Hard at Work

I suppose by my time of life I should be retired, or I should be in charge of some large admin department somewhere, devoting my weekends to perfecting my golf swing.

Instead I solder on at the bench and the CAD pc screen, spending my time chasing impossibly small electronic components around tiny circuit boards with tweezers and iron.

(Here's one I designed earlier)

Later that same month: Here we are, attacking the unsuspecting board with test equipment and data manuals. 

This is one of the lonelier moments in the Electronics Designers life: Making a new design work for the first time is always a testing time (pun inteded). This new thing has never seen the light of day before, there are no previous examples to fall back on for comparison. No-one else in the company understands it to the detail that I do, so there's no-one else to ask.

 

Is the schematic right? Did I make any mistakes on the layout? Will the processor start? Are there mistakes in the Assembler or the VHDL code? Will there be some fundamental error?

I've always maintained an Electronics career is a moving target. It doesn't matter what knowledge you have accumulated over your years in the business, some of it will look out of date in two years, and most of it will be useless in ten years. It's just that sort of game.

So there you are. It's hard at work... but being positive, at least I work indoors :-)