So, if someone is starting to love gardening more than people, can we say that "someone" is old enough now?

@abdullahkahraman ?

@Asmyldof @jippie is gone lol

@abdullahkahraman still don't understand the joke, but if it's a genuine question, in the case of @jippie, then no.

@Asmyldof lol thanks for the answer

Wise either

why do people use <> for !=

@PlasmaHH BASIC

(And/or Mathematicians)

sigh

anyone knows a really cheap source of defective LED LCD displays? preferrably all the same size...

@PlasmaHH LED or LCD, what you asking?

@Asmyldof lcd displays with led backlight (I am interested in the backlight only)

So ask random Chinese guy to get you LED backlights

meh, he yelled something untelligible back to me

maybe he was not chinese?

Hm, I wonder how well a kickstarter would go for buying me something like, say, a high res thermal camera to play with...

Hi. What to do with this: electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/237367/… ? It wasn't clear at the beginning, then the comments made it somehow clearer, but I feel like it's hopeless anyway. Flag ? Move on ?

If I would care, I would ask for an edit, if that doesn't happen within reasonable time, close as unclear

@dim I would flag it. A supply with a resistor inside that can drop 5V where the highest intended output is 12V is a design idea by someone not ready to design a power supply. As is clear from the question and the unnecessarily long back and forth in the comments.

I can also just vote close it, but I already closed the tab before I typed this

And now I'm back to work

@PlasmaHH That's somewhat what I tried to do with the "You have to be more explicit" comment, but he just keeps on confusing me.

@Asmyldof okay, I'm gonna flag it. Thanks.

@dim I don't think it got any clearer. I've voted to close it as "unclear what you are asking."

@JRE I just flagged it before seing your answer. Yeah, I really think it's hopeless.

@PlasmaHH aren't you german? Don't get me started on german syntax for programming like instead of: "If variable == constant" or similar logic, the germans always seem to write "If constant == variable"

oops looks like i already got started

@KyranF That's not just Germans who do that. Its anybody who spent a lot of time writing in C. Check Stackoverflow for an explanation.

i read the explanation, it just seems to be a technique to reduce errors. i suppose adjusting one's way of writing code to be inherently less error-prone is a good thing for someone who writes a shitload of C

Good morning all

@KyranF it seems to rather be a habit of people using ancient compilers than of any specific country. I never do that

i've noticed it the most in german drivers but i guess i haven't seen much else to compare it to

well, i mean the rest ive seen have been var == condition, but in general my sample size is low

You are still here so you haven't seen enough to rage quit

Anyways, I wonder if there are Gbit switches on the market that have a pair of ports that is just feed through in case the switch is off

@KyranF My Russian colleague does that too. It keeps you from accidentally writing 'if variable = condition ...` and getting unexpected behavior.

@ThePhoton yeah, that's the excuse given in the EE.SE question about it too

it makes sense

i just don't like it

@KyranF @ThePhoton It's a combination of that and @PlasmaHH 's point. In some more modern JS engines (but still old versions in terms of WebLanguages) it still makes a performance difference to compare a variable to a constant (C == V) and the fact that stupid typo's get caught. But also those stupid typo's should be caught by a good IDE anyway

In that answer "Doesn't change performance" should be "Doesn't change performance, in C or C++, any more, as of early to late 80's for most platforms, but still not guaranteed all". But I guess that's not sexy enough for cool people like persnickety nerds on SO.

@KyranF Yes, but not in the way that you'll like to try it

i have seen some amplifiers with built-in AGC where you provide an attenuation voltage to one of the inputs to the IC

i was thinking a feedback loop that examines the output of the TIA with an integration feedback, and adjusts a MOSFET in parallel with the gain resistor of the TIA.. i'm sure it will get gross pretty quickly

as the integrated voltage of the output waveform goes too high, reduce the gain in the TIA.. if the integrated voltage is too low, increase gain of TIA (by turning off the MOSFET)

maybe one of those "envelope detectors" would be handy here. and a PID loop with VCC/2 as the setpoint, and a MOSFET acting as a voltage controller resistor is the output of the loop. i can just imagine this thing oscillating and spazzing out

sec

(working on explaining why you may not need real AGC since you don't care about the signal levels, but graphically on a piece of Wurth notepaper)

i just need to avoid clipping on my front end with the TIA - i have a possibly wide photodiode current range but more likely on the low end of current.. the AGC would only come into effect when the photodiode gets too close to the emission source but i still want the circuit to work

It will only work (and might not fully properly without some extra components for stability and what not - you do the maths, I'm tired) if there isn't an interference signal in your pass band that is much stronger than your frequency of interest

Okay, making a change

i dont expect much/any signal stronger than the laser sweeping over the diode.. nothing else compares in the environment this will be operating in. at least, by many orders of magnitude. I suppose the sun could have a large DC bias which could saturate my front-end

but this this device will be used exclusively indoors

Damnit, note paper too small

Going to re-artisan this schematic

Stop adding specs now or I'll go home in frustration and not talk to you for a week

a balls. Got me a bad pole

I think

I am also not using any maths for this. Disclaimer

1M ~ 10M?

Nope. Latest addition makes it too difficult

Mr DemandyPants

Rolling back and updating.

Very hard during all this to not just go "fuck it, just your a double cascode current mirror, figure it out", but I'm really trying to be kind and not do that

@KyranF ^^ That's basically what I started out with, but in filling in the details I kept thinking of better things, which turned out to be more of a hassle

If your amp and pull-up resistor are strong enough and the Z of the coupling cap is low (which it should be) at your frequencies, you can skip the transistor and extra resistor

The transistor would require a diode-coupled similar transistor in the +path or a follower as well

But I forgot it and then went off to other stuff

In fact, you could just move it all around and have that one transistor drive everything

yeah i've been playing with transistor front-ends as well

N-JFET and NPN/PNP Sziklai pairs

"Externally Controlled RFID Tag" .... Isn't that how RFID tags work? (answer: Yes. Yes it is.)

if it helps i'm making a much more improved (with the modulation detection) version of this

this is the design of the Lighthouse sensor by Alan Yates

this circuit is pretty close to what is used in the HTC Vive tracking system, supposedly (and from the tear-downs, looks to be approximately the same)

The sziklai pair at the start, interfacing with the BPW34 photodiode, starts the long chain of gain stages where it finally gets to a comparator that gives a high/low while the input signal is going. There is no modulation detection in here except for maybe some RC filtering to smooth out the 5MHz wave at the end

I'm going home now... Read that ^^ when I'm there, and might even respond.

k. thanks

Home now, because discussion with guy and shopping

hmmmm

hang on

you need differential signal strengths?

no

okay

Just a sudden thought

hehe

@KyranF how about putting a monkey's brain in there

Brains are very good at focus based gain control

well when Trump builds a wall and destroys all public relations, i might be able to get some cheap american or mexican labour to just monitor the gain for me

just have them follow around and turn a pot