USB microscopes for very small SMT

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Well, our new house came with a nice, Whirlpool Gold slide in range. We soon noticed that there was a fan that got very, very noisy while the oven was on, so had them come and repair it. Took them two trips, one to verify that, yes, that fan was very noisy, and then come back after the part was in. (Took two weeks to get the part.) Found out that the purpose of the fan (which, when quiet, is still pretty noisy!) was to keep the electronics cool! Electronics are in the front, the fan is in the back... Your logic may resemble mine when contemplating this arrangement.

Then, a few months later (but, after the warranty period!) the touch pad quit working. No warning, no deterioration, it just stopped one day. Found out that the fan doesn't do that good a job of keeping the electronics cool, and this is a very common failure! Two months later, we finally had that fixed. So, last year we did no Christmas baking!

Now, it is a year later, and suddenly the broiler quits. It won't light, although you can hear the zap! zap! zap! of the ignitor. Research on the web says it is either the actual ignitor going out. ($14 part...) or the electronics aren't giving it enough drive for it to operate ($85 part.) So, since we don't do that much broiling, and it usually just small stuff, we did the easy thing - bought a toaster oven for $35! Saved myself a world of hassles.

Charlie

One thing the eeePC can do (after all it is a 'netbook' ) is connect to 'the internet. I was somewhere and needed a file, a script actually, and it was on the home server. Just used the GPRS modem to connect to my home server, downloaded the script with scp (secure copy), and things worked. Now on a small bandwidth connection like GPRS it will not work to do a ssh -Y snipped-for-privacy@yourdomain.com and have a graphical user interface to the home server, but you can run the Xilinx FPGA programs in text mode too. Given the correct scripts (that I once made), you can even synthesize remotely. So what I am saying is: not always needed to carry the application on the notebook, just do it remotely.

Xilinx xste in text mode remotely from eeePC: ftp://panteltje.com/pub/eeepc/xilinx_from_the_eeepc.gif

I have no idea why the screen copy key stopped working, changed so many things. But I found out that xv and imagemagick utilities 'import' and convert' work just like that on the eeePC, so I used 'import' to grab a screenshot.

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I remember friends who kind of snickered when I bought my car. "What? It doesn't even have electric windows and keyless entry?" Long story short most have now gone through 2-3 more cars, at times because the electronics stuff kept breaking and repairs became uneconomical. I still drive the same car and all the snickering has stopped.

Our double-oven is one of those extra skinny ones. 35 years old and mechanically wearing out. I dread that day when I have to find a replacement with the least amount of electronics, ideally zero electronics.

Too many engineers remain blissfully unaware of flash retention curves for elevated temperatures. It can easily drop down to low single-digit years. I just hope they never design ovens and cars.

Agreed, although have you ever tried NoMachine NX? It does quite well, even over relatively slow connections. (Effectively your PC becomes an X-server, but rather than sending the entire raw X data stream, they obtain a form of compressions by only sending the diffs.) It has a free edition that I've found quite useful.

Ah, so YOU'RE the reason that the "big three" are going bankrupt! Sheesh, would you just go out and CONSUME some already? Buy unreliable products, always get the latest and greatest widgets! Help the economy thrive!

:-)

On a sunny day (Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:05:15 -0800) it happened "Joel Koltner" wrote in :

No, but you just make me look up their site.

Now that would be cool.

I have just downloaded the 3 packages, server, node, and client. Will play with it a bit later perhaps. Thank you.

Not me, the real reason is an elderly lady who is the worst nightmare of automakers. I marveled at an Austin Healey in front of a Costco. A lady came and said she bought it used in 1961, her first car. It'll also probably be her last car since she might just let her driving license lapse a few years from now. Just imagine, half a century of driving and never having bought a new car, and only once a used car.

I've bought more vehicles than that, but I still squeeze them along...

...Jim Thompson

most

Similar here. I wear down a lot more money in shoes than in car tires. Now that gas is cheaper people out here are buying bigger SUVs again and Highway 50 is packed like it used to be before the oil spike. Do people ever learn?

Hello:

This topic has been on my mind for a while, i have lurked this groups for years and come to admire some of you guys, but then i learned about your age and got worried, because as you know, nowadays the new EE's are not really into analog, and i feel it's becoming a lost art, i would like to follow your footsteps when i graduate or at least have an internship with guys like you, and not simply code uPcs, keep waiting to hear about you writtin at least some notes about tricks, and gotchas and stuff like that, i don't mean to be rude, and i might go first, but you guys are pushing 70's and the statistics are against you...

So if you need and incentive, John, Jim, Joerg, Jan, please write at least notes, something like the old HP Journal used to be, i'm sure it would inspire a lot of us.

But today it's easier than ever to get into analog. Back when I grew into it there was no Digikey or Mouser. We had to either save hard to buy a few precious RF transistors or scavenge some out of discarded TV sets. Nowadays you buy a BFP620 with a whopping 65GHz ft for one Dollar. That doesn't even buy you a cup of coffee out here.

When I was a teenager I built most of my gear. I painfully remember not being able to build a preamp with large enough bandwidth for my frequency counter because I didn't have enough money for a couple of hot RF transistors. My parents would have given it to me but I felt asking them would not be right.

Oh, and if some of your professors tell you analog will die out don't believe a word of it. I never did.

Hey, I'm not this old ... but I am certainly "over the hill", the point where ailments and stuff will just get worse, wrinkles increase and all that.

When I begin to (partially) retire I will. But not as a book, it'll be on a web site so people can access it without cost.

For 10 years, then *phut*. No archival copies. Old books are always the best.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

We could start a new "Over the Hill Gang" ;-)

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

Nah. I've found lots of stuff on the web that was from the days when nerds in their hippie buses were cruising Highway 1 :-)

Also, when something is on the web and I find it extremely useful I often pull a copy onto my hard drive. This gets backed up. With a book you need a publisher and it costs a lot of money. People in developing countries may never be able to afford one and might not have access to a library because their parents couldn't afford a good school for them. Especially in analog there are many self-taught folks who'll never have a formal degree.

When I published something I often received requests for offprints, almost all from poor countries. One guy wrote that despite him being a Ph.D. he was only allowed very few runs on the intitute's copier, that the thing was broken most of the time anyhow and that they had four hours of electricity on a good day. That made me sad and I returned the IRC coupons he had sent with the offprint so he could use them again.

Send me a resume.

Well, that was unkind. Actually, two people commented on my age recently, one a customer and one my grand-daughter. Punks. So I had my hair done.

I'm intending to write three books, eventually. But writing is hard work.

John

That's an argument for both/and, not either/or. Camenzind's book is an example.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Good point. I'll have to ask our pastor, he recently self-published a book. Although doing both will make the book even less of an economic success because many folks will not want to pay for a book if the content is available online for free.

But let's face it, Steve's got a point. 10-20 years from now we'll see an increase in R.I.P. posts regarding regulars here :-(