What really gets to your nerves-pisspoor design!

[makerimages]

So, I thought it would be fun to know, what really aggravates you, makes you do/want to do this:  or this  about electronics design, be it for fixing or salvaging parts off of anything?!?!

For an example. I just got upset, because it seems to be a common convention amongst the ceramic caps in my parts pin, that the .1uF ones (104) constantly have their legs cut shorter than the ones of the .01uF ones... And I need a freaking .1uF to go across an odd pad distance here... argh!   

A general  detector!

[jlmoon]

Aggravation would be comparing a precision US designed device,  using top shelf parts and obviously higher prices to a Chinese / Japanese knock off design by your prospective customer.  I find at times, the cheap or  customers have no respect for the better engineers using better quality parts and design criteria.   All they want is cheap or cheaper, they don't care what it takes or whether it will last!  There is a fine balance between quality/precision versus quantity and price.  Basically it resolves to.. you get what you pay for! 

JLM

[G0HZU]

In my experience, Japanese designed and built RF test gear from the top jap companies is often at least as good as anything made in the USA.
Test gear made by HP in the late 70s through the 80s generally tended to have cheap and flimsy user interfaces with cheap and nasty switch quality.
The technical performance was fine but you could get 'both' technical performance AND reliability if you chose test gear from the best Japanese companies. eg Iwatsu, Anritsu and Advantest. I have a lot of Japanese test gear here and I'm very pleased with all of it.

So my example of poor design would be the user interfaces on HP test gear from that era. The knobs and buttons etc just break and fall off. Some of their slide switches were incredibly flimsy and unreliable with poor contact plating quality etc.

[T3sl4co1l]

A general  detector!

A useless tool: it would never stop!

Tim

[dannyf]

a freaking .1uF to go across an ****odd**** pad distance here

That supports their cutting it short on .1uf.

[KSP]

In my experience, Japanese designed and built RF test gear from the top jap companies is often at least as good as anything made in the USA.
Test gear made by HP in the late 70s through the 80s generally tended to have cheap and flimsy user interfaces with cheap and nasty switch quality.
The technical performance was fine but you could get 'both' technical performance AND reliability if you chose test gear from the best Japanese companies. eg Iwatsu, Anritsu and Advantest. I have a lot of Japanese test gear here and I'm very pleased with all of it.

So my example of poor design would be the user interfaces on HP test gear from that era. The knobs and buttons etc just break and fall off. Some of their slide switches were incredibly flimsy and unreliable with poor contact plating quality etc.

I totally agree. Anritsu gear tends to have quite a good, sturdy user interface, and has done for a long time! Old HP gear had those clunky buttons, and the springs would die in them, meaning they would stick... This was a total pain for me!
And you are right about the slide switches as well, terribly unreliable.

What also grinds my gears is lack of serviceability. So much gear these days is made on a production line and assembled in a specific order. While this is efficient from a manufacturing point of view, it makes servicing significantly more difficult. Having to dissassemble an entire unit just to reach one component is a total ball-ache. What happened to the days when front, back, top and bottom panels could all be removed and boards just slid out nicely! TTi are terrible for this...

[aroby]

"Made in the US" is pretty much a guarantee that something is going to suck.

That's a rather broad generalization and very dependent on the manufacturer.  GM and Ford - generally piss poor, but they are building to a price point.  Outside of the US, their cars are decent.  I have a Mercedes built in the US - it's excellent in all regards. 

Anthony

[baljemmett]

Foreign companies building in the US is a different matter. Nissan makes cars in the UK and they are pretty good. Japanese quality, Japanese factory, Japanese process. Of course there aren't any British manufacturers any more. Jaguar/Land Rover are Chinese IIRC. Tata (Indian) owns a former British company too, but I forget which.

Tata owns JLR - Nanjing (Chinese) bought the tattered remnants of MG Rover after it went into administration, although they promptly sold the Rover half of the brand to Ford (who at that point owned the JLR brand, having bought it off BMW, and later sold both to Tata.)

[zapta]

Same with TVs and Hi-Fi equipment too. Who wants a shitty Westinghouse when you can have a Sharp? Monster cables and Beats headphones anyone? Thought not. Apple/Dell/HP laptop or NEC? Texas calculator or Casio/Citizen/Sharp?

What NEC laptop is better quality than Apple's?

[Martin.M]

I don`t want to pay 1000+$ for a scope in a plastic case with pink and light blue buttons 

greetings
Martin

[Dave]

I don`t want to pay 1000+$ for a scope in a plastic case with pink and light blue buttons 

You can pay over 30 grand for a scope and you are still going to get a plastic case.
As for the pink and light blue, I assume you are referring to Rigol scopes. They probably just picked the colours they thought would be easy to distinguish on the screen. Are you afraid looking at a pink trace might suddenly turn you gay? 

[jlmoon]

Aggravation would be comparing a precision US designed device,  using top shelf parts and obviously higher prices to a Chinese / Japanese knock off design by your prospective customer.

Actually I really was pointing more towards the knock off stuff from China.  Yes, I have a collection of Japanese equipment and it really is some good stuff.  They make some the best cameras in the industry.. Nikon, Canon.. etc.  Have to admit after owning my Rigol DS2000 series scope, they are getting better every day.. in their processes.  Bet they still use lead in their paint tho.. 

[jlmoon]

Jaguar/Land Rover are Chinese IIRC

IIRC.. Jaguar is owned by Ford .. or was a few years ago.

[zapta]

Are you afraid looking at a pink trace might suddenly turn you gay? 

Do you mean that pink is a special color that everybody should like?

[dannyf]

Jaguar/Land Rover are Chinese IIRC. Tata (Indian) owns a former British company too, but I forget which.

Wow!

They make some the best cameras in the industry.. Nikon, Canon.

Did nikon / canon make the best cameras when they came to market first? Do you know what they made?



Before they were great, "it is a Sony" was a derogatory term. and it still is on many of their products.

Japan makes so great stuff, and a lot of shitty stuff too. And they will continue to do that.

I drive a Nissan (a $40K car) now. I would put it on the list of some of the shittiest cars I have ever driven.

[vk6zgo]

Sony went through a stage where their stuff was the best in the business-particularly in the TV Broadcast field.

Tektronix tried to break into the Precision Picture Monitor business with their 650 series,which,when they worked properly,made many of the previous manufacturer's efforts look sick.
The problem is,they didn't work properly for very long!

When Sony came out with a Pix Monitor which fitted into the same space,it not only worked better than the Tek ,but it also continued to do so for years.

TV Stations are not dumb,they bought Sony!
Studio type VTRs were almost exclusively Sony for many years.

In TV transmission,the same story applied to NEC.
One place I worked at had older Siemens TV Tx as well as newer NECs.

If you held your face just right,& spent an enormous amount of time,you could get the Siemens further within spec than the NEC.
Come back next week,& it would have drifted out of spec.
Come back 6 months later,& the NEC would have hardly budged.(The older NECs were just as good!)

And the documentation--
NEC was in pretty good English,on glossy paper,with full circuit diagrams & descriptions of circuit operation.
The Siemens handbook was about 5th generation photo copy,with the English translation written by somebody's secretary who had taken a few English lessons.


Now,of course,Sony & NEC have thrown that great tradition away,& badge engineer Chinese & Korean stuff!
How the mighty  have fallen!

[echen1024]

Japanese people make some of the best products. I use a Canon laser printer, and it works a charm, as well as the EOS 6D I shoot all my videos with. Hell, even our 20year old Nikon SLR is still chugging along.

[Shredhead]

I see a lot of consumer electronics failing way too soon because of heat lately.  If they put a fan in half of these products, used better heat sinks or thought smarter about ventilation I think it would more than double the life of the product. 

Heat is the enemy of all electrical components.  You'd figure in over 100 years of using the crap, we'd get it by now.   

[T3sl4co1l]

Sony is a massive company.  They make everything from consumer crap to professional and industrial equipment.

If all you see is the latter (whether or not you've personally paid for it and understand how expensive it is), you'll think they're better than Tek.  (To be fair, given Tek's management since the late 80s, that's probably true though...)

If you've spent your life servicing bargain-basement TVs and VCRs and such, you're probably going to have a few choice words instead.

Just keep in mind that, whether your narrow experience is one of these, the other still exists, and life is more complex than just what you are aware of (this applies in general, not just to Sony ).

Tim

[Martin.M]

I don`t want to pay 1000+$ for a scope in a plastic case with pink and light blue buttons 

You can pay over 30 grand for a scope and you are still going to get a plastic case.
As for the pink and light blue, I assume you are referring to Rigol scopes. They probably just picked the colours they thought would be easy to distinguish on the screen. Are you afraid looking at a pink trace might suddenly turn you gay? 

I am too old for pink buttons 
As a collector of older test equipment I like to different expensive high quality gear, and low cost design. This is fixed in my head, not possible to remove that with new ideas. And a very lot of older people like me think the same. Pink and litght blue buttons are best joice for kids toys !
My favorite design may be a metal case (Tek blue) and a metal front with grey or red black buttons and black typing on the front. Also I like filters on the fan more then a dust sucker.
So I would pay more for the same scope what looks long life quality then for the same instrument in a toybox.
If your I Phone is cased in PE with a plastic window may be you will think the same, expensive have to be related to good design and quality.

greetings
Martin

[nihilism]

I drive a Nissan (a $40K car) now. I would put it on the list of some of the shittiest cars I have ever driven.

I drive also drive a 12 month old $40k Nissan and it's pretty poor compared to all the 10-20 year old Nissan's i've driven. Probably something to do with the fact it's made in Spain instead of Japan.

[jaxbird]

I, many years ago, did EE designs for actual products, I am in no educational way qualified to do so (but I did manage to pass some very strict military requirements for the stuff I did)

Anyway, one thing that really pissed me off was when I quit the job to move on to new challenges, they hired a "proper" electronics engineer. So I spent some weeks going through all the various products and designs, and the only time he raised his arms and went "ARRGHhh fu**ing amatures" was a small indicator board with some LEDS being PWMed with a slight over current, maybe 5 mA more than spec, cmon, in my experience LEDs will take a lot more than that when pulsed. Seriously I was thinking he wont last long...

Anyway, never really did investigate it, but I still believe most LEDs will take higher pulse current than constant current? Wrong?

[dannyf]

Mine was made in Japan.

most LEDs will take higher pulse current than constant current? Wrong?

Diodes in general are pretty resistant to current pulses. The old silicone diodes can take pulses 100x+ than its continuous current ratings. Schottky diodes a considerably less (10 - 20x) and LEDs are in that ballpark too.

[zapta]

LaVie Z and LaVie X for a start. User serviceable too.

Where is the home page of that line? Does it include ultra portables?  (wife and I are using Macbooks Air 11").

[rob77]

I drive a Nissan (a $40K car) now. I would put it on the list of some of the shittiest cars I have ever driven.

I drive also drive a 12 month old $40k Nissan and it's pretty poor compared to all the 10-20 year old Nissan's i've driven. Probably something to do with the fact it's made in Spain instead of Japan.

it's not just Nissan  i was quite happy with my '98 passat, but my '10 passat sucks - i'll never ever buy VW again.
the reason behind this is "cost savings" all the corporations are cutting the costs - making shitty products. and it's the same for cars, electronics, test gear...