What are your electronics related quirks?

[Berni]

Terribly guilty of over studying PCB layout and design of PCB's that cross the bench and yet to find one that couldn't be improved on....especially with repairs in mind ! 

And then realizing that you ware the one who designed that board 5 years ago. I keep finding cosmetic mistakes in my boards every so often.

[Electro Detective]

I have been keeping the screws and other fixings from donor equipment for decades and now have ice cream containers full of various screws.
I also keep all of the little nuts, bolts, washers and spacers in separate containers to make them easier to find.
When working on a project I can easily spend an hour or more sorting through two litre containers of screws until I find ones that are all exactly the same.     
 

Those containers will outlast us and the next lot that inherit 

The idea to speed that up (a bit) is to tip the lot on a piece of large cardboard sheet, with a bend or fold in the middle,
sift through and find what you need,
then tilt the cardboard into the ice cream container and dump the lot back in
then move on to the next ice cream container..

I hope they don't think up transparent ice cream containers, at Coles and Woolies prices..
= more kilos, broken scales, cracked tiles, trashed shower doors, jumbo flip flops,
and shopping at tent city for shorts and other assorted clothing   
 

[nctnico]

Terribly guilty of over studying PCB layout and design of PCB's that cross the bench and yet to find one that couldn't be improved on....especially with repairs in mind ! 

And then realizing that you ware the one who designed that board 5 years ago. I keep finding cosmetic mistakes in my boards every so often.

Oh... this reminds me... Decades ago I picked up my TV (one with a CRT) from the local TV repair man in the shopping mall. He told me 'whoever did that previous repair did a shoddy job'. He forgot he was the one who repaired it the previous time (different problem though) 

[TerraHertz]

Getting unreasonably upset when I see something nice on ebay, starting at a low price, but then two or more ebaydiots start an interminable incremental bidding war. Driving the price up in small increments for days, till it's just stupid. Why do they do that? Haven't they heard of snipe bidding? Why the hell is their 'bidding strategy' so retarded?

In evidence I submit a current item's bid history. That probably none of these jerks are going to win, so why do they waste their time?

[Rerouter]

Have to say that just looks like fake bidding to inflate the price and interest metrics, why would he increase his bid when he already is in the lead?

Edit: Ok that is just really stupid sorting, why would it not be in time order, and why would his script make the intermediate bids when its already exceeded! what is this madness

[TerraHertz]

Have to say that just looks like fake bidding to inflate the price and interest metrics, why would he increase his bid when he already is in the lead?

Sometimes people do, when they realize others are getting close to outbidding them. Some kind of childish pride thing - 'have to be in front.' Completely ignoring that the only thing which matters is who has the highest bid at the auction end time.

I'm certain these are real people bidding. Just retarded.

Edit: Ok that is just really stupid sorting, why would it not be in time order, and why would his script make the intermediate bids when its already exceeded! what is this madness

Ah, I'm not sure you understand ebay auto-bidding?
This list is with auto-bids not shown. It's NOT time-sequential by who bid when. It's showing... um, how to describe it... "Bids that were beaten by someone else's bid. And the time that bid was originally entered."

End result- no one ever sees the final winning bidder's actual max bid. All you see is the auto-bid under that amount, that beat the next highest bidder. Unless they managed to out bid the loser by just a few cents, margin less than the auto-increment.
This is all normal, and showing the auto-bids would make the list a lot longer and less understandable.

All the incremental bids by one person, with no other bids showing between theirs, was that person bidding up in small amounts trying to 'win' by ending up more than their opponent had bid a while ago. He gets auto-bid beaten each time, till he goes above the other person's bid. Which he can't see till he beats it.
Ebay bidding is designed to suck people into this kind of behavior, since such hot-headed angry bidding competition results in higher overall final sale prices, on average.

The stupidity of all this, is why snipe bidding services exist.

Edit to add: For completeness, here's the final result of bidding:

Code: [Select]

[font=courier]https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Hewlett-Packard-5004A-Signature-Analyzer-Good-Self-Test/324165383787
324165383787
HP Hewlett Packard 5004A Signature Analyzer Good Self Test

    Bidders:6
    Bids:50
    Time Ended:20 May 2020 at 4:00:45  pm
    Duration:7 days

     feedback scores
Winr  (117)
=me=  (695)
Jerk  (288)
=A=   (551)
=B=   (70)
=C=   (218)

Sorry, you were outbid. This item sold for $155.84
Only actual bids (not automatic bids generated up to a bidder's maximum) are shown.

Winr  $155.84   20 May 2020 at 3:01:27  pm  See that "84c"?
=me=  $153.34   20 May 2020 at 4:00:40  pm  My snipe bid max. Lost to Winr, possibly by a whisker.

  At this point Winr's winning bid is visible as $145. This is already somewhat above my
  comfort limit for this item, but I set a snipe bid a little higher anyway. But not much,
  since atm am short of cash. Otherwise perhaps $200. At this point I knew I was very unlikely
  to win it. Unless Winr was another penny-pinching bidder.

Jerk  $143.00   20 May 2020 at 3:12:38  pm  Jerk finally gives up, about 40 minutes to go.
Jerk  $138.00   20 May 2020 at 3:12:34  pm
Jerk  $133.00   20 May 2020 at 3:12:32  pm
Jerk  $128.00   20 May 2020 at 3:12:30  pm
Jerk  $123.00   20 May 2020 at 3:10:50  pm
Jerk  $118.00   20 May 2020 at 3:10:48  pm
Jerk  $113.00   20 May 2020 at 3:10:46  pm  He's so predictable.
Jerk  $108.00   20 May 2020 at 3:10:44  pm
Jerk  $103.00   20 May 2020 at 3:10:35  pm
Jerk  $99.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:24  pm
Jerk  $96.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:21  pm
Jerk  $93.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:19  pm
Jerk  $90.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:17  pm  Jerk does not understand
Jerk  $87.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:15  pm  either ebay or his own desires.
Jerk  $84.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:13  pm
Jerk  $81.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:11  pm
Jerk  $78.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:09  pm
Jerk  $75.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:07  pm
Jerk  $72.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:05  pm
Jerk  $69.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:03  pm
Jerk  $66.00    20 May 2020 at 3:10:01  pm
Jerk  $63.00    20 May 2020 at 3:09:58  pm  Inching up. He has a long way to go.

  Final winner Winr placed bid here, 20 May 2020 at 3:01:27 pm  Something over $155.

Jerk  $61.00    18 May 2020 at 9:35:42  am  Jerk finally thinks he's 'the winner' again.
=A=   $59.00    18 May 2020 at 9:29:48  am
Jerk  $59.00    18 May 2020 at 9:35:40  am
Jerk  $56.00    18 May 2020 at 9:35:37  am
Jerk  $53.00    18 May 2020 at 9:35:34  am  So Jerk starts inching up again.
   =A= bids $59 at 9:29:48 am next day.

Jerk  $51.00    17 May 2020 at 9:01:05  am  Jerk beats =B= by $1. And stops.
=B=   $50.00    17 May 2020 at 7:04:23  am
Jerk  $48.00    17 May 2020 at 9:01:03  am
Jerk  $45.00    17 May 2020 at 9:01:00  am  Feeling, always in tiny steps.
   =B= bids $50 at 7:04:23 am next day.

Jerk  $43.00    16 May 2020 at 6:51:12  am  Jerk beats =C=, and stops.
=C=   $41.60    16 May 2020 at 6:06:26  am
Jerk  $40.00    16 May 2020 at 6:51:10  am
Jerk  $37.00    16 May 2020 at 6:51:07  am
   =C= bumps their bid up to $41. ie increased by $8. Might work on a low interest item,
   but he must realise this is a 'sought after thing.' So $8 is a joke.

Jerk  $35.00    15 May 2020 at 10:28:18  am  Jerk finally gets just above =C=, and stops.
=C=   $33.75    15 May 2020 at 10:12:38  am
=C=   $33.00    15 May 2020 at 10:12:00  am
Jerk  $33.00    15 May 2020 at 10:28:16  am
Jerk  $31.00    15 May 2020 at 10:28:14  am
Jerk  $29.00    15 May 2020 at 10:28:12  am
Jerk  $27.00    15 May 2020 at 10:28:10  am
Jerk  $25.00    15 May 2020 at 10:28:08  am
Jerk  $24.00    15 May 2020 at 10:28:06  am
Jerk  $23.00    15 May 2020 at 10:28:04  am  Jerk starts trying to feel for =C='s bid,
Jerk  $22.00    15 May 2020 at 10:28:02  am  in $1 then $1 increments.
Jerk  $21.00    15 May 2020 at 10:28:00  am                                             
   =C= put a sensible bid of $33, then 30 seconds later increased by 75c.
Jerk  $20.00    14 May 2020 at 6:07:18  am   Jerk foolishly put a low bid early in the
                                             auction, despite really wanting to win it.

Starting Price    $19.95    13 May 2020 at 4:00:45  pm[/font]


[Berni]

Getting unreasonably upset when I see something nice on ebay, starting at a low price, but then two or more ebaydiots start an interminable incremental bidding war. Driving the price up in small increments for days, till it's just stupid. Why do they do that? Haven't they heard of snipe bidding? Why the hell is their 'bidding strategy' so retarded?

In evidence I submit a current item's bid history. That probably none of these jerks are going to win, so why do they waste their time?

I get even more upset when an item with seemingly no interest gets sniped by an entire army at the end.

Found a nice piece of test gear that i wanted, had no bids. Set up my snipe for it, happen to see the minutes counting down and still 0 bids, already looking rather smug about this easy grab, then the seconds count down and suddenly bids from like 6 people fly in and i get outbid by 2x. I know its to be expected, but i never seen such a quiet item get sniped on so heavily.

[rsjsouza]

BTW I see some think they are obsessive about clean work benches. I think those are actually sane. On various occasions I visited fellow EEs which had their (daytime job) work benches littered with circuit boards and other stuff. That is not a way to get work done.

I disagree with you there, as it depends on the job. My context switching is quite quick and I return to the same boards and instruments several times a day or week. I need to have many different boards, equipment and cables at hand and storing everything on their place every time is counterproductive to me.

I think he means more the thing im guilty of where a project that is indefinitely on hold end up sitting on the bench for months at a time or some parts from that project end up laying there, just shoved to the side. I keep moving things over to make room to work on stuff in the middle of the bench until there is so much clutter all around that there is no room to put down stuff so i go at it and mostly clear the whole bench. Slowly entropy again does its thing and stuff accumulates again over the time of months. Its not really the way to do it.

Yeah, that is not my case, though. I have multiple active projects at the same time.   

[SilverSolder]

Getting unreasonably upset when I see something nice on ebay, starting at a low price, but then two or more ebaydiots start an interminable incremental bidding war. Driving the price up in small increments for days, till it's just stupid. Why do they do that? Haven't they heard of snipe bidding? Why the hell is their 'bidding strategy' so retarded?

In evidence I submit a current item's bid history. That probably none of these jerks are going to win, so why do they waste their time?

I get even more upset when an item with seemingly no interest gets sniped by an entire army at the end.

Found a nice piece of test gear that i wanted, had no bids. Set up my snipe for it, happen to see the minutes counting down and still 0 bids, already looking rather smug about this easy grab, then the seconds count down and suddenly bids from like 6 people fly in and i get outbid by 2x. I know its to be expected, but i never seen such a quiet item get sniped on so heavily.

At least with snipe bids, it is a "no BS" auction where people are bidding what they are actually prepared to pay...

[pidcon]

- Workbench has to be *REALLY* clean and tools knolled out.
- Soldering iron stand is angled correctly for my hand before switching on the iron.
- Deciding whether I should make the project something that is easy to program (but harder to layout,) or easy to layout (but harder to program,) or do both for a more difficult life.
- Buying branded caps and super-cheap unbranded resistors.
- Always using a voltage regulator that provides more current than necessary.
- Always wondering if I could have laid out the circuit better immediately after I finished the layout.
- Spending too much time thinking about variable names than actual programming, and then deciding on just using a letter for the variable name.
 

[coppercone2]

I had 4 tables FILLED with crap. Cleaned 1.5/4.  Not quite jim williams landfills but getting close. And I like wire so its all held together by wire. Main reason why I cleaned is because I got scared I am going to try to get an insect hiding in a tumble weed of PCB, wire and hand tools. I had a close call but I managed to divert it into a firing zone. I imagine thats how the military must feel when a sniper manages to get into bombed ruins. Honestly I forgot what I was doing with half of the stuff. I get held up because I want to clean but the only way to clean is to finish the project (unless you want to put away something you will need to put back). Also I like to flick the iron to clean it to keep the brass cleaner and not immediately collect the wire insulation or shreds so it gets pretty fucking bad.

It basically costs money to clean a work bench properly, since you likely have a mess at least partially because you ran into design complexity or are missing parts to complete an assembly. I finished a BUNCH of stuff recently as part of the cleaning effort, and it makes me feel a bit off. Felt like there would be more to it. But if I compare the finished products to the bank account and projected costs of purchasing the same stuff, it feels better (but not actually better, you need to add the 'non made in china' fudge factor to your calculations).

You need to add money though because if you keep trying to make it out of nothing eventually you will be left with some seriously bad scraps.

[Bud]

- I am terrible at remembering numbers. So when i print a schematic, i add names to all active devices. Sometimes this causes involuntary humour: Nancy crowbars Bob if he tresspasses.

Fat Gary for the gate array chip, Bridgette for the bus buffer, Vidiot for the RGB video output chip, you can't beat Amiga's custom chips