Spot the gear

[codaroma]

Spot the gear. A bit low end for a satelite company?
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/02/19/multimedia/SATELLITE-12-tcmv/SATELLITE-12-tcmv-superJumbo.jpg
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/02/19/multimedia/SATELLITE-11-cqlg/SATELLITE-11-cqlg-superJumbo.jpg
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/science/satellites-albedo-privacy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.W00.NG1X.5t6JsokByetV&smid=url-share

[EggertEnjoyer123]

I bet that's just the digital circuits team or something.

Usually companies have different departments for RF, power, digital, etc. The people working with a $3 microcontrollers don't need 1 GHz oscilloscopes.

[slugrustle]

Nice circuit board holder in the lower left.  And I really appreciate them actually taking ESD precautions.  That's refreshing to see.

I think I have the same brand of variac.

[slugrustle]

I bet that's just the digital circuits team or something.

Oh, here's a frightening thought: Maybe even in satellites, the firmware is still the hardest part.

[coppercone2]

I bet that's just the digital circuits team or something.

Usually companies have different departments for RF, power, digital, etc. The people working with a $3 microcontrollers don't need 1 GHz oscilloscopes.

every time I see this in a real situation its totally false  and counter productive and some stupid bureaucrat is saying it.

that is exactly how you make a team stagnate and generally resort to random guessing and hunches instead of engineering. Especially with scopes. Unless its a special scope with some kind of silly requirements like 5V maximum input, its needed.

I heard this BS with microscopes too. Got a microscope solved like 10 ongoing problems that week that were basically crippling.


the cheap oscilloscope digital dev team is probobly spearheaded by the glitch-gasslighter. there are NO GLITCHES. NO YOU DON'T NEED GOOD TRIGGERS AND MEMORY!! ITS JUST  _______.

[CatalinaWOW]

I bet that's just the digital circuits team or something.

Usually companies have different departments for RF, power, digital, etc. The people working with a $3 microcontrollers don't need 1 GHz oscilloscopes.

every time I see this in a real situation its totally false  and counter productive and some stupid bureaucrat is saying it.

that is exactly how you make a team stagnate and generally resort to random guessing and hunches instead of engineering. Especially with scopes. Unless its a special scope with some kind of silly requirements like 5V maximum input, its needed.

I heard this BS with microscopes too. Got a microscope solved like 10 ongoing problems that week that were basically crippling.


the cheap oscilloscope digital dev team is probobly spearheaded by the glitch-gasslighter. there are NO GLITCHES. NO YOU DON'T NEED GOOD TRIGGERS AND MEMORY!! ITS JUST  _______.

You are as far off in the other direction as the bean counters you are complaining about.  Your line of thinking would say that there is no reason for anyone to be supplied with a 4 digit DMM, that everyone who measures voltage needs an 8 1/2 digit DMM. 

Money is always finite, and if you expend all of it on one top end piece of gear you can't look at anything any other way.  Often you are better off with assortment of good equipment instead of one really fantastic piece of gear.   The same idea expands with larger budgets, where there might be enough to buy a hundred really fantastic pieces of gear, but more could be done with 10 pieces of the high end stuff and 500 lesser instruments. Would you rather have a decent piece of gear at your beck and call 24/7, or book an appointment with the really good gear sometime on Thursday of next week?

The most important equipment is always installed between and above the shoulders, and should be applied when specifying equipment requirements.

[coppercone2]

i think im saying that in corporate don't let someone tell you what you need because its not enough 90% of the time, they are underestimating your abilities 100% of the time and the budget is not being spent fairly 95% of the time.

Off the cuff crap like digital designers don't need 1 GHz is management rubbish

we got some BS RF tool once to 'determine' something for a report, thankfully I know how to make an weak antenna out of lab supplies connected to the borrowed MDO so we can use calibrated trustworthy equipment then submitting downright BS data generated by some cheap doo-dad that is 'enough for our purposes".

not to mention in any decent lab you get to train people that might leave, at least they get some experience using good equipment that broadens their horizons and allows them at at least chew the fat with more advanced organizations.

also if you put something nice in the cal sheet that shows people are willing to spend on the best it gets taken way more seriously then when the guy reading it knows that you got good stuff vs considering the info your providing is on the edge of equipment usability.


AND ITS A HIGH SPEED WORLD NOW.

Increase frequency (and accuracy) and your opportunities just open way up then playing around some 'abyssal zone' bandwidth region. You can actually do stuff without it being cut throat with a buncha old experts. It's like being a colorful fish in the coral reef vs a angler in the marinara trench.

[Demon Xanth]

More likely this is the bench set up for the photo shoot and they grabbed whatever test equipment that was laying around/just come back from cal/not being used. And the real work is being done on this bench:

[coromonadalix]

 

[CatalinaWOW]

i think im saying that in corporate don't let someone tell you what you need because its not enough 90% of the time, they are underestimating your abilities 100% of the time and the budget is not being spent fairly 95% of the time.

Off the cuff crap like digital designers don't need 1 GHz is management rubbish

we got some BS RF tool once to 'determine' something for a report, thankfully I know how to make an weak antenna out of lab supplies connected to the borrowed MDO so we can use calibrated trustworthy equipment then submitting downright BS data generated by some cheap doo-dad that is 'enough for our purposes".

not to mention in any decent lab you get to train people that might leave, at least they get some experience using good equipment that broadens their horizons and allows them at at least chew the fat with more advanced organizations.

also if you put something nice in the cal sheet that shows people are willing to spend on the best it gets taken way more seriously then when the guy reading it knows that you got good stuff vs considering the info your providing is on the edge of equipment usability.


AND ITS A HIGH SPEED WORLD NOW.

Increase frequency (and accuracy) and your opportunities just open way up then playing around some 'abyssal zone' bandwidth region. You can actually do stuff without it being cut throat with a buncha old experts. It's like being a colorful fish in the coral reef vs a angler in the marinara trench.

I am not saying that good equipment is never necessary.  And more bandwidth can be needed than was ever true before.  When I started in this field 50 MHz was voodoo region.  In the 70s 100MHz was good equipment but not bleeding edge.  And now, for people working high speed digital even GHz can seem limiting. 

But for many applications such speed is not needed.  And with appropriate filters the stuff the high speed guys are generating can be kept out of your near DC (100Mhz) circuits.  If you are doing a washing machine controller, or flight controls for an aircraft whose response time is measured in tens of milliseconds there is no reason to subject yourself to the pain of controlling sub-nanosecond rise times.  The solar controller that is dealing with events that happen slowly over twenty four hours doesn't benefit from executing billions of clock cycles in doing the job.   There is a huge world of application and invention that isn't high speed digital logic. 

I agree that there is benefit in training outside your current needs.  But the tens of thousands of dollars spent on a high end scope could buy a lot of formal training that could easily be more beneficial to both employee and company. 

The decision about what equipment to buy requires thought.  And empathy.  Your comments about the fairness of budgeting sound a lot like public opinion about fair taxation.  When discussed it always turns out that fair means that the speaker pays less and someone else pays more.  In a local situation to raise money to repair schools, improve curriculum and raise teacher pay there was near universal agreement that these were good things to do.  But people on fixed incomes felt that people with children in school should be prime targets for increased taxation.  Business owners felt they already had been taxed to the hilt and someone else needed to pay.  Low income people thought property owners were the right target.  Property owners felt businesses should pay because they would be the beneficiaries of a well trained work force.  And so on.

[colorado.rob]

Anyone know what benches they are using and where to get them?

[KungFuJosh]

Anyone know what benches they are using and where to get them?

Looks like standard lab furniture with custom (probably) anti-static and/or heat resistant material on top.

[colorado.rob]

Anyone know what benches they are using and where to get them?

Looks like standard lab furniture with custom (probably) anti-static and/or heat resistant material on top.

Yes, I can get rolls of anti-static mat material. Not cheap. But I don't have a good source for lab furniture that isn't as expensive as the lab equipment its holding.

[abeyer]

But I don't have a good source for lab furniture that isn't as expensive as the lab equipment its holding.

Watch surplus auctions... it often gets sold off cheap (or thrown away if no one bids) when emptying out old lab space.

[KungFuJosh]

Yes, I can get rolls of anti-static mat material. Not cheap. But I don't have a good source for lab furniture that isn't as expensive as the lab equipment its holding.

Unfortunately, none of it is reasonably priced. The best prices I've ever seen on lab furniture is on craigslist when people move or close their lab. If they need to move in a hurry, you can probably get a much better price if you haggle.