" - Dilbert's boss

Thank you,

I heard it as:

Amplifiers oscillate. Oscillators oscillate on more than one frequency. m

in a new layout..no matter how many people checked it some connector or socket will be

backwards reversed inside out upside down mirror imaged

sometimes a combination of two

that's the nice thing about standards

there are so many to choose from

also heard in the good old days..

funny how our amplifiers never oscillated until we bought that spectrum analyzer.

Tim

Someone here recently noted that it always takes three tries to mate a USB connector.

It's a minimal-asymmetry design.

Type-C doesn't have that problem, though it's too close to a micro-B for my liking.

We try to use the old giant B connector, the classic printer one, on an instrument, when there's room. It's obvious how to mate it, and it's pretty much indestructible.

The micro types are harder to mate and can rip off a board.

We also like to use the FTDI usb-to-serial converter chip, so the box enumerates as a serial port.