Electrical Engineering - 2016-06-29

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1:20 AM

...where can I find prototype enclosures designed to fit into a US 1-gang electrical box?

2 hours later…

3:09 AM

Good morning all...

@abdullahkahraman please once ping me when you are online.

@Shalvenay At your local hardware store?

@ThePhoton yeah -- it seems that gutting a dimmer's the best way to go for that

Why not just replace the whole box with your new doohicky?

Then the box only costs you $1 or so

Or use no box at all ... the existing box is nicely grounded.

@ThePhoton I'm trying to prototype something that can be mounted in a standard US single gang form factor

vs trying to rip out an existing junction box :P

@Shalvenay design it "open frame"

The existing box provides the outer enclosure

3:21 AM

@ThePhoton so, save concerns about enclosures for when things get closer to production?

@Shalvenay What do you want the enclosure to do? If it's protecting the user from mains voltages, it doesn't need to do that on the 5 sides that are inside the wall in a box that's designed exactly to protect users from mains voltage.

Of course you also want to protect from shorting your internal wires to the mains wires...

@ThePhoton right, and provide places for attachment terminals to attach, and not short internal wiring to the box

(otherwise, why wouldn't dimmers and whatnot be open frame designs as you describe?)

that might be a good mainsite question though?

@Shalvenay But maybe ask "how to construct a circuit to fit inside an electric box..." instead of "where can I buy..."

@ThePhoton yeah

0

Q: How can I construct a circuit to fit inside a standard North American single gang electrical box?

How can I construct a prototype (short run -- say three to five units to begin) of a circuit that is designed to fit inside, and be mounted to in the standard fashion, a standard North American single gang electrical box? (For instance, some type of "smart" wall outlet or light switch.)

prototyping enclosure

3 hours later…

6:23 AM

@Asmyldof Hi...

7:11 AM

Helloes

@Shalvenay I usually dip/coat/pour resin

7:54 AM

I am really not sure what this guy is after electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/243424

@PlasmaHH Yes, it is really strange that you have to ask yourself questions like this. Just choose and move on.

I really wish I could get the reason for a down-vote. When the question is clearly formulated and has the necessary details, why would someone down-vote it...

@Jacob Which question?

8:15 AM

-1

Q: Lowest energy wireless protocol for specific wireless sensor node

There are so many options for low-power wireless communication these days. BLE is everywhere, and many other manufacturers try to push their protocols as well. LoRa, Dust, Zigbee, Thread, Sigfox, etc., the list is long. What I think is lacking is a way to easily compare the total energy consumpti...

wireless low-power

Might be offtopic

sounds like a recommendation question to me

Hm, hadn't thought of that. It very much electronics in my mind.

Where would be better place then, do you think?

eevblog forums?

@Jacob Mh... wait a second, I think I had found some study that was adressing just that.

Can't explain the downvote, however. And it is currently being voted to close for "questions seeking recommendation... shopping question" stuff, which is not, I agree.

You agree it's not an appropriate question, or you agree it's not a "questions seeking recommendation... shopping question"?

8:22 AM

@Jacob I agree the question fully complies with the site. You're asking for a protocol comparison, not "which module should I buy". So from my point of view, close votes are not valid.

Right. Thanks.

Just made a comment, with a link to the study I was talking about.

@dim I've been looking for good studies about this for some time. I have found some, but they are always not quite what I'm looking for

Nice, thanks!

@Jacob Did you already looked at the one I provided ?

Cause it's pretty detailed.

@Jacob Actually, I re-read the question, and the problem, I think, is the "(and preferably also which module/IC)" part. You should remove that and focus more on protocol comparison. You should edit now.

Good point. Done

I just scanned the article. I think I may have seen it before. Unfortunately, most of the protocols are inapplicable, though BLE and ANT(+) are applicable, so I will read it for those.

Thanks for the link

I have been mostly looking at research papers, and they are almost always very specific about something that will then only be relevant in a very narrow set of use cases

8:32 AM

@dim besides "(and preferably also which module/IC)?" the question can be condensed to "which manufacturers proprietary platform should I use"

@PlasmaHH It doesn't have to be a proprietary protocol though

Could be BLE for example

@Jacob In the end, the whole question leaves the whole impression of looking for a tip what to buy

@PlasmaHH That is still a protocol comparison. Proprietary or not.

I had thought the focus on industrial application made it clear that this was not a hobbyist buying recommendation

@dim it is a question for a platform. temperature range and lifespan from battery life for example are properties ofa piece of hardware, not a protocol

@Jacob all buying recommendations are offtopic, wethre hobbysit or not ;)

also energy conspumption is a property of the specific implementation. I am sure I can implement all protocols to use 1MW of energy ^^

8:41 AM

Right, but I have before seen solutions which would be perfect for an application, except that they were marketed for medical or something, and could not tolerate temperatures below freezing, and I didn't want a good answer that I couldn't use because of something like that. But I see your point, and will edit.

@PlasmaHH That's right. Well, this is not what occurred to me first when reading the question, though.

Well, if you expect the answer to be a protocol, then it wont matter if there exists a solution marketed for medical, would it?

I expect the answer to be a protocol for which a solution exists on the market

Otherwise what would be the point

There are not many protocols for which there are no implementations on the market

@PlasmaHH And to that, however, I don't agree. There is a minimum per-bit power consumption that only depends on the protocol specs, usually.

8:44 AM

@dim (one of) my way(s) of pondering if its a recommendation or not, is if only a product can really answer all of it

There are other factors than protocol in energy consumption. Can (and has) it been implemented in hardware conductive to low energy, and how low energy

If you look at either in isolation, then it makes little sense to evaluate the low energy properties. They might be countered in the the other part. A super efficient protocol that for some reason can only run in power hungry hardware or whatever

SE is simply not suited for all kinds of questions. imho, either way you put it, it contains a hardware recommendation part, and if you truly want to evaluate it correctly, it is simply getting too broad for this site.

things like the eevblog forum seem more suited, as you can have quite a back and forth in there

on that note I wonder why many people mistake SE for a forum. It clearly isn't marketing itself as such, and still people so often talk about it in their questions, even talk about "opening another thread" while there clearly is no such feature

I wish SE had messages when you write a question that pop up when you use certain keywords/phrases

Fair enough. The question seems to be faring better now. I will see how it goes.

9:06 AM

@Jacob Anyway, it was a good idea to come here. The question would probably be closed by now, otherwise. Now, as to the answers you'll get, you'll see.

@PlasmaHH Since you're here, and since you've been there since a long time ago (many since in that sentence), I have a question regarding this: meta.electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/5814/…

Well, it is a difficult question, but so much more reason so ask it :) Thanks for the help

@dim @Jacob It does not comply, as it is opinion based. It asks for recommendations, which is also not on. And the reason for a downvote can very well be details like

"Please include your considerations, for example 868/915 MHz vs 2.4 GHz, spread spectrum vs. narrow band, mesh vs. star, time slotting, etc.

Bonus points for details about which protocols are most advantageous for higher or lower transmission periods as well."

Which rubs many professionals the wrong way. That's basically asking "Make me a nice whitepaper to solve my problems, but I won't pay your going rate per hour for the…

@dim let me first quickly upvote olin just because of his first sentence ;)

Why does it become so important that the question was closed? I mean, the guy really seem upset by this, but he could answer and got (and can still get) upvotes from it, so what's the problem?

@dim It seems he spent quite some effort in answering it, and closing the question basically says "it is not worth answering the question" whcih to him likely translates to "you did something worthless by answering that question"

9:19 AM

@PlasmaHH Ok, so that's purely phsychological. That's what I was afraid of. Thanks.

@dim indeed, there seems to be no other explanation, since that question was purely offtopic crap. It might be amplified by that user not fully understanding how SE works (see my earlier remark in the chat about mistaking this for a forum)

also look at his own answer to the meta question, he clearly thinks that everyone should be able to ask everything and should be handholded

@PlasmaHH Well, I have well seen his answer to the meta question. I even have put a nice comment below it.

Three comments, actually.

didn't read all of this, not enough time and mental stability

@Asmyldof We'll professionals hardly expect to get paid for their contribution to SE, do they? I have seen some very verbose and very informative answers on SE, and something I particularly enjoy is when they include the answerer's reasoning. This was the kind of stuff I would like to see, but on the other hand I don't want to rub anyone the wrong way, as you say, so I have deleted those paragraphs.

I bet he is one of these people that spend all their life "helping" others on the interwebs and cant understand that all other people (especially those with expert knowledge) can't be arsed to handhold and pull the details of the question out of the nose of the poster

with some "everyone can achieve anything if they just try hard enough"

attitude

9:31 AM

@PlasmaHH Well I'm not actually used to social networks. EE.SE is the only site on which I'm active, and it has been very recent. So I don't really know what people you can sometimes meet there and how their mind work. Learning that, too, in addition to technical stuff... Thanks.

@dim most proper behaviour on t his site can be derived from the simple goal of this site: compile a library of knowledge in good Q&A format

@PlasmaHH Mmmh, well, I didn't quite grasp this one, but I guess it's like when Yoda talks, it takes some time to reach the proper neurons.

@dim electronics.stackexchange.com/tour "With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about electronics design."

9:49 AM

@PlasmaHH Yes, I have read that, of course. That's the link between that and the behavior of users that I can't quite relate... But nevermind, I'm a bit slow sometimes. My nickname really means something.

@dim not everyone knows this, or follows this. also a lot of people think its not the right way to do things and instead of doing it their way elsewhere try to implement their idea here

1 hour later…

11:00 AM

@Jacob There is a valley of difference between "me" choosing to spend two hours on an answer and someone asking me to spend two hours on an answer. Normally when people ask/instruct me to spend 2 hours on something they accept that they will then get an invoice for €150 ~ €220

11:53 AM

hm, regarding a good mains cable tracer... I wonder if it would be sufficient if I just AC couple some ~34MHz signal into all three phases and then go around with a little antenna... or if anything will be upset by this...

12:20 PM

@PlasmaHH Find the current EU specifications for allowable noise energy levels. Anything in the MHz range that is below that should not affect any appliances, and if it does, that appliance needs to have its CE stamp revoked.

12:57 PM

Would someone please kindly tell me how the 4.4 mA is obtained from electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/243296/… ? At +3V, when I try to calculate the current flowing through Q2, I'm not sure why they use 14.4 as opposed to 13.8. Shouldn't there be a second .6 voltage drop due to Q2's BE terminals?

@Asmyldof as long as those specs are not behind ridiculous paywalls...

@inkyvoyd a second? are there any in series?

1:17 PM

Ohhh... so a CE terminal has almost 0 voltage drop but a BE terminal has .6V when saturated?

1:57 PM

@inkyvoyd Hi...

2 hours later…

3:53 PM

@Shalvenay Did you do something special to get an account that shows a different user name on the main site than from in chat? Or did you just accidentally reveal you're running a sock puppet account?

4:17 PM

@ThePhoton just check the user id

I don't know if this is good or bad: I opened up a commercial rf amplifier module and found inside the exact same chips I'd been trying to get to work in my own design...

@ThePhoton well, if theirs works you have progress

4:38 PM

@PlasmaHH You're not going to bamboozle me into getting them for you, on account of if you properly had a go, you would have found they are quite findable

Ayyyy round of specs for everyone, on @Asmyldof!

cheers!

@MickLH shuttuppayoface

Anybody need Wanky bicycle clothing? They're discounted

Does that come with full access to their specifications?

@Asmyldof nah, just didn't have the time to look for, am on a birthday of one of my daughters Kindergarten friends. God will I need booze when I am home

4:56 PM

@PlasmaHH God doesn't supply booze. You're looking for the FSM

@Asmyldof Not even if you pray to St Bernardus?

@ThePhoton You're not praying to "God" then, are you?

@Asmyldof I believe the catholics have some clever legalistic way to say its the same thing.

Although they also say In Himmel gibt's kein Bier; Darum trinken wir es hier

5:17 PM

I can't help but notice that there are a lot of very questionable tag wiki edits in the queue. It seems that one user in particular is on a mission, but I'm not convinced many of their edits are useful.

5:53 PM

"high bandwidth" is just about the most useless phrase to put on a datasheet.

2 hours later…

7:31 PM

stupid atx psu, dying just because I shorted the 12V rail to GND

8:06 PM

Wattage?

550

Did it fail with a whimper or a bang?

with no sound at all

Pity.

Isn't there supposed to be some kind of hiccup short-circuit protection on those?

8:16 PM

yeah, it likely is what gave in completely

What brand, so I never buy the same?

hec it says

maybe they mispelled it. It should have been "heek!"

But it's got 4 eggs!

(joking)

shrug those things can happen

what is more intresting is what the fuck is up with this hdd in the level 1 backup server :/

8:22 PM

hope the backup server did not have the same supply model...

nah

I recently replaced the hdd, and the new one seems to be acting up as well, I wonder if this is really a bad hdd, which would mean my typical exceptional bad luck

I answered a question, but I think it's actually totally off-topic, and I'm not even sure what I said... Well, it doesn't seem to have close votes yet (which is strange), but I actually hope it's gonna quickly disappear in the limbs of stack exchange.

9:05 PM

Link it if oyu need downvotes

@ThePhoton Luckily I'm a scientist

9:36 PM

Hm, when smart logs an error that it is unable to read some sectors, is there any chance that something went wrong on the sata side? it only logs these errors, none of the smart counters ever increase by anything...

10:36 PM

@ThePhoton I use SE's per-site display-usernames feature, but you only get one username for all of Chat.SE

@Shalvenay Hmm, so many tricky features I never noticed before

I'm going to change my name to King and Queen of Firmware!

@Asmyldof I'm going to change my name to Where are the Snacks?

@ThePhoton I have all the snacks

@Asmyldof Too far to walk

10:46 PM

@ThePhoton Unfortunate

11:30 PM

anyone ever lay out a board with an ADC on it before? i'm trying to figure out if i'm psyching myself out over the complexity of it

suppose the main question i've got is, if i'm using nice lab equipment on a board that may not be perfectly laid out to test an 8-bit 5V ADC in a socket, the board not being 100% perfect probably isn't going to doom the project, right?

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