I’ve been a bit more of a Grinch this year than I am usually at Christmas/Festivus/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/etc. I think part of it is my worries about the economy and the rest is because I think the buying of presents is good intentioned, but kind of a waste. Once I get past my own soapbox, I often find that I end up with some thoughtful gifts from the ones I love. Let’s get to the part where I am thankful for the gifts I did get:

I glanced at my natural gas bill today while cleaning up the house and was a little shocked at myself. I pride myself on being better than most on conservation (at least cognizant of it) and my usage was quite high. That was last month and I can only imagine this month will get worse. And yes, I do live in a rental house right now (with an energy efficient house in my near future), but that’s the case for a lot of people, especially lower income. So I got to thinking, what will stop people from using so much energy in their frosty, great northern homes?

I was at the gym the other day and glanced over at a fellow gym-goer on their cellphone. I did a triple take as the phone was a flip phone that was maybe 4 inches wide and 5 inches high on each flap of the flip (making a 10 inch phone when completely extended).  On my third glance at this monstrosity of a phone I realized it was in fact a Blackberry that he had pulled out of it’s case/holder but the case looked like the bottom half of a flip phone. It got me thinking about design longevity.

Products today mostly use Printed Circuit Boards (or PCBs) to successfully route signals from one component in a circuit to the next. There are multiple layer circuit boards with printed metal “wires” that run between the various elements in a circuit. However, this was not always the case. In the good ol’ days, there were different variations and precursors to the PCB. Some of these included point to point wiring (just soldering a wire between say a resistor and a capacitor), wire wrap boards (think of a point-to-point board on a grid with more wires than you’d know what to do with), acid etched copper on dielectric (think of a 1 layer PCB with very large and rounded signal traces) and many others. These kinds of boards had many many different methods but also had less restrictions than modern designs. In fact,  Paul Rako from EDN recently wrote a great article on prototyping using some of these older methods. He references many techniques of the greats like Bob Pease and Jim Williams and their rapid prototyping techniques. It’s an information rich article and I would highly suggest checking it out. OK, back to the party.

I thought I would update on my hobby subject for tonight since I mostly worked on my Wurlitzer 200A electric piano instead of writing the post I meant to. I’m just now getting back into working on my electric piano after previously having zapped something on the board and not being able to get it working since. When I messed up last time I was actually trying to replace the capacitors and transistors that had dried up; I had thought these were causing considerable hum in the circuit. However, since deconstructing the piano I found a modification to the wiring scheme between the two speakers and the output headphone jack located at the bottom of the board. I found that on the headphone jack someone had wired in a simple RC circuit, presumably for filtering the headphone output. However, the small wiring scheme they used and meant to ground to the chassis had been disconnected, possibly by me. This floating output circuit could have been the problem all along! Only time will tell but I will feel silly if that was indeed the culprit.

My friend Cherish over at Faraday’s Cage is where you put your Schroedinger’s Cat sent me an article on solar power approaching the cost of coal (generated electricity). It’s a great article and it quotes Ray Kurzweil so I’m automatically a fan. However, I have no doubt in my mind that it WILL hit this price point (~$1/watt), it’s just a question of when.

The real thing I want to touch on and get responses to is: What happens when solar energy is cheaper than coal?

One of the biggest conflicts of interest in the life of an analog engineer is that the best tool available to them is on a computer. SPICE is a program that was originally developed at Berkley to model silicon level physics to help prototyping (similar to “bread-boarding”) before the final product was produced. While it still remains a valuable tool for chip designers, it has also been broadened in scope and size to include larger designs and higher level models since it was first created. The idea is the same, that electrons basically move in the same way and that potentials in a circuit (voltages) can induce a certain behavior. So as long as the models for high level components (say an op amp or a buck converter) are well thought out, they often can represent the real world equivalent quite well.

A quick note to share what I heard this morning on NPR and thought is relevant to…well…me really. But you too if you live in Cleveland and are interested in renewable energy.

Frank Jackson, mayor of Cleveland, is in Germany this week, drumming up business to move to the US, specifically Cleveland and most specifically, in renewable energy. This is great news for the region because it could help bring back some manufacturing jobs (especially skilled manufacturing, as required by solar). Aside from more reasonable wages the US can offer  to businesses thanks to the recession we’re currently in, Jackson is pushing the research capabilities at Case Western Reserve University and other local schools. He is also citing Cleveland’s strong infrastructure that could be critical to moving product within this country by rail, truck or plane. Add to that the cultural amenities of the region and it starts to look like many of the reasons I moved back here. The trip was financed by the Cleveland Foundation, a great local charity that pushes for more development in the region.

Hey everyone,

I took the time this Thanksgiving to give my artistic skills a shot (and my pathetic attempts at modifying WordPress templates…PHP and HTML are not my forte). If you happen to read this post and you have any thoughts on my new blog of a picture at the top, I would really appreciate it. I got the idea for the blurry circuit from a great new book I’m reading “Analog Circuits — World Class Designs”, edited by Bob Pease. I’m only just starting the book, but enjoyed the simplified model of slew rate in an op amp and thought it would look cool on the top of the page. If you have any other thoughts or additions you think I should make to the site, please leave them in the comments. Thanks!

OK, so I know that just about everyone else on the internet is doing the same today (I’ve read them), but I thought I would also say what I’m thankful for.

1. My Girlfriend — I know I am consistently annoying by staying up late writing and sometimes during the few hours we have to spend together after work. My wonderful girlfriend has always been accepting of my interestingly nerdy habit of coming home from working on electronics to…write about working on electronics. I appreciate her patience and her understanding along with everything else she does for me.
2. My Family — What can I say? Not only was I born into a demographic with more opportunities than most, I was also blessed with a family that encouraged my interest in science and learning. I appreciate how they pushed me to read at a young age and then nurtured my interest in creative toys (Legos, TinkerToys, etc), even when I left them laying around.
3. My Friends — My buddies are kind enough to support me when I’m complaining about silly stuff like not getting blog exposure and are real troopers who bother to read my blog on a regular basis. Without them, I’m sure I would go crazy and I really appreciate having them around.
4. Electronics Pioneers — Aside from thanking my loved ones, I really wanted to write this post because when I think about the progress that has been made to get the human race to where we are, it’s quite amazing. From the early inventors who developed the math that allows us to calculate what we do, to the first testers of transistors and up to the people that helped create software 10 years ago. What’s more, I’m very grateful that they have provided me with the tools to do my job today (such as graphing calculators, SPICE, MATLAB, etc) so much easier and on such a higher level because of all the hard work they did with their slide rulers and look up tables.
5. The Internet — Similar to the above point, I am very thankful that there are tools available to me on the internet that allow me to get my ideas out with very little hassle. Prior to WordPress, I had tried to start websites many times. After finding simple publishing software, I was able to get my thoughts onto my site with no issues. I also have the opportunity to easily do research on topics that interest me and connect with others interested in similar topics.
6. My colleagues — In all my jobs, I am thankful for people that take the time to show me new techniques for solving problems or ways to better approach an issue. As an engineer gaining more experience, it is inspiring and makes me want to share knowledge I have with younger engineers. If you happen to be a younger engineer, I would take this opportunity to encourage you to find those willing to help and use them as a resource. Oftentimes it seems like you might be bugging someone or that you should be able to solve something on your own, but asking an experienced person will often give you a new way to solve a problem with a completely different approach than you would have normally used.

So thanks to all those listed and all those I forgot. Have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy the madness of the holiday season that is now upon us!