#Electronic Engineering

[technoarcanist]

I made this today as venting for my new job :'3

(Based on XKCD 2933)

[nuacam]

So excited to have my hands of the first proper prototype of my NuaCam project. It's crazy to see just how far I have come in a few short months, growing this from a simple idea to a functional device. The goal is to build a camera which utilising ai stylisation to capture reality in a new light. Now I can focus on improving the ai side to try and create exciting styles to use. The first prototype was causing lots of lost hours debugging due to lose wires, so I bite the bullet and designed this pcb to help me develop the software side.

[ztremx]

Shango runs a resurrected TV 12 hours per day to document deterioration

[milk-and-cold-custard]

Chat, is it cringe if I got high properly for the first time and all I can think about is RLC circuits?

[penguininmypocket]

fixing my earphones for the eighth time. some people think it's not worth it anymore and i should just buy a new pair. don't listen to the haters

anyway i decided to do it properly so I'm actually fully rebuilding it from top to tail

going insane tho

[nerdymemes]

[gattsuru]

I had to run by a Radio Shack on a few occasions for electronics components right up til their eventual closure.  They had the “electronics components” as a category, but they were largely supplying them from a small stack of cabinets, and not even all of that was populated, alongside maybe two or three types of ‘general starter electronics kit’.  Forget “building a radio”: the local place didn’t even have a full E6 resistors or magnet wire.  And their staff would be better trained to sell RC cars or cell phones (the latter of which was nearly half the store by 2012) than to answer even simple electronics questions.

((Note the lack of transformers even listed on those cabinets; at best they’d have a couple variable-voltage wall warts.))

Their online catalog was better in variety -- I got a lot of copper-plated boards during their going-out-of-business sale -- but it was nowhere near competitive with online sellers even before dropshipping ate the world.  In many cases you’d be looking at three- to five-fold markup over McMaster-Carr or DigiKey prices, even including shipping.

Which... kinda points to the issue with foone’s alternate proposal. A RadioShack trying to sell to hobbyist enthusiasts would have still had to compete with the internet, and hobbyists ended up being pretty fickle about large purchases, too, no matter how much brand loyalty they might have had at a day-to-day basis.

With good reason: those electronics components cabinets often had a 10-fold markup over buying the same from local used electronics shops or 20-fold from online vendors, but if you needed a D-25 or a stack of LEDs in a hurry you’d be willing to pay a couple bucks for the convenience.  And those really weren’t enough to keep the lights on or doors open at the scale -- even small family used electronics shops have to operate at a drastically different format.  Meanwhile, if you wanted to make even a moderately-complicated electronics circuit, you’d be looking at tens if not hundred of dollars in price differences between RadioShack’s local options and online sellers.

((And, separately, the modern education system had absolutely slaughtered any interest in low-level electronics pre-Arduino, and not just as primary or secondary school levels.  I’ve talked with post-grad EEs who hadn’t touched a component smaller than a NAND gate.  The internet has done amazing things for connectivity and community among hardware enthuisiasts, but we’re still a dying breed.))

But RadioShack’s pre-00s business model sold the small stuff like transformers and capacitors so that it could also sell the big stuff: sound systems, full radio kits, so on.  Even back in the 1980s, they were far more .  The point of selling mechanical keyboards, had they made it to today, wouldn’t be to sell a handful of 50-cent cherry switches for $3 each, but that they could sell a 50-buck mechanical keyboard kit for $200.  I think that would have been a more successful approach in retrospect... but it’d also be the sort of thing that would have been ‘successful’ on the scale of a few hundred stores at most, rather than the thousands that RadioShack was operating (and often locked into).

((They did sell Arduino and RaspberryPi-style kits, mostly MAKE magazine or Seeed-variant stuff, just around 2012-2013. But they were very much marketed at Young Children Educational Gifts rather than viable projects.))

Microcenter and some hardware stores have taken that approach, and they do exist -- though it’s still not their core focus so much as a way to drive other sales -- but they’re the sort of business that can only support a location or two per city, rather than the convenient strip-mall front that RadioShack aimed for.

Does anyone remember what happened to Radio Shack?

They started out selling niche electronics supplies. Capacitors and transformers and shit. This was never the most popular thing, but they had an audience, one that they had a real lock on. No one else was doing that, so all the electronics geeks had to go to them, back in the days before online ordering. They branched out into other electronics too, but kept doing the electronic components.

Eventually they realize that they are making more money selling cell phones and remote control cars than they were with those electronic components. After all, everyone needs a cellphone and some electronic toys, but how many people need a multimeter and some resistors?

So they pivoted, and started only selling that stuff. All cellphones, all remote control cars, stop wasting store space on this niche shit.

And then Walmart and Target and Circuit City and Best Buy ate their lunch. Those companies were already running big stores that sold cellphones and remote control cars, and they had more leverage to get lower prices and selling more stuff meant they had more reasons to go in there, and they couldn't compete. Without the niche electronics stuff that had been their core brand, there was no reason to go to their stores. Everything they sold, you could get elsewhere, and almost always for cheaper, and probably you could buy 5 other things you needed while you were there, stuff Radio Shack didn't sell.

And Radio Shack is gone now. They had a small but loyal customer base that they were never going to lose, but they decided to switch to a bigger but more fickle customer base, one that would go somewhere else for convenience or a bargain. Rather than stick with what they were great at (and only they could do), they switched to something they were only okay at... putting them in a bigger pond with a lot of bigger fish who promptly out-competed them.

If Radio Shack had stayed with their core audience, who knows what would have happened? Maybe they wouldn't have made a billion dollars, but maybe they would still be around, still serving that community, still getting by. They may have had a small audience, but they had basically no competition for that audience. But yeah, we only know for sure what would happen if they decided to attempt to go more mainstream: They fail and die. We know for sure because that's what they did.

I don't know why I keep thinking about the story of what happened to Radio Shack. It just keeps feeling relevant for some reason.

[krstseo]

The ECE Department at KRCT, Trichy, organized a PCB Design Value-Added Course on March 24–25, 2024, for second-year students. Led by expert Kasthuri, the course provided comprehensive training on PCB design fundamentals, layout techniques, software tools, and manufacturing considerations, coupled with hands-on projects.

This initiative enhanced students' practical skills, industry readiness, and confidence. With support from Dr. M. Kavitha, the program bridged academic learning with real-world applications, reaffirming KRCT’s commitment to student success and career growth.

[chriselison]

I forgot to post this video, this is my first video on my electronics channel!

My first video on the channel! In this video I unbox and test my second Fluke multimeter - the 87V! This is my third ever meter and I was eager to unbox it and try it out! In contrast to my 115, this is a true electronics multimeter with its milliamp and microamp ranges and frequency measurement up to 200KHz! This is a 6000 count meter with a 20,000 count high-res mode! I think this will be my main meter from now on, although I do have my eye on either the EEVBlog Brymen, 121GW or the UNI-T 61E+.

I purchased this meter from RS Components here in the UK. Please excuse the crude approach to testing the meter - this was meant to be an unboxing and first impressions, not an accurate test or review. The resistors, capacitors and diodes I used were from my junk bin, mind you, that 470nF capacitor seemed way off, I'm not good at maths, maybe someone can let me know in the comments!

[sohaibsmart]

The perfect TVs of 2023: from Sony, Samsung, LG, TCL, and extra

2023 has been a superb yr for TVs, and we’ve had the nice privilege of testing a number of of the very best QLED TVs, OLED TVs, and QD-OLED TVs ourselves. That being stated, if you happen to’re interested by upgrading your front room set, plan on buying one as a present, or just need to add a number of screens to your property, we’ve put collectively this checklist of all the very best TVs you…

[nuacam]

Not a visually pleasing update, but a very important step has been completed...on the technical side at least. I shall convince a designer to help me update the visuals later. From the local access point of the camera it is now possible to check for firmware updates and initiate them if available. This is an important step as it allows for new features to be added after launch, without manually reprogramming each device. As always follow for more updates and to see this project come to fruition.

[389]

Devon Turnbull, Hifi listening Room Dream No.1, a high performance, handmade sound system with a wall of brutalist speakers is a site specific acoustic experience, described as a “shrine to music” by its creator, artist, designer and audio engineer Devon Turnbull.

[bluekiivi]

in the workshop

[otterdrawz]

Silly doodle of the components chewing on Electra like rabid pack animals

Crying

[penguininmypocket]

fixing my earphones for the eighth time. some people think it's not worth it anymore and i should just buy a new pair. don't listen to the haters

anyway i decided to do it properly so I'm actually fully rebuilding it from top to tail

going insane tho

[mataeeylooey]

Chapter 5: Electra and Components Updates

As Greaseball, Dinah, Rusty, Ashley, Buffy, and Pearl are held up in the shed conversing about what to do next the sound of explosions and gunfire can be heard in the distance.