Another worthy attempt at Darwin award. Lead-acid battery vs. mains AC. At least it wasn't a Lithium.

It crossed my mind that there may be room for a dedicated Darwin Awards stack. Questions with negligence of safety would be migrated there. EE.SE, Mechanics.SE, DIY.SE, Outdoors.SE, Aviation.SE might provide enough fodder.

@Asmyldof how do you work with IC sockets and battery holders then? (they seem to be the common culprits for lacking a refdes, although it can happen in other cases as well)

@NickAlexeev heheh. Aviation.SE tends to be pretty good about that; however, I've seen some fairly nasty ones pop up on DIY.SE where folks don't really realize what they've gotten into. (I've also seen a few answers flunk the safety-test on DIY.SE without going noticed.)

@Shalvenay 1. They have a refdes. 2. The refdes is invisible on the board, if that fits the design.

@Shalvenay There are plenty on EE.SE as well.

Cakes and waffles

I find December to be one of the most annoying months

The last week or two especially so

Maybe I should try and find a party to go to or some such

/morning

I wish

@Asmyldof your wish is granted, and will be delivered to you within the next 18 hours

@Marla Too real-time, I wish for supra-real-time

Alternatively a box containing someone to distract from real-time, preferably of compatible gender and age description, impressed by DIY, Maths and pretty lights doing fancy stuff.

But from personal experience, I find the prior an easier target

<-- looking for hawt tips on 16+ bit DACs with relatively low glitching and decent dif/int linearity. Preferably in the high 100's ksps to low Msps range. Anybody?

All other parameters don't matter much, since all of the analog fiddledeefoobah around them will be determined once DAC is chosen

Preferably non-BGA, since I'll be assembling version 1 through 3 by hand

@Asmyldof I suppose the more accurate thing to say is "they lack a schematic symbol to attach a refdes to"

@Shalvenay Using Altium, I find it easiest to just make symbols for mechanical parts and give them designators. M1, M2, M3 usually; or MECH1, MECH2, MECH3 if I also have MOSFETs in the design.

I also tend to do all my design changes in schematic and forward annotate. I avoid changing the layout and back-annotating to the schematic.

Hopefully that says more about Altium than it does about me, though.

@ThePhoton @Shalvenay That's what I do with almost all packages. Partly because most packages work that way, but mostly because it creates a "safety of BOM" or "Synchronisation across all files". If you create a disconnect in numbers of items on either side of the divide you leave the solution to whomever updated those functions last. As we learnt from Altium, that's a dangerous thing, even if at some point it worked pretty decently

(packages as in pieces of software)

@ThePhoton hrm. one problem, of course, would be keeping those symbols out of your netlist, no?

@Asmyldof (I'm using KiCAD over here, btw)

In essence, it only takes one cranky worker/coder/contributor over about a week of inattention to break the functionality so that after an update all your designs get muddled up once you open them

Of course, again as some certain packages taught us, that can happen even if your own files are tidy, but the chance is significantly lower

@ThePhoton do you use one-symbol-per-footprint btw or do you assign footprints separately from selecting the schematic symbol?

@Shalvenay I don't know much about KiCAD or what they have in ways of "oversight". It might be better than Altium, Eagle, OrCad, etc, or possibly not. Either way, a community of developers includes a large heap of people with unknown differences of perspective, so I don't think the risk will be that much smaller

@Asmyldof I agree -- but I've been talking with the KiCAD devs on IRC, and it seems that no-netlist components are not a happening thing in that package

@Shalvenay Altium has an option to mark a part in the schematic so that it generates an item in the BOM, but not in the layout, or vice versa.

I would put one symbol in the schematic for each item that needs to be purchased, so the BOM gives the correct quantities.

@ThePhoton aaah. that no-layout flag is probably the key then. thanks!

@Shalvenay That's pretty much it, I'd say.

Also, if you want to not get kicked in the nuts by other defs, is a good reason to try and keep all items on both sides of the divide in one way or another

"I see a mounting hole here, with a trace running through it... let's see what the schematic says..." .... "No mounting holes.... okay, that sort of answers the question, but not in the way I hoped...."

@Asmyldof ...yeah. thankfully, I'm dealing with a bareboard project here, so I have time to figure things out ;)

@Asmyldof do you also keep all attributes for a given BoM line item in your schematic as well?

@Shalvenay Since parts in the packages that I prefer to use are inexorably tied together through my "Keep all items the same on all sides" rule all lines of all components are technically available on all sides, though it may sometimes be hard or unclear to reach them, depending on the software

@Asmyldof ah :)

i.e.: A 0402 Resistor of 220 Ohm from Samsung is a part, with its supplier link and schematic part, a 0603 Resistor of 220 Ohm from Samsung is yet another discrete part, a 0603 Resistor of 220 Ohm from Multicomp is yet another, since Multicomp vs Samsung is a noticable gap in supply reliability

This may feel/seem cumbersome at first, but it takes little time to get used to (in those pieces of software that I still actively use, that is, can't speak towards KiCAD or later versions Eagle), and it saves a lot of trouble in finding mistakes when a layout turns out to have gone horribly wrong

The latter may be a none issue for hobbyists, but I'm just explaining my own situation, from the standpoint of designs with >1000 parts, where one capacitor of wrong size, type or supplier can screw up an entire analogue pathway

@Asmyldof I hope you don't have two different 0603 220-ohm resistors in the same design.

(assuming one isn't some $10 bulk-metal-foil part, or something)

@ThePhoton Nearly never even two different 220Ohm (or any value) resistors, again, as you say, barring the one occasion where one is severely cumbersome for some reason.

In fact, in digital I am very guilty of "ah, that'll do" rounding toward values already in the analogue system

I'd not use the 110 Ohm 3W dampening resistor again for terminating 16 RS422 terminals, for example, but other than that....

If 0603 fits, where otherwise I'd prefer 0402, but 0603 125mW was needed somewhere in the same value, 0603 it is. Again, the size thing may some times force me, but only rarely, since a lot of supra-Watt outputs now come from complete chips rather than discrete designs for the <= 700MHz parts/boards/equipment I am most commonly hired for.

@Asmyldof I have to admit I'm risk averse enough that if I have one reference design that calls for an 0805 10-uF capacitor and one that calls for an 0603, I'll put both in the BOM. Mainly because my bosses would make me justify deviating from the reference designs more carefully than they'd make me justify having an extra BOM line.

@ThePhoton Oh yeah, if there's no time for parametrisation and mathsification of real world specs, I always prefer the advised/reference design types

For the 16ch SMU I asked Wurth to supply the coils and "non-critical" caps, where the rep came back "I can also make these lines 30% or more cheaper, can we supply those caps as well", to which I carefully responded "Rather not, this time, but thanks"

Since I had seen those TDK/Yageo parts perform the right way on the demo board of the chips

(Over, let's say 0 to 65 Degree C ambient)

@Asmyldof "Send me some samples, and I'll try them out on one unit" ... assuming you have the time available to qualify the cheaper parts.

@ThePhoton Which I didn't and still don't, on account of you not wanting to fly back for major holidays

:-P

@Asmyldof On account of my gf not wanting to move to another country

He generously offered to send all again two months ago, as samples for one full board, so I could try, and now that I have a cheap reflower I might actually, since my local hobby reflow oven will most certainly stress them more than the professional fabs

@ThePhoton Duct-tape?

@Asmyldof Hard to get on a plane that way.

Tbh, as per earlier made points about december and all, I may have forgotten exactly how girlfriends work

@ThePhoton Large suitcase?

@Asmyldof They get so much attention from the TSA these days...

@ThePhoton Hm

Contact a refridgerator import/export company?

Metal box, hard to scan

Also, cool, keeps her fresh...

That's how women work right?

They're basically lettuce with more support functions, right?

@Asmyldof Yeah, you might want to consider working some shorter hours and get out more...

Nobody ever lies on their deathbed thinking, "I wish I would have spent more time at the office".

@ThePhoton I am exceptionally not good at getting out

And as it turns out, neither at presenting my actual self impressively enough on teh interwebs

I feel I may have gotten myself stuck in a sort of loop, where I am bad enough at it to notice myself, so I stopped practising more and more, etc

Maybe I should work for a huge faceless 9to5, so I get bored enough to try again

It'd definitely help the tidiness of my living room

Where are you working again?

@Asmyldof Today is supposed to be my first day at the new job...But I'm taking the week off.

I feel the above sounds much more depressing than it feels on any day of the year not between Dec 24 and Jan 1st

@ThePhoton Also on any other (Mon)day of the year that would sound like a silly thing to do

@Asmyldof All those football games aren't going to watch themselves.

So, what you doing? I'm working, as you may have guessed...

Ah

Not a watching sports kind of guy

@Asmyldof Actually I'm not either...just "my" team.

Well, not the kind where it comes down to people running around like mad with or behind a ball and, to me, seemingly arbitrarily deciding to pass it on or not and then getting paid millions

I have a big home improvement project to work on, but it rained so I'm using that as an excuse to take a day off from that too.

@Asmyldof You wouldn't understand, but, college football...

I prefer sports where there's something for me to think about, or those where people don't get paid insanely way too much, possibly because the customs and demands have grown such that they won't be able to walk or talk when 40

Yeah, weird stuff to me indeed

But then, even taking way too long to leave Uni I only racked up a couple 10's of k€ of debt in our silly socialist education system, which makes scholarships based on none-academics less likely and such the glorification of any one sport over another based on a university engagement none existant

Or, that's my million cent's worth

@ThePhoton I'm actually also DIY-ing on the evenings and weekends

Making a dampened compressor box for my "silent" compressors, so I can actually run them without having the neighbours kill me

And building up my 6ch dimmer, named Shedrah, which turns out to be also other things

@Asmyldof There was an old English/American tradition of sports in schools. Supposed to build character for the ruling class and all that. And colleges were only for the upper class. The concept just kind of metastasized in the 20th century.

Very excited to see the results of both endeavours

@Asmyldof that's more debt than me, actually -- although I did manage to snag an academic full ride to Hometown U whistles innocently

(btw, Hometown U doesn't even offer football any longer -- our "sport du jour" takes place on ice)

@Shalvenay Yeah, but still, very easy to pay back, and I had no scholarships or special considerations

@Asmyldof yeah, probably easier over there than it would be over here.

Not that they don't exist

We have light govt support for Children of poorer parents, there's special company based scholarships for certain directions. Like Philips used to sponsor their employees' kids a little when they went to a Tech Uni in NL

And all kinds of loans and supports that you can get and that may be written off by govt if you finish somewhat on time

Back when our Uni education also contained all the tough stuff, we were pretty strong on the front. These days I fear having to interview a fresh graduate

As an aside, can we close a question for being stubborn in not accepting the answers by way of commenting that the initial question must be the solution?

toilet and to-home time, I think

And then, maybe do the dishes, get one step closer to feeling I deserve to go out

@Asmyldof You can vote it "off topic because OP has a bad attitude" if you want.

But not everyone is going to agree with you.

Yes, but I don't like being the asshole, as I'm already super cranky IRL this week

Well, more of one than posting that comment

Okay...

Going home for seriousness now. See if the kebab people are still selling thusly

Remote desktop'ed to home to initiate stuff, so... ready to wrap up and cycle away. ... I should really fix my linux low power host one of these days so I don't have to remote desktop anymore

Nice and warm!

Makes up for the kebab people being closed already

@Asmyldof -- called Wurth and it turns out that it is a 5mm pitch part

(that ferrite bead I was grumping about recently)

Told you

dunno how I got 3.5mm off the STEP file o.O

shrug

But 5.08mm or very close to it is pretty standard for a three or two turn

Single may be 3.5 or more likely 2.54

@Asmyldof yeah

Unless it's a standard 6 hole, with a couple skipped

the bead itself is 6mm diameter

That too would be a hint

But to be honest, the last couple days I have been keeping myself too busy, or too drunk to care about actually reading datasheets rather than glancing

;-)

Primordial brain is good at seeing turns, bad at reading

Would a post pubescent man person be allowed to hug a stuffed sheep sitting on his desk?

@Shalvenay by the way, Wurth will also just send you the sample to try :-)

The one annoying thing about RSS feeds is that if the original title changes the entry in the feed will stay the same to annoy me

Pah

My dishes have not yet been done.... where's those elfs when you need them.