M Simon
Low noise power
May 9, 2013 3:28 pm | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsI recently designed a low power, low noise, power supply for digital work. The nominal output voltages as designed are +5 volts and +3.3 volts. One hundred and fifty milliamps each. With a lightly regulated five volt supply for powering LED back lights.
The green death
April 30, 2013 3:45 pm | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsBeing "green" has gone from a technical effort to economically reduce energy use and avoid waste where such avoidance makes sense to actively reducing our effectiveness to show how committed we are to the Green Religion. And there is so much of this going on. In my opinion we would be much better off worshiping trees. Or cows.
Management techniques: After-action reports
April 23, 2013 8:03 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsCBS News Money Watch has a great post up on how to improve management effectiveness. That includes both self and corporate management. The technique is common in the military but not so common in the corporate world. It is the after action report.
Fine-pitch soldering
April 22, 2013 9:18 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsI hand-solder. I hand-solder surface-mount devices. So far, my standard practice is to use parts no smaller than 0603s (inch), and for ICs I get them with pitches no smaller than 0.65 mm. This causes problems when I need a component that is too small for me to solder on a board with techniques I have been comfortable with up to now.
How to manage creative types (with a minimum of fuss)
April 17, 2013 1:14 pm | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsThe First Mate and I were discussing this Harvard Business Review article the other day, and I noticed a lot of allusions to myself. The article is about how to manage creative types. There are seven main points (numbered), but I'm only going to comment on a few.
Data pirates
April 5, 2013 9:23 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsAs if we didn't have enough to worry about with government tracking and collecting information on our every move, we also have to be on the lookout for data pirates. Although, if the pirates get their hands on the government databases, the problem begins to look like a single problem with diverse parts.
Top 10 must-read posts from March
April 3, 2013 10:47 am | by Kasey Panetta, Managing Editor | Blogs | CommentsHere’s a rundown of the most read, most popular, most awesome articles on the web. Take a look at what you missed the first time around or check up on an old favorite to see the conversation in the comments. Keep checking out the Lead at www.ecnmag.com and follow us on Twitter @ecnonline for our most up-to-date articles.
More thought required: The simplest designs aren’t so simple
April 3, 2013 9:29 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsI'm in the process of designing an I2C system that uses telephone cable to route the signals around. It uses standard four-conductor cables with RJ-11 type plugs on the ends. For my system, it is important that there be no twists in the cable. Getting the signals reversed (clock and data) is not too bad. It will just prevent the system from working.
The LED rundown
March 22, 2013 2:16 pm | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Articles | CommentsThe life of a light-emitting diode (LED) isn’t as simple as some advertisers may lead you to believe. Manufacturers offer numbers like 100,000 hours as the expected lifetime of high-powered LEDs, but those numbers reflect calculations done using optimum conditions and specification points.
Soldering and other tools
March 22, 2013 9:17 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsI don't have a lot to say today. I'm busy on the bench building things. But I have come across a few good tools and soldering helpers, so I thought I'd provide a few links. Harbor Freight has a couple of good items. Yes. I know it is easy to buy junk there, which is why I thought I'd mention these two items.
Green energy pirates
March 15, 2013 9:26 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsI got an e-mail from a friend recently railing against what he called (loosely translated by me) "Green Energy Pirates". Let me quote one sentence from his e-mail. "There is a whole slew of companies that move from subsidy to subsidy globally and then abandon 'green projects' when the subsidies dry up."
Array fracking extracts oil safely and effectively
March 8, 2013 12:27 pm | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsIt looks like we may have more available oil than we thought, thanks to a new procedure called array fracking. What does that mean? It means that the oil boys are drilling the oil holes closer together. And since fracking is about horizontal drilling, that means the wells are parallel to each other.
A bug in the drone wars
March 7, 2013 12:52 pm | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsA new element is being added to the drone wars: Micro Drones. You can watch a five-minute video by the Air Force that looks at the development of M.A.V - Micro Killer Drones. Done in the usual dominating voice that the people promoting superior military technology seem to like for their videos.
A drag on windpower
March 1, 2013 5:02 pm | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsECN recently published an article from Eurekalert! on the limits of large scale wind power. I thought it might be a good idea to go to the source to find out if the posted article reflected the actual paper. The first thing I found without any effort at all (it was in the abstract) is that the Eureka people got the previous maximum-estimated wind source number wrong.
Software patents are evil
February 28, 2013 10:08 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsI was planning to write about software patent trolls and was entering "software patents" in my search engine when it offered the suggestion "are evil" to complete the phrase. I'll buy that. So to encourage more traffic here, that is the title of this post. Yes. I have been blogging for quite some time.
Hydrogen fuel cells get a lift
February 27, 2013 9:16 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsI was reading one of the logistics magazines I regularly get and found out something amazing. By about 2020, roughly 80 percent of the lift trucks in America will be powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The fuel cell advantage is constant voltage output and longer continuous run time.
Finding a needle in the solution
February 19, 2013 9:01 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsBack in 1968 when I was just starting out as a very junior engineer, I worked for Chromatronix designing sensors for and building High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) equipment. In those days, "High Pressure" was 500 psi going up to 1,000 psi with research on 3,000 psi equipment well underway.
Is the atmosphere a giant steam engine?
February 7, 2013 11:40 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsAs a former Naval Nuke, I was intrigued by a recent paper on climate. It looks at atmospheric circulation in terms of water vapor condensation. A steam engine if you will. The paper claims that winds are driven by the condensation of water vapor, and the resultant variations in local atmospheric pressure that the condensation causes.
Not so very cool
January 31, 2013 10:31 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsA recent press release at ECN, NTU research embraces laser and sparks cool affair, prompted me to go looking for the source of the report, which was an article in Nature Magazine. The article explains a lot of things. One of those things is that the cooler is not the panacea described in the press release.
Speaking of speakers
January 25, 2013 9:14 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsThe Consumer Electronic Show (CES) has been in the news at ECN, but boy was I surprised when my home town paper featured a CES story on its front page this past week. The story was mainly about Prescient Audio, a local company that has designed a new type of bass driver that will reduce the volume such drivers take up in cars.
U.S. energy usage and Jevons' paradox
January 18, 2013 11:21 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsECN recently published a piece slamming Texas for passing a law that "allows Texans to make and sell the old-fashioned inefficient kind of bulbs". The author further states that the goal of the national law Texas is opposing "was to lower U. S. energy usage." It will do no such thing. It will increase electrical usage. We have known this since Economist William Jevons discovered the principle in 1865.
Are we running out of wind?
January 15, 2013 8:53 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsThe first mate gave me a heads-up about about the state of wind energy locally. Gamesa USA is pulling out of a proposed wind farm development in Ogle County, Illinois. saukvalley.com reports....
Delving into superconductors
January 14, 2013 8:29 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsEver since Polywell Fusion caught my attention, superconducting magnets have been a large side interest of mine. I keep track of papers published in the field through IOP Science - Superconductor Science and Technology. They post a list of papers every month which are freely available for personal use for the first month after publication.
What is wrong with programming?
January 2, 2013 8:32 am | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsPoul-Henning Kamp, "one of the primary developers of the FreeBSD operating system", has written a long screed about the current state of programming. He discusses Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar (Eric chimes in with a comment) and has this critique of the Bazaar....
Designing just for fun
December 20, 2012 3:58 pm | by M. Simon, Technical Contributor | Blogs | CommentsI'm in the process of designing and building a 10 MHz time/frequency receiver to pick up the WWV signal and to see if I can accurately reproduce the signal frequency for general lab calibration purposes. Yes, there are better ways to get accurate frequency calibration.
