From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design


I'm giving a talk tonight at maker meetup, any subject I want.

I'm going to talk about the process side of electronics: inventing,
designing, documenting, making, testing electronics.

Some companies just sort of do it. My company has a folder full of
PnP's, policies and procedures. I know that ASML has WoW, its Way of
Working, with classes and such.

I don't know if there are standards, or books, or college classes
about how electronics is really done. It's very complex.


John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On 26/06/2026 2:06 am, john larkin wrote:

I'm giving a talk tonight at maker meetup, any subject I want.

I'm going to talk about the process side of electronics: inventing, designing, documenting, making, testing electronics.

You might go easy on the "inventing" aspect of electronics. People tend
to think that invented circuits are sufficiently novel to be worth
patenting, and the process of turning a novel idea into a patent is all lawyers and has very little to do with electronics.

Working out what kind of circuit your are going to design should be a
process of finding an existing circuit that you can modify for your application. That way you can be much more confident that the circuit
will work. Having to inventing something is always a desperation move.

Some companies just sort of do it. My company has a folder full of
PnP's, policies and procedures. I know that ASML has WoW, its Way of
Working, with classes and such.

EMI Central Research invented a lot of stuff but didn't have any formal procedures for doing it that I ever ran into.

ASML is Dutch and a Philips spin-off, and you can study "policy" as a university subject in the Netherlands, so they have people whose job it
is to write policies. They are as useless as their English language equivalents.

The idea of reviewing designs at the conceptual stage, and then again
when you have detailed design that you could get laid out as printed
circuit board (so you can catch the obvious defects) is one that got
more popular during my career. Some people are much better at it than
others, and some managers thought they were saving time by skipping the
review meeting (and wasted a lot more time than they could ever have saved).

I don't know if there are standards, or books, or college classes
about how electronics is really done. It's very complex.

Electronics can be complicated. The process of going from a simple
scheme for putting a signal or two into sensors and deriving a bunch of outputs from the sensor outputs isn't always straightforward either.

The one thing you can rely is that somebody who claims to know a single
right way of doing it doesn't know what they are talking about.

The business is much too diverse for that to be possible.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On 6/25/2026 9:06 AM, john larkin wrote:

Some companies just sort of do it. My company has a folder full of
PnP's, policies and procedures. I know that ASML has WoW, its Way of
Working, with classes and such.

On top (or in lieu) of my companies PnP's, I have my own, documented,
Personal Engineering Practices (PEP) that I follow for all my projects.


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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On Fri, 26 Jun 2026 02:49:09 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:

On 26/06/2026 2:06 am, john larkin wrote:

I'm giving a talk tonight at maker meetup, any subject I want.

I'm going to talk about the process side of electronics: inventing,
designing, documenting, making, testing electronics.

You might go easy on the "inventing" aspect of electronics. People tend
to think that invented circuits are sufficiently novel to be worth >patenting, and the process of turning a novel idea into a patent is all >lawyers and has very little to do with electronics.

Working out what kind of circuit your are going to design should be a >process of finding an existing circuit that you can modify for your >application. That way you can be much more confident that the circuit
will work. Having to inventing something is always a desperation move.

Actual dialog:

"Where do circuits come from?"

"Books"

"Where do the circuits in books come from?"

"Other books."



But inventing things is fun.

John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:41:09 -0700, Buzz McCool
<buzz_mccool@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 6/25/2026 9:06 AM, john larkin wrote:

Some companies just sort of do it. My company has a folder full of
PnP's, policies and procedures. I know that ASML has WoW, its Way of
Working, with classes and such.

On top (or in lieu) of my companies PnP's, I have my own, documented, >Personal Engineering Practices (PEP) that I follow for all my projects.

Yes. There are so many ways to make expensive mistakes, it's
worthwhile to have a procedure and some checklists. And reviews.

A mistake in software can be fixed in minutes. A mistake in hardware,
months.


John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On 26/06/2026 4:48 am, john larkin wrote:

On Fri, 26 Jun 2026 02:49:09 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:

On 26/06/2026 2:06 am, john larkin wrote:

I'm giving a talk tonight at maker meetup, any subject I want.

I'm going to talk about the process side of electronics: inventing,
designing, documenting, making, testing electronics.

You might go easy on the "inventing" aspect of electronics. People tend
to think that invented circuits are sufficiently novel to be worth
patenting, and the process of turning a novel idea into a patent is all
lawyers and has very little to do with electronics.

Working out what kind of circuit your are going to design should be a
process of finding an existing circuit that you can modify for your
application. That way you can be much more confident that the circuit
will work. Having to inventing something is always a desperation move.

Actual dialog:

"Where do circuits come from?"

"Books"

"Where do the circuits in books come from?"

"Other books."

Mostly true.

But inventing things is fun.

I've done it, and I've known people who have done it more often. The
actual moment of invention may be fun, but the rest is a chore.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On 26/06/2026 4:51 am, john larkin wrote:

On Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:41:09 -0700, Buzz McCool
<buzz_mccool@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 6/25/2026 9:06 AM, john larkin wrote:

Some companies just sort of do it. My company has a folder full of
PnP's, policies and procedures. I know that ASML has WoW, its Way of
Working, with classes and such.

On top (or in lieu) of my companies PnP's, I have my own, documented,
Personal Engineering Practices (PEP) that I follow for all my projects.

Yes. There are so many ways to make expensive mistakes, it's
worthwhile to have a procedure and some checklists. And reviews.

A mistake in software can be fixed in minutes. A mistake in hardware,
months.

I fixed one in half an hour. It wasn't a complete fix, but it was enough
to show that the problem was fixable, and got the machine working.

We should have had a review which should have found the error when we
released the design for printed circuit layout, but relevant manager
saved a couple of hours by skipping the review. It took about a month to
work how the hardware wasn't working right, and once the software guys
told me what was going wrong I knew exactly what needed fixing. Irritating.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On 6/25/2026 11:48 AM, john larkin wrote:

Actual dialog:

"Where do circuits come from?"

"Books"

"Where do the circuits in books come from?"

"Other books."

Substitute "app notes" and "data sheets" for "books" and that's the level I'm at.

--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On 27/06/2026 1:16 am, Buzz McCool wrote:

On 6/25/2026 11:48 AM, john larkin wrote:

Actual dialog:

"Where do circuits come from?"

-a-a-a "Books"

"Where do the circuits in books come from?"

-a-a-a-a "Other books."

Substitute "app notes" and "data sheets" for "books" and that's the
level I'm at.

Sometimes you can pull circuits from the instrument literature, but a
lot of that isn't too well thought out. The American Review of
Scientific Instruments has published some bad examples. The British
journal Measurement Technology (originally the Journal of Scientific Instruments) wasn't as bad. I refereed stuff for them (not all that
often) and what they got offered could be pretty horrible.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney


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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

Buzz McCool <buzz_mccool@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 6/25/2026 11:48 AM, john larkin wrote:

Actual dialog:

"Where do circuits come from?"

"Books"

"Where do the circuits in books come from?"

"Other books."

Substitute "app notes" and "data sheets" for "books" and that's the level I'm at.

One way to get past that point is to assume that all the app note circuits
are junk, and try to get figure out everything thatrCOs wrong with them.

Some of them work fine, of course, but you can usually find stuff like
input protection, supply rejection issues, slew limiting, or poor noise performance.

And then thererCOs the BOM to consider. Does the circuit use gold plated
parts because theyrCOre made by the same company?

Is there a simpler or cheaper way to do the job?

You can learn a lot of design that way.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs
--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On 26/06/2026 17:58, Phil Hobbs wrote:

Buzz McCool <buzz_mccool@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 6/25/2026 11:48 AM, john larkin wrote:

Actual dialog:

"Where do circuits come from?"

"Books"

"Where do the circuits in books come from?"

"Other books."

Substitute "app notes" and "data sheets" for "books" and that's the level I'm at.

One way to get past that point is to assume that all the app note circuits are junk, and try to get figure out everything thatrCOs wrong with them.

Some of them work fine, of course, but you can usually find stuff like
input protection, supply rejection issues, slew limiting, or poor noise performance.

And then thererCOs the BOM to consider. Does the circuit use gold plated parts because theyrCOre made by the same company?

That definitely happens. I wrote a couple of app notes for TI codecs
and was required to use certain op-amps because they were being promoted
at that time. They were perfectly suitable and not expensive, but I
would probably have made different choices if given a free hand.
John

Is there a simpler or cheaper way to do the job?

You can learn a lot of design that way.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On Fri, 26 Jun 2026 16:58:51 -0000 (UTC), Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

Buzz McCool <buzz_mccool@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 6/25/2026 11:48 AM, john larkin wrote:

Actual dialog:

"Where do circuits come from?"

"Books"

"Where do the circuits in books come from?"

"Other books."

Substitute "app notes" and "data sheets" for "books" and that's the level I'm at.

One way to get past that point is to assume that all the app note circuits >are junk, and try to get figure out everything thatAs wrong with them.

Some of them work fine, of course, but you can usually find stuff like
input protection, supply rejection issues, slew limiting, or poor noise >performance.

And then thereAs the BOM to consider. Does the circuit use gold plated
parts because theyAre made by the same company?

Is there a simpler or cheaper way to do the job?

You can learn a lot of design that way.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

We had a friend that had a nice little business making little PC
boards that were entirely copies of example circuits in data sheets,
or re-dos of eval boards.

Unfortunately, he started day-trading too. Lost his house, lost his
wife.


John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:56:59 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:

On 26/06/2026 4:48 am, john larkin wrote:

On Fri, 26 Jun 2026 02:49:09 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:

On 26/06/2026 2:06 am, john larkin wrote:

I'm giving a talk tonight at maker meetup, any subject I want.

I'm going to talk about the process side of electronics: inventing,
designing, documenting, making, testing electronics.

You might go easy on the "inventing" aspect of electronics. People tend
to think that invented circuits are sufficiently novel to be worth
patenting, and the process of turning a novel idea into a patent is all
lawyers and has very little to do with electronics.

Working out what kind of circuit your are going to design should be a
process of finding an existing circuit that you can modify for your
application. That way you can be much more confident that the circuit
will work. Having to inventing something is always a desperation move.

Actual dialog:

"Where do circuits come from?"

"Books"

"Where do the circuits in books come from?"

"Other books."

Mostly true.

But inventing things is fun.

I've done it, and I've known people who have done it more often. The
actual moment of invention may be fun, but the rest is a chore.

If a design is public, anybody can do it. So lacking some attractive
specs, the business becomes a race to the bottom, minimum price.

I was considering making some motor drivers, but found some nice
looking units online for $15.




John Larkin
Highland Tech Glen Canyon Design Center
Lunatic Fringe Electronics
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From Newsgroup: sci.electronics.design

On 27/06/2026 4:30 am, john larkin wrote:

On Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:56:59 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:

On 26/06/2026 4:48 am, john larkin wrote:

On Fri, 26 Jun 2026 02:49:09 +1000, Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
wrote:

On 26/06/2026 2:06 am, john larkin wrote:

I'm giving a talk tonight at maker meetup, any subject I want.

I'm going to talk about the process side of electronics: inventing,
designing, documenting, making, testing electronics.

You might go easy on the "inventing" aspect of electronics. People tend >>>> to think that invented circuits are sufficiently novel to be worth
patenting, and the process of turning a novel idea into a patent is all >>>> lawyers and has very little to do with electronics.

Working out what kind of circuit your are going to design should be a
process of finding an existing circuit that you can modify for your
application. That way you can be much more confident that the circuit
will work. Having to inventing something is always a desperation move.

Actual dialog:

"Where do circuits come from?"

"Books"

"Where do the circuits in books come from?"

"Other books."

Mostly true.

But inventing things is fun.

I've done it, and I've known people who have done it more often. The
actual moment of invention may be fun, but the rest is a chore.

If a design is public, anybody can do it.

If they understand what has been published.

So lacking some attractive specs, the business becomes a race to the bottom, minimum price.

Minimum price involves production in very large volume - the rule of
thumb is that producing in ten times the volume lets you halve the
price. Germany and China both chose to do exactly that with solar cells,
and Germany hogged the market for a couple of years after spending big
to manufacture in high volume. It's not clear that the market is big
enough to let anybody trump the Chinese.

I was considering making some motor drivers, but found some nice
looking units online for $15.

If it's a routine application and somebody has mass-produced an assembly
that you can use, that's what you expect to happen.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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