What's on your test bench?
in [Design]
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From: MooseFET on 11 Nov 2009 10:19 On Nov 11, 5:40 am, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSensel...(a)electrooptical.net> wrote: [....] > LTSpice is free, and so is Gnu Octave. Why doesn't the budding designer > download a copy of each? Yes to both of those. Octave is a great language for quickly coding up the math of something. Also learn a little about gnuplot. It is great for making graphs of things you can't do with a spread sheet. Also you want to have a copy of the latest OpenOffice spreadsheet. It can do really big ones and will import ASCII.
From: Fred Bartoli on 11 Nov 2009 10:46 MooseFET a �crit : > On Nov 11, 4:13 am, "Phil O. Sopher" <inva...(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: >> Over a 40 year period of interest, I've gathered some >> test equipment, AF Genny, RF Genny, Freq Counter, High >> Impedance Voltmeter, Wheatstone Bridge, Oscilloscope. >> >> None of these is particularly small and all are at least a 6" cube. >> >> It seems to me that the same functionality could be achieved >> these days with perhaps just a few inches of bench space, but, >> would it be of any use? >> >> The eqpt I gathered together dates very much from the days of >> designing circuitry with individual componenents (R, L, C, BJT) >> and offers test and validation at that level, but nowadays we don't >> work at that level (even op amps have been around for that 40 year >> period). >> >> So, what do you have on your test bench these days, how big is it, >> did you design it yourself, and what would you recommend to the >> budding circuit designer of today who isn't in the industry and therefore >> does not have access to Spice or Matlab to validate their designs? > > > Do we also count the floor near the test bench? > > On the bench I have: > > A Tek digital phosphor scope and an old-old Philips scope that is only > good for 25 MHz. Both are connected to the system being developed. I > need to watch signals in two unrelated time domains. > > There is a Fluke 45(IIRC) DVM with RS-232 output that I can record on > the PC. I need to monitor a DC voltage over the time frame of hours > and I don't want to do all that writing. > > The PC has 4 RS-232 ports. Two of them run to the system. (Not > counting the Fluke) > > Beside the PC is a laptop that is currently not in use but its serial > port is the reason it is sitting there. > > The power supply is a B&K. > > On the floor is a shield can the size of a modest water heater. > > Filed away in a cabinet is a bunch of stuff but one that comes to mind > is a calibrated hair drier. The temperature of the air it puts out is > just about exactly 60C. What? It's not calibrated in Fahrenheits? -- Thanks, Fred.
From: George Herold on 11 Nov 2009 10:58 On Nov 11, 10:19 am, MooseFET <kensm...(a)rahul.net> wrote: > On Nov 11, 5:40 am, Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSensel...(a)electrooptical.net> wrote: > > [....] > > > LTSpice is free, and so is Gnu Octave. Why doesn't the budding designer > > download a copy of each? > > Yes to both of those. > > Octave is a great language for quickly coding up the math of > something. > > Also learn a little about gnuplot. It is great for making graphs of > things you can't do with a spread sheet. > > Also you want to have a copy of the latest OpenOffice spreadsheet. It > can do really big ones and will import ASCII. "> Octave is a great language for quickly coding up the math of > something." Cool, I never heard of Octave. Steep learning curve? I've never used Matlab or similar software. When I need math functions more complicated than my calculator I fire up an old version of QuickBasic (4.5?) under DOS. I did a little bit of C coding back in the 80's, but never needed the speed, (or the slows.. I found it easier to debug the basic code.) George H.
From: Phil Hobbs on 11 Nov 2009 11:07 George Herold wrote: > On Nov 11, 10:19 am, MooseFET <kensm...(a)rahul.net> wrote: >> On Nov 11, 5:40 am, Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSensel...(a)electrooptical.net> wrote: >> >> [....] >> >>> LTSpice is free, and so is Gnu Octave. Why doesn't the budding designer >>> download a copy of each? >> Yes to both of those. >> >> Octave is a great language for quickly coding up the math of >> something. >> >> Also learn a little about gnuplot. It is great for making graphs of >> things you can't do with a spread sheet. >> >> Also you want to have a copy of the latest OpenOffice spreadsheet. It >> can do really big ones and will import ASCII. > > "> Octave is a great language for quickly coding up the math of >> something." > > Cool, I never heard of Octave. Steep learning curve? I've never used > Matlab or similar software. When I need math functions more > complicated than my calculator I fire up an old version of QuickBasic > (4.5?) under DOS. I did a little bit of C coding back in the 80's, > but never needed the speed, (or the slows.. I found it easier to debug > the basic code.) > > George H. Octave is an open-source Matlab clone, originally developed as courseware. It has a pretty good user base and reasonable developer support. It can run most Matlab M-files unaltered. Earlier versions had trouble with plotting, but the latest ones are quite good, though not as good as Matlab. (On the other hand, they don't cost $2k.) Octave/Matlab are matrix-oriented, so they work more efficiently with vector and matrix operations (not necessarily linear ones). They do have loops and so on, but they run at QuickBasic type speeds instead of Matlab type speeds. Octave/Matlab are nearly as fast as compiled code for vectorish stuff. Matlab is great if you need the more advanced extensions, but paying $2k for the basic program is completely unnecessary otherwise. Cheers Phil Hobbs -- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal ElectroOptical Innovations 55 Orchard Rd Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 845-480-2058 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
From: Joel Koltner on 11 Nov 2009 12:53
"JW" <none(a)dev.null> wrote in message news:4mglf5losmns7t1s7uva8448t57d6bu1ui(a)4ax.com... > Other than the decade box, all bought defective on Ebay and repaired by > myself. I'd be interesting in hearing what sorts of problems they had, if you still recall... mainly as an indication of, "when it's sold as busted on eBay, just *how* busted does it tend to be?" ---Joel |