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CircuitMaker

2015/07/06 By staze

CircuitMakerNever being terribly happy with Eagle (I didn’t grow up on it, and really only used it because it was free, and ran on the Mac (unlike KiCad), the idea of CircuitMaker seemed great. Those that use Altium seem to love it, but it costs an arm and a leg. CircuitMaker promised to be free, and offer a lot of the features of Altium. Sadly, it seems it misses one mark in that it’s PC only (though it’s easy enough to run in VMWare). There does seem to be a huge interest from the community on a Mac version, however (a fair number of threads, and responses to threads asking for it).

Using the tool seems quite similar to pretty much any EDA software (good), and it imports Eagle files (great). I don’t work on much in the way of confidential stuff, so the fact stuff is open to the public is fine by me. I just imported my two Eagle projects (relating to a GPSDO, and a Rubidium Oscillator), and the GPSDO has been forked so far.

At this point, I can’t say much more about the product other than I like where it’s going. I would like some way to work offline, like on flights, etc. They could probably allow a “checkout” for a project, then limit the amount of time you work on it before checking back in. I guess the biggest issue with that is it would make collaboration very difficult, if that’s the direction they want to really head with it (multiple hobbyists working on the same design).

Anyway, at this point, I’d give it a solid 4/5, with a point knocked off for being Windows only. Once they get a Mac version out the door, I’ll give it that last point. Right now, though, I’m going to try out Upverter, and maybe a more recent build of Kicad (they seem to have official builds for Mac now).

Chris Gammell (“The Amp Hour”, and “Contextual Electronics”) did a review a bit ago comparing Kicad, CircuitMaker, and Upverter. If you are familiar with Chris, you may know the results before reading ((I kid, of course. While he does certainly prefer KiCad, he does seem to give the others a fair shake, and admits most design work is done with a net connection, so offline work isn’t really THAT big a deal)). =P

Filed Under: Electronics Tagged With: Altium, Chris Gammell, CircuitMaker, KiCad, Upverter

Pioneer CDJ-100S Repair

2015/07/04 By staze

cdj-100s_angleFor almost a year, I’ve had a CDJ-100s that my brother inlaw gave me to repair. He picked it up second hand from his employer as broken, and was hoping I could fix it. Basic troubleshooting showed it wouldn’t read disks. You’d put a disk in, it would spin up, but then never show track info, or start playing. I did find the Service Manual online several places (linked here), but beyond basic troubleshooting, it required the “YEDS-7” disk, which is also called the Sony Test Disk 3. Which costs, from everything I can find, at least $150 (and has also been discontinued). So, it sat in my repair pile.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Electronics Tagged With: CD Player, Pioneer CDJ-100s, repair

Tektronix

2015/06/23 By staze

tektronix_logo_designsparkA year or so ago, when the Tektronix MDO3000 series scope was released, I signed up to win one from Tektronix. At the time, I used my personal email and home phone number since it was a competition (why would I used my office phone)? Shortly after, the calls from Tektronix started asking me if I wanted to buy anything, was looking to buy anything, etc (sales/marketing calls). Most of the time, they’d just call early in the morning (8-9am), or somehow, right when my one year old was taking a nap. =/

They would also send an email follow up, though they wouldn’t leave a voicemail. After the second time it happened, I emailed them back and said “please don’t call my home phone, call my work phone xxx-xxx-xxxx”. No response. Then a mouth or so later, another call and email. Respond to email, no response. The third time, I finally got a response to the email saying they would have to talk to their supervisor about removing me from the list. A follow up resulted in nothing, but also no calls for at least a month. Then another call at 8am one day, and I lost my patience. I emailed their main PR/Marketing email address on the Tektronix website with something rather stern, and commenting that I grew up across the street from Tektronix, and many of my family members, as well as my wife’s father, worked there for years. For a couple weeks, I heard nothing, but then I heard from a Senior Communications Manager apologizing, and saying she would look into where the process failed, and had me removed from their lists. Also, she said she was going to mail me a gift as an apology. I provided my mailing address, and a couple weeks later, got an overnight notice from UPS that something was due for delivery. What did it have?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Miscellany Tagged With: Marketing, Tektronix

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