- Poking holes in a plastic project box with a soldering iron isn't something you'd do in production, but it's fairly common when screwing around with a hobbyist project.
- Twisted-pair cable either requires either grounding one wire in the pair (in 100baseT) or fancy differential-signalling tricks. (in 1000baseT or HDMI)
- Sounds like the biggest problem was solder joint failure as a result of inadequate strain relief. In satellite design, where repair is, of course, impossible; the rule is to never use a solder joint as a mechanical connection. The component is secured to the frame, and the wire coming off the component is separately secured.
If you're not building a satellite, the method of accomplishing this is usually hot-glue, copious amounts of it, on everything. (As seen in cheap hand-assembled electronics. Expensive electronics are robot-assembled and use SMD components, which usually don't need strain relief unless you're doing something really exciting.)
In a bunch of the cases, the problem was "hysterically bad solder joints." It wasn't so much that the joints would fail when put under pressure as that they'd fail when you looked at them funny.
There's a personal balance point between customization and portability e.g. how much to customize Vim or rely on shell/git aliases. These kinds of customizations can improve your personal workstation, at the cost of incompatibility with other people's machines and the spin-up time for new machines.
For keyboards, having to sometimes use other people's machines as well as frequently switching between my desktop and laptop means that, while tempting, this level of customization is too far for me. The sweet spot for me is a high quality mechanical switch (-style) keyboard: Topre's Realforce.
An interesting wrinkle in these "column" keyboards (where Q-A-Z are lined up in a column rather than staggered) is that I self-corrected for this deficiency years ago; my left pinky hits Q-A-Shift, ring finger hits W-S-Z, middle hits E-D-X etc.
The W-S-Z fingering leads to a nice curve that mostly follows the movement of your finger, just like what you get on the right side of the keyboard (U-J-M, etc).
I don't know how folks type Q-A-Z with their little finger. It causes immediate hand pain to curl my fingers inward/perpendicular to hit Z, X, C, and V.
I imagine this method was only taught in the first place thanks to clueless typing teachers who thought "first keys on the left = first left finger", ergonomics be damned. Does anyone else type "Z" with their ring finger?
He's really lucky he wasn't arrested by the TSA, like that guy who had a custom-made watch and got arrested for "possessing all elements needed to make bomb". Namely - a few wires and a battery. He was arrested and put under $10k bail.
A Keyboard that was opened and soldered on the inside? That could earn you some nice jail time in the Uncle Sam's land of freedom.
Edit: But yeah, the project looks really cool, something that each one of us uses every day and yet is so complicated internally. Well done.
Part of the trick is that I was aware of what I had with me and was careful to actually open its case so the TSA agents could easily see what it was. I was friendly and engaged and prepared to talk their ears off about ergonomics ;)
Flying out of DCA a week later, the TSA agent was astonished that I wasn't _selling_ keyboards -- "People will buy anything. You should make some money on that shit."
Transiting Narita and flying out of Taipei a week after that, I just put it through the X-Ray. Nobody said a thing.
sbierwagen|13 years ago
- Twisted-pair cable either requires either grounding one wire in the pair (in 100baseT) or fancy differential-signalling tricks. (in 1000baseT or HDMI)
- Sounds like the biggest problem was solder joint failure as a result of inadequate strain relief. In satellite design, where repair is, of course, impossible; the rule is to never use a solder joint as a mechanical connection. The component is secured to the frame, and the wire coming off the component is separately secured.
If you're not building a satellite, the method of accomplishing this is usually hot-glue, copious amounts of it, on everything. (As seen in cheap hand-assembled electronics. Expensive electronics are robot-assembled and use SMD components, which usually don't need strain relief unless you're doing something really exciting.)
obrajesse|13 years ago
In a bunch of the cases, the problem was "hysterically bad solder joints." It wasn't so much that the joints would fail when put under pressure as that they'd fail when you looked at them funny.
wallflower|13 years ago
OT: Related from yesterday, a USC doctoral student has proven that a "strain or stress gradient" is key to tin whisker growth
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893745
joebadmo|13 years ago
For keyboards, having to sometimes use other people's machines as well as frequently switching between my desktop and laptop means that, while tempting, this level of customization is too far for me. The sweet spot for me is a high quality mechanical switch (-style) keyboard: Topre's Realforce.
pkamb|13 years ago
The W-S-Z fingering leads to a nice curve that mostly follows the movement of your finger, just like what you get on the right side of the keyboard (U-J-M, etc).
I don't know how folks type Q-A-Z with their little finger. It causes immediate hand pain to curl my fingers inward/perpendicular to hit Z, X, C, and V.
I imagine this method was only taught in the first place thanks to clueless typing teachers who thought "first keys on the left = first left finger", ergonomics be damned. Does anyone else type "Z" with their ring finger?
obrajesse|13 years ago
shabble|13 years ago
thinker|13 years ago
obrajesse|13 years ago
kurjam|13 years ago
grimborg|13 years ago
obrajesse|13 years ago
gambiting|13 years ago
Edit: But yeah, the project looks really cool, something that each one of us uses every day and yet is so complicated internally. Well done.
obrajesse|13 years ago
Flying out of DCA a week later, the TSA agent was astonished that I wasn't _selling_ keyboards -- "People will buy anything. You should make some money on that shit."
Transiting Narita and flying out of Taipei a week after that, I just put it through the X-Ray. Nobody said a thing.
unknown|13 years ago
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gcb|13 years ago
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