Damn you element 14!

[TopherTheME]

So its 2:30AM on a Tuesday and yet again I'm up late trouble shooting a project. I built a power management controller thing which contains two DC-DC converters, a fan controller, and a few other things. For some reason the switching controller chips (AD1621's) weren't working. I looked and I probed and eventually I found that there was something wrong with the resistors that are used to set the switching frequency of the controllers. Well, it turns out they weren't resistors at all! They were @#$%ing capacitors! Element-14 had sent me 1.56uF capacitors in bag labeled for 31.6kOhm resistors that I had ordered. Now I'm tempted to go through all the other components in the board and see if they're right. Anyway, moral of the story, don't always trust your vendor.

Another 3 hours of my life gone to waste.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I've had a couple of occasions where they've sent incorrect SMD parts in the last couple of months - looks like they're too busy with all this rebranding bollocks than improving their service.