Stupid problems requiring stupid ideas

[Raj]

I wanna hear some. (Problems that are so stupid, that they are not worth your time to solve, but the solution is stupidly obvious too)
 
I'll start with one.

So, Apple wanted to make a charging pad into which you plop on your phone and it starts to charge, regardless of the position of is in. They started messing with multiple coils and what not

Just make the pad a bit thicker and insert an xy gantry that repositions the coil underneath the phone...: Job done
A 2d tredmil on top that repositions the phone will work too.. Or a combination, like tredmil for x axis and internal mechanism for y axis

[engrguy42]

Y'know, in some ways I feel kinda sorry for the engineers and marketers working on consumer electronics stuff.

Like Apple...hell, every year they need to figure out some cool new feature for their smartphones that somehow they can convince people they need, and moreover that consumers are willing to pay freakin' thousands of $$$ for. Must be tough. Okay, now you need big smartphones. Okay, they have big, let's make small phones the new thing...

Kinda like the big screen TV nonsense. Okay, now we have 4k (which people can't even see the resolution difference, even though they'll never admit it...). And next they need to come up with something new? Like 8K? Are you freakin' serious?

And all this Alexa/AI crap so people can sit on their butts all day and not have to get up out of their sofas?

And self driving cars? Seriously?

[Rerouter]

Vehicle needed to be speed limited, but customer did not want to pay for a proper system, there was already a warning light on the dash when they where speeding, so when that light comes on, a buzzer sounds and a timer relay starts, 5 seconds later the door position switch is interrupted by the timer, the bus thinks the door is open and the vehicle is moving, so the bus interlocks the throttle back to idle with a big solenoid, so very stupid, but the customer was happy.

Next up, a bus comes out from a factory with the wrong calibration from the transmission, I had no way to make the system meet that calibration, the solution, reprogram the speedo to think its range was 335kmph instead of 120kmph, I still have no idea why they didn't just get the dealer to fix it, the odometer is counting up 3x faster than normal

Mahindra did not build in a way for there dealers to calibrate the dash to all the variety of tire sizes they can supply them in, solution? figure out what it should read with the largest possible tire size, and just set it accordingly, this means the default tire size has the speedo reading 100kmph when the vehicle is only doing about 77kmph via GPS

[Raj]

Mahindra did not build in a way for there dealers to calibrate the dash to all the variety of tire sizes they can supply them in, solution? figure out what it should read with the largest possible tire size, and just set it accordingly, this means the default tire size has the speedo reading 100kmph when the vehicle is only doing about 77kmph via GPS

Mahindra?  As expected from Indian engineers. They do exactly what management needs...nothing less, nothing more.

Like Apple...hell, every year they need to figure out some cool new feature for their smartphones that somehow they can convince people they need

Unfortunately...I don't think, engineers have much say in apple.Otherwise the phone would have started to resemble a swiss army knife with various features. Take Ir blaster for eg. Samsung had it...(I used it a lot to control my TV and AC), Now they don't.(couldn't cram an 0402 led)
With the amount of power apple has, they could have made the whole industry switch to 1.5mm or even 0.5mm headphone jack...but they didn't.
What they do allow them to do is,malicious, like keep the cable in laptop display hinge, just short enough to break after a month of regular use

[Syntax Error]

I'm minded to remember the Palm Pre, a mobile phone that was a decade too late. I should know, we were developing an app for the Pre, but only with the SDK, because there were problems with the release of physical handsets to the developer community. We had to travel to London just to touch one (sad). It's USP was the wireless charging hub, which is why the Pre had a chunky a**. For induction charging read induction hob. It died a death and went straight to silicon hell.

[SiliconWizard]

So, Apple wanted to make a charging pad into which you plop on your phone and it starts to charge, regardless of the position of is in. They started messing with multiple coils and what not

Just make the pad a bit thicker and insert an xy gantry that repositions the coil underneath the phone...: Job done
A 2d tredmil on top that repositions the phone will work too.. Or a combination, like tredmil for x axis and internal mechanism for y axis

Multiple coils in Qi-based charging pads is pretty common. I haven't followed Apple's story on their own, and whether it was really badly engineered or not. I don't use Apple products.

But between a multi-coil approach, and an XY gantry to move either the coil or phone, I have a slight idea of which would be the most stupid...

[cdev]

I think we've all been through something like this.

[David Hess]

Multiple coils in Qi-based charging pads is pretty common. I haven't followed Apple's story on their own, and whether it was really badly engineered or not. I don't use Apple products.

I looked into what details were available including the patents and prototype and I though Apple got scammed.  I suspect their managers ignored what their engineers had to say.

The idea appeared to be that multiple coils could be switched into the resonate charging circuit to shape the inductive field for best coupling and to support multiple devices.  The inventors had a test system which demonstrated higher efficiency, but it was a small signal test!  Under large signal conditions, the circulating currents are very high leading to a loss of efficiency with a practical implementation.

[Wojciech Krolopp]

Mahindra did not build in a way for there dealers to calibrate the dash to all the variety of tire sizes they can supply them in, solution? figure out what it should read with the largest possible tire size, and just set it accordingly, this means the default tire size has the speedo reading 100kmph when the vehicle is only doing about 77kmph via GPS

Mahindra?  As expected from Indian engineers. They do exactly what management needs...nothing less, nothing more.

reported for racism

[schmitt trigger]

I think we've all been through something like this.

Of course.
And when one attempts to explain the ludicrousness of the concept, one starts receiving subtle hints along the lines of: "If you can't do it, we can always bring someone else who does".

[Raj]

Mahindra did not build in a way for there dealers to calibrate the dash to all the variety of tire sizes they can supply them in, solution? figure out what it should read with the largest possible tire size, and just set it accordingly, this means the default tire size has the speedo reading 100kmph when the vehicle is only doing about 77kmph via GPS

Mahindra?  As expected from Indian engineers. They do exactly what management needs...nothing less, nothing more.

reported for racism

Can't be racist to your own race, can you be? :p
Edit: it becomes self reflection

I think we've all been through something like this.

Of course.
And when one attempts to explain the ludicrousness of the concept, one starts receiving subtle hints along the lines of: "If you can't do it, we can always bring someone else who does".

non euclidean geometry

[EEVblog]

The topic is a bit confusing...
But I'll weigh in with Altium, with two dumb arse solutions that weren't needed:

1) An FPGA development board that cost US$4000

2) Deciding that all electronics design in the future will be done with modules and FPGA's, including pre-existing PCB module layouts you just join together at the top level to create your project PCB. Therefore most designers will not need a PCB layout tool any more, so make the PCB layout module optional extra.
Yes, seriously, a PCB layout tool company actually made their PCB layout tool optional extra.

[Wojciech Krolopp]

Mahindra did not build in a way for there dealers to calibrate the dash to all the variety of tire sizes they can supply them in, solution? figure out what it should read with the largest possible tire size, and just set it accordingly, this means the default tire size has the speedo reading 100kmph when the vehicle is only doing about 77kmph via GPS

Mahindra?  As expected from Indian engineers. They do exactly what management needs...nothing less, nothing more.

reported for racism

Can't be racist to your own race, can you be? :p

If I said "all polacks are cockroaches and must be exterminated" - isn't that racism despite being polish myself?

[EEVblog]

Mahindra did not build in a way for there dealers to calibrate the dash to all the variety of tire sizes they can supply them in, solution? figure out what it should read with the largest possible tire size, and just set it accordingly, this means the default tire size has the speedo reading 100kmph when the vehicle is only doing about 77kmph via GPS

Mahindra?  As expected from Indian engineers. They do exactly what management needs...nothing less, nothing more.
reported for racism

Can't be racist to your own race, can you be? :p

If I said "all polacks are cockroaches and must be exterminated" - isn't that racism despite being polish myself?

You got owned, just drop it and move on.

[Simon]

The topic is a bit confusing...
But I'll weigh in with Altium, with two dumb arse solutions that weren't needed:

1) An FPGA development board that cost US$4000

2) Deciding that all electronics design in the future will be done with modules and FPGA's, including pre-existing PCB module layouts you just join together at the top level to create your project PCB. Therefore most designers will not need a PCB layout tool any more, so make the PCB layout module optional extra.
Yes, seriously, a PCB layout tool company actually made their PCB layout tool optional extra.

Does not surprise me at all, it's what happens when management do not understand their industry and Altium clearly have not for a while, just look at the circuit maker and studio fiasco's.

[EEVblog]

The topic is a bit confusing...
But I'll weigh in with Altium, with two dumb arse solutions that weren't needed:

1) An FPGA development board that cost US$4000

2) Deciding that all electronics design in the future will be done with modules and FPGA's, including pre-existing PCB module layouts you just join together at the top level to create your project PCB. Therefore most designers will not need a PCB layout tool any more, so make the PCB layout module optional extra.
Yes, seriously, a PCB layout tool company actually made their PCB layout tool optional extra.

Does not surprise me at all, it's what happens when management do not understand their industry and Altium clearly have not for a while, just look at the circuit maker and studio fiasco's.

In the case of Altium at the time, there was no "management", every company decision and direction was the personal whim of the founder Nick Martin. After he was pushed out at least the company finally got focus and started running it like a proper business, other fiasco's not withstanding. Circuit Studio I believe was at the sole request of Element 14 who wanted a package they could sell to replace something else, Altium probably just shrugged their shoulders and went "hey, free money".

[james_s]

In the case of Altium at the time, there was no "management", every company decision and direction was the personal whim of the founder Nick Martin. After he was pushed out at least the company finally got focus and started running it like a proper business, other fiasco's not withstanding. Circuit Studio I believe was at the sole request of Element 14 who wanted a package they could sell to replace something else, Altium probably just shrugged their shoulders and went "hey, free money".

That sounds a bit like I place I used to work. We were a company of ~6,000 people by that time, and yet to hire anybody it had to be run by the CEO for approval. I got completely sick of interviewing candidates there, I lost count of the number of times we finally found someone good, only to move so excruciatingly slowly that they accepted another job by the time we got the OK to hire them.

The same CEO once referred to a round of layoffs as "synergy actions", we used to snicker at all the corporate bs  buzzwords in the company wide emails he would send out.