Electrical Engineering

6:21 AM

Nope. At the office

7:20 AM

@jippie Afternoon?

8:12 AM

Found the q

WiFi router... It is sitting on the central heater thing

Almost too hot to touch

And the cable is too short to properly relocate :/

8:28 AM

eevblog.com/forum/blog/…

Guys, I'm trying to figure out what is being said there.

> And if the CM has any smarts, they will make Batteroo own all the inventory for the MOQs

What is CM and MOQ here?

I think Minimum Order Quantity?? But I can't really figure out the CM.

@Asmyldof morning

8:50 AM

Crappy management?

@PlasmaHH don't think so. "Crappy Management" wouldn't have any "smarts"

9:21 AM

@jippie mit.zenfs.com/209/2011/09/yahoo_garay_car1.jpg those?

PeterJ

10:11 AM

Hi @jippie, it'd mean contract manufacturer. Sometimes a manufacturer will buy the MOQ (min order quantity as you said) of a part and hold it in stock and you pay for it as units are delivered. But as they say only for reputable / large companies or for common jelly bean parts they'll end up using on another contract if it all turns to crap.

@PeterJ Ahh I get it now, thanks!

10:36 AM

Is Albert heijn any useful for non food? We need a raincover for the baby stroller

@PlasmaHH little chance

@PlasmaHH pretty much anything for your daily house hold, especially things like food. fruit, meat, plastic plates and knives, they'll happily sell you a light bulb but not an armature.

Where are the chances higher? Co-op?

Not familiar with co-op

not familiar with children's needs in general

I'd say prenatal?

Coop... Autocorrect..

Maybe a Kruidvat, depending on which actions they have

10:55 AM

Indeed that looks like a possibility... Added it to the route

11:39 AM

@PlasmaHH you could google to see if there is a "Baby-dump" near you.

@PlasmaHH Lol. Typical Landal/Centerparcs kind of crap

@jippie @plasmaHH an Albert Heijn XL will have bits of clothing and other alternative stuff, but you're best off at a MArskramer or a Blokker of weird crap like that :-P

@jippie Basically the whole post is about a Contract Mfg having a Minimum Order amount to make stuff interesting for them.

@Asmyldof oh good ones, blokker, marskramer. Does it show I never go outside?

If you are a CM and you get an order from Logitech for a bespoke chip or inductor you say "Oh sure! Sample order will be done in a couple of weeks/months, would 100pcs be okay?" but if I contact one they will say "Start up is $2.5k/$25k/$250k, Minimum production run will be 100000pieces, at $0.05 per piece, once you have made a downpayment for the startup the lead time will be 2 months"

2:15 PM

@jippie kruidvat was fine. They had one for strollers, carriers etc. quite good

@PlasmaHH I usually only visit the local Kruidvat store because of the cute store manager girl

oh and chocolate of course

good to hear you found what you needed

4:29 PM

Unless you are a couple of hundred years old I am confident we did not visit the same location though ;)

4:45 PM

hi everybody!

how's life going lately around here?

5:13 PM

I have a CAM file I can't identify. I tried to ask a question on the site, but it was closed as off topic. Is there a format I can ask this question that would fit? Is there a better place to ask such a question? Google searches have been fruitless.

hey hi!

I believe we discussed about that, I'm one that voted to close as off topic

I could webapps stack, but it might not be a web app...

Superuser, but EE's don't really hang out there.

Have you thought of a forum?

cad2cam.com/list (out of date)

EE stack has beter people than most forums :-)

The point of a sx site is to build a huge collection of meaningful Q&As

Do you think your question, as was asked, could possibly have helped some 10 people out there?

That's why many people agreed with me in the close vote

I think you can find a lot of very good people in the forums

5:17 PM

The more general question is likely of interest, based on the number of people who have asked in the past.

Meaning: I've got a CAM file, how do I identify it?

The simple answer (look at the extension) is the first step, but not good enough here.

the answer is: you ask who gave it to ya

if who gave it to ya can not help you well... how is anybody else supposed to help you

I can't ask.

A person with experience in various cad systems may be able to nail the identification.

I have no idea of what you need to do with these files but the situation you are in is at least very odd

In fact if I do, I'll add it to the Unix "file" command, which is itself an answer in thousands of other cases.

I mean, I believe somebody wants you to do something but can't help you for some reason

that's odd

5:19 PM

Someone gets fired, they leave some crap for the next person to deal with. Not THAT unusual.

@Bryce FYI, I have some designs done in PADS and the schematics have .DSN and the layouts are .PCB. That's a pretty common package, so try that.

I am sorry Bryce

Cool, I'll check that out. The DSN loaded into Orcad: do PADS files do that?

@Bryce Possibly.

I'm the next person who has to deal with these files. I do NOT have a backstop.

5:21 PM

I don't use PADS or OrCAD regularly. Just got these done by some contractors.

I'm not very expert of the corporate world, I believed you were some sort of contractor

The situation you describe might in fact be very common

The Unix "file" command exists precisely to identify files that are unknown, or delivered with a mangled extension. So that's an answer here, it just did not work.

@Bryce I'm not really clear on OrCad. My understanding is that its a schematic capture tool with no layout tool. I think that on some other designs I've seen OrCad used with Allegro as the layout tool. So if PADS won't open the PCB file, try Allegro.

Yes: Orcad is bundled with Allegro. I tried Allegro.

And Altium.

@Bryce PADS has a free viewer, so that's where I'd go next.

5:24 PM

the file is binary?

Yes: I AM a contractor in this case. I was handled a pile of crap. And need to deal with it. I'm 100% certain I have no support from the file originators. As a contractor this IS a common case: in various forms I've done it 100 times.

There's a clip of the file at electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/187402/…

yeah I've seen that

It has some text (the Unix "strings" file helps here), but is mostly binary.

any other text? I believed cam files were something like vector graphics files

that sometimes are just plain text

but you did check that I am sure... you're talking to commit a change in 'file' so you know what you're talking about

I can answer my own question in a general sense (Unix "file", Unix "strings", try eval packages from major packages. .PCB is associated with Altium/ProTel/PADS and about 6 others. Just I'm stuck in this specific case.

5:27 PM

The first bytes of my PADS pcb file are:
`00ff 1720 0300 0000 0000 e691 0100 ee2b`
Dunno if that helps you

Thanks Photon. That's a step forward.

My target file is full of strings like

For stencil, DO NOT remove any pad on PTH of this layer
STANDARDVIA
DRW59914019
DRW32709593
0402C
SOT23BEC
0402R
CON/FPCB-B10
SW2S2G
TSOP48

what about kicad?

Never heard of kicad. If it helps the file was produced in China.

The file starts with:
0000000 nul del # sp nul nul nul nul nul nul v g eot nul dc2 4
0000020 + nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul J nul nul nul sp eot
0000040 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul vt nul nul nul dle stx
0000060 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul soh nul nul nul 4 nl
0000100 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul " nul nul nul nul (
0000120 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul z soh nul nul p #
0000140 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul

0000000 ff00 2023 0000 0000 0000 e7f6 0004 3492
0000020 002b 0000 0000 0000 0000 004a 0000 04a0
0000040 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 000b 0000 0210
0000060 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 0000 0a34

nvm they used .brd for boards, now .kicad_pcb

it's an OS cross platform EDA

So based on The Photon I'll give PADS a try.

And of course to make it more fun the file is proprietary and secret and I can't send to to anyone to try out :-). Fortunately I'm paid by the hour :-).

5:31 PM

well you can enjoy some paid time on this chat then

not TOO bad after all

however much I like ee.se, I would try a question like this on the eevblog forum.

Thanks for the tips. For a general EE question would the community accept "how do I identify a CAM file?". Note I won't charge my client for asking or answering that.

I believe that'd get closed as too broad

the eevblog forum is actually a very good idea you should definitely try that

I understand that around here there's some great people but in a forum, or multiple forums, you get much more visibility

and such a question needs luck thus visibility is a must

The list cad2cam.com/list was a prior attempt to capture this kind of data, in a persistent way. Would THAT list be welcomed by the EE SE community?

please don't get me wrong, I believe such a question can be very useful, I'm just trying to help and be sure you won't get downvotes once more

If you have some time to put into it you can ask the question and provide an answer that includes a link to that site and some advices on the main, easy to try packages one should go for first

I think that can't possibly be unwelcome to anyone

5:38 PM

No, that site was last maintained in 2013. It's dead. A community wiki with the same data would have a chance of getting updated.

we can do that, too

just copy the whole list in your answer and the community will maintain that

hopefully, at least

I'm off for dinner

bye

I was going to read up, but there's too much jibber jabber about stuff I am not in the mood for tight now

So... Hi!

@VladimirCravero Or on the wiki, rather than an answer, since it probably won't in an answer

6:09 PM

@Asmyldof do you happen to know what effect relocation directives in an ld script has on binaries compiled for bare metal?

pastebin.com/QXr7zTvV

line 77 not sure what that carrot directive does

@crasic That's very dependant. Some are referenced Loads some are directs, depends on optimisation before and after assembler

Basically my vector map is linked into that section

and I need to move it to 0x0000

The cpu is set up to mask sram to 0x0000

but do I need to do that relocation manually?

That seems to be what the atmel reference code is hinting

Depends on how they mask. Haven't read that much of your datasheet

In most cases I'd say it should probably be located at 0x0000 after the mask directive has been sent to the proc

Which then means it should be there without any intervention on your part

Pretty much like the SAM-BA ROM

Q: I want my cellphone battery to remain useful for five years; please advise me on how to achieve such a feat

6:35 PM

Hi all :)

0

I own an Android smartphone with a lithium-ion battery. I want its installed rechargeable battery to remain at least somewhat useful for five years, if possible. (Other people aren't so careful; they have to buy a new battery after a few years. But it seems wasteful to shell out for a brand-ne...

Good or bad question? It's currently voted 0.

@unforgettableid I think it can be fixed if it is more general about LiIon batteries an not about an Android device.

you even have some good well upvoted answers already, which in my opinion tells me I'm not too far off.

@jippie Thanks :)

@jippie My post includes three sub-questions. The third sub-question is: "If I use it while it's charging, this will generate additional heat. Is this unhealthy for the battery?" Don't I need to point out that the device is an Android smartphone, in order so that respondents can get some idea of how it generates and handles unwanted heat?

7:10 PM

Also, the question now says "five years" instead of "ten years" because @Passerby convinced me that ten years was perhaps unlikely. Given that fact, does this edit which I've proposed look okay?

7:33 PM

I want a pony too

@PlasmaHH ?

Ten years useful cellphone battery... My girl always says she wants a pony... She won't get one...

7:49 PM

@PlasmaHH That's why I changed my request from "useful for ten years" to "at least somewhat useful for five years".

@unforgettableid No. Still off-topic → use. I'm inclined to rollback to the previous version that's all about Android, and migrate it to Android.SE .

@NickAlexeev: I suspect it's too specialized for them. They're mostly not experts in the care or maintenance of rechargeable batteries.

@unforgettableid You'll get to hear their version of "no".

@NickAlexeev I guess we could leave it at Android.SE and I could post a link (or a copy) on the Electrical Engineering subreddit.

@unforgettableid Maybe (I'm not an expert on reddit, though).

Just as a reminder: cross-posting to multiple stacks is discouraged on StackExchange.

8:10 PM

@NickAlexeev Reddit allows two types of posts: text posts or link posts. It's fine for a link post to consist of nothing but a link to another webpage (such as a Stack Exchange question).

8:27 PM

After reading this (and the rest of the question), would anyone trust consumer electronics magazines?

@NickAlexeev See my answer :-) I've been active in forcing retractions and corrections a couple of times before, I advise anyone here to do so in their local area as well

(And pay an annual support to the Dutch sceptics society to help debunk stuff I have no intimate knowledge of)

((Something I also highly advice any science minded person to do))

((((Our Dutch one starts at €15 a year I think, so it's really little to help and be a member))))

8:46 PM

@NickAlexeev If someone is a writer for a laptop magazine or a smartphone-enthusiast magazine or a photography magazine, they probably aren't an engineer. Maybe the asker didn't even know that battery analyzers even exist. They aren't sold at Walmart or Tesco, and they aren't advertised to the general public.

@NickAlexeev As a general rule, it takes years for knowledge to trickle down from academia to the general public.

@NickAlexeev There are lots of websites which provide health and medical information to the public, such as the health sections of cnn.com and forbes.com. Better such websites pay a doctor to review each article before it gets published. If this happens, it'll normally say "Medically reviewed by Dr. So-and-so, MD" below the byline.

@NickAlexeev But this costs money.

@NickAlexeev Maybe the asker's magazine can't afford to pay an engineer to review articles such as the asker's. Or maybe such articles are so infrequent that they haven't really thought about it.

@unforgettableid If somebody doesn't know the subject, he should not write for the widely circulated magazine on that subject. That's bad for everybody: readers are exposed to material created by someone who doesn't know what he's doing, magazine loses credibility, author loses face.

Manufacturers who sell el-cheapo batteries on Ebay have (sometimes) been outright liars for years; yet I didn't discover this until recently.
(Ebay doesn't help that much. Their website tells you things like "This seller has a 99% positive feedback score." Nowadays I look for 99.5% or so, and note that buyers aren't generally very good at noticing fraudulent battery-capacity claims.)

Perhaps better that these magazines should run awkwardly-done tests than no tests at all. That way they can at least get the word out that such sellers are (sometimes) liars.

Arsenal

@NickAlexeev I don't trust datasheets so I won't trust a consumer electronics magazine as well.

In addition, the article is intended to expose vendors. It would be completely natural for some vendor to ask: "please publish your measurement procedure." As soon as they see the lack of depth, they will rake him over the coals.

Arsenal

In Germany we have currently a debate on planned obsolescence of electric devices. The most quoted flaw in the designs is: the electrolytic caps get placed right beside the heat generating power switches and heat is bad for electrolytic caps!

9:04 PM

@Arsenal Mandate that manufacturers publish repair manuals with replacement part numbers for capacitors.

Anyone know how to flush the hardware buffers on an Ethernet interface?

@NickAlexeev Though, then again, I'm far from an engineer, I don't understand how to analyze battery capacity even with an Arduino. Plus, I haven't even read the asker's thread carefully. In sum, I have no idea whether the asker's measurement procedure is just so-so or whether it's atrocious.

@Stacey I don't know. Why do you ask?

I have a PC talking to an FPGA and i don't know how to flush the interface buffers

@Stacey Depends on the hardware buffers' manufactirer

but with more u's in there

PC side should be googleable, FPGA side... eh... aren't you programming the buffers?

:-P

It's a 88e1111 PHY board.

9:07 PM

Too many numbers. Can;t be any good if it isn't at least half letters

Rule of Phy boards

:-P

That's the thing - reflashing the FPGA doesn't work. Its the buffers external to the board

@Asmyldof Ah but (88 * (10 ^ 1111)) is a very large number, and large numbers are good.

Well, that's just stupid... and nobody has fixed that yet?

Either on the host or the PHY itself

@unforgettableid You're talking to an embedded engineer... no they are not

:-P

Host is Win/Lin?

9:09 PM

Host is CentOS

@Asmyldof /me tries to avoid laughing loud enough that anyone in the next room will hear

Meh... Marvell

I have more with DC, tbh

Arsenal

@NickAlexeev why should I? From my understanding there is a good reason why the caps are close to the power switches and it's all sound engineering. There was a time of crap electrolytic caps (2005ish?) but nowadays the caps are fine. My monitor was running for 7 years before the caps died - what do they expect when stuff costs just as much as a good meal with your family at the restaurant.

@Stacey Wouldn't know if that has buffers that may keep unfinished packets

The 88e1111 is only the transceiver, has no buffer to be mentioned, afaik

Need to look at the MAC datasheet to find if it has buffers and how they work

@Arsenal It's environmentalists that talk about electronics end-of-life, from what I've heard. They don't worry about cost to repair or replace the device, they worry about landfills and heavy metals leaching.

9:14 PM

That's good news. The mac is on the FPGA, so it must be the host side

Ahw

And you were so close to owning a MAc there

:/

Maybe just take out the Media interface and MACs and just hook it up to PCIe?

Definitely sounds easier!

It was over PCIe initially... This is closer to the production setup

o.O

Go back!

Abort!

haha

You're going the wrong way!

LOL @ Hollywood "Marines"

In "The Last Ship" the crew comes across a British Special Forces combatant with a "Corner Shot" and they say "Whoa, did you see that gun. What the hell. These aren't pirates!"

Fucktard of a marine team if they haven't heard of a Corner Shot yet

Am I wathcing crappy TV shows while trolling SE? Yes I am!

Anybody here feel like building my tool shelves in the lab? I have 0 energy (and indeed time) for it!

But also 0 space to work, on account of scopes and PSUs being everywhere, for lack of shelve space

plus I foolishly bought 10000 syringes last week, so... where will I put them?

On that note... anyone planning to build a private practice or a surgery? I;m told they will gas sterilise them as per standard...

They may also come with sterile needles, but the word is not yet in on that one.

9:41 PM

@Asmyldof We used to have a guy who did that for every lab in the building

handy to have around

@crasic Does he like brownies?

@Asmyldof Mainly just money and tales of the old country

@crasic :/ I have brownies

And syringes (almost)

pFpFpFffff

10:04 PM

I feel like going out, but my ass refuses to disconnect from my chair

10:20 PM

@crasic Should I use an XMEGA, because it fits, or a SAM, because faster with cool tricks later, for a fast and accurate (16bit PWM MHz range) dim system?

**driven at high range, to get 300Hz+ resulting at 16bit

@Asmyldof: Figured it out! Finally

Found a way to flush the socket on the host in python

actually, I didn't flush it, I just forced it to not buffer at all and made the command blocking until it was sent

@Stacey Hurraycakes!

10:50 PM

Time for bed. 1am here and I am tired

plus this wine isn't helping