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1500 questions
23
votes
6 answers
How do you structure large embedded projects?
Background:
Junior R&D electronics engineer (the only EE in the company) -
the hardware and the coding is not the problem. My biggest issue is getting a proper overview of the project, and where to start.
So far I've only made minor software…
Sorenp
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23
votes
3 answers
Is the capacitor drawn or wired wrongly?
In my recent study of electronics, I chance upon a guide on building a line-following robot. In one of the diagram shown, I realized that the capacitors, namely, C1, C2, C4 and C5, all marked with red arrows, are connected with the wrong polarity.…
Jack Oat
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23
votes
4 answers
Should I twist DC power and ground wires from a power supply?
Is it beneficial to twist the red/green power/ground wires from a low-voltage (~5V), relatively low current (1 to 5 A) switching, desktop power supply?
This makes my wire bundle on a desk less chaotic, but will it reduce noise or provide any other…
tarabyte
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23
votes
5 answers
Why can't I see bouncing of a switch on an oscilloscope?
I'm trying to view the bouncing of a simple switch on an oscilloscope.
I have prepared a simple breadboard circuit (power → switch → resistor → ground). The problem is, it is displayed as a perfect square/rectangle on the scope. I have attached a…
Deniz
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23
votes
9 answers
Ideas to stack multiple PCBs on top of each other?
My design has a number of boards stacked on top of each other. I would like to connect signals across the boards. The boards all need the same 10 signals running through them (all boards from top to bottom), so that simplifies it a bit.
What could…
OrCa
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23
votes
3 answers
Why does RAM (any type) access time decrease so slowly?
This article shows that DDR4 SDRAM has approximately 8x more bandwidth DDR1 SDRAM. But the time from setting the column address to when the data is available has only decreased by 10% (13.5ns).
A quick search shows that the access time of the…
Arseniy
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- 32
23
votes
1 answer
What is this squiggly trace for?
It's on pin 14, which is the master clock input (MCLK) of a WM8761: Low cost stereo DAC. I'm guessing it's meant to act as a small inductor? But why would you want that on a clock input?
endolith
- 28,734
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23
votes
10 answers
How to solder a 70 °C (158 °F) thermal / temperature fuse
For my DMX project (schematics is not important), I soldered this temperature fuse which has just two leads (see picture below).
The fuse doesn't work (meaning it does not conduct electricity) ... which of course is logical since my soldering…
Michel Keijzers
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23
votes
10 answers
Programming languages for electronics engineers
I am an Electronics and Communications Engineering student, before I got to college, I have been interested in programming and computer applications. I had focused on designing Windows applications and learning its techniques, but now, I feel that…
Siraj Muhammad
- 582
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23
votes
3 answers
Measure Lithium ion battery voltage (thus remaining capacity)
What I am working with: I am running my self-made Arduino board (in the sense that I use the Arduino bootloader and code editor) at 3.3V, and powered from a Lithium ion battery, which is USB-charged by a corresponding Microchip charger IC.
What I am…
boardbite
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23
votes
4 answers
When to use ground plane cutouts?
I've been reading more about proper grounding techniques and using ground planes.
From what I've read, ground planes provide a large capacitance with adjacent layers, faster heat dissipation, and reduce ground inductance.
The one area I'm…
helloworld922
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23
votes
3 answers
Identify this rechargeable battery pack
I want to identify a rechargeable battery pack from inside an old portable hard-drive.
It is unlabelled. (I ripped open the blue covering - it isn't labelled on the internal metal cover either.)
Battery is ~55m x ~33m x ~5mm - so relatively flat.…
Oddthinking
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23
votes
1 answer
I need the most basic circuit diagram for wireless energy transfer please
I have been all over the net looking for the most basic circuit diagram or instructions to put together a small project on wireless energy transfer. If anyone knows of a good schematic that is super simple and geared towards noobs could you please…
Digital Brent
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23
votes
2 answers
SDRAM Termination Resistors: Are They Needed?
For a project I'm designing, I'm using an IS42s32800 (TSOP) SDRAM with an LPC1788 (QFP) microcontroller. On the PCB I have 4 layers with a ground plane right below the top signal layer and a VDD plane right above the bottom signal layer. Average…
ozg
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23
votes
5 answers
What does BSC SQ mean?
I'm reading this DAC datasheet. The last page (p. 32) gives certain of the chip's dimensions, some in units of "BSC SQ".
What does BSC SQ mean? Is it standard to express sizes in BSC SQ?
Randomblue
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