On Fri, 29 Dec 2017 08:00:00 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

"Michael A Terrell" wrote in message
...

They hired an expert in RF system design from a college, since it
was their first 'Million Dollar Headend'. It looked like it was laid
out by a drunken teenager who had only seen an I-pad.

My degree is in Chemistry, a very hands-on field in which you may not
have an assistant, so we learned the practice as well as the theory.

I can't wait to see the gore and glory when a Millennial architect
gets together with a Millennial inspector, who then let a Millennial
contractor and Millennial carpenters and metalworkers build the
skyscraper. You thought you had it bad...


I
haven't often seen the same from many recent electrical and mechanical
engineering graduates or the co-op undergrads I rode herd on. After
they left I redesigned their circuits with half the components, which
mattered when packed into a Xilinx chip.
https://www.wpi.edu/student-experien...lopment/co-ops

At least you were getting them from Polytechnic colleges. We had a
new teacher fill in for another at Coleman College when I was learning
about trons. He had been an English teacher and was now teaching
Computer Electronics Technology. I thought that rather odd, and knew
(and found) that I couldn't ask him any tech questions. I believe the
Teacher's Union Industrial Complex have a "teaching algorithm" which,
in theory, allows any graduate to teach anything in a matter of weeks.
Marry that to even more Post-Modernist/Feminist/Progressive thinking
and you have what's teaching (and coming out of) Uni these days.


I picked up a lot of practical knowledge from the manufacturers' data
sheets I studied to learn how to use their products. Switches and
fuses for instance aren't that simple if you need to push their
capabilities while expecting long life.

That's the correct way. We knuckle busters installed circuit breakers
in cars with hi-power stereos because transient currents could and
would break normal fusing. That was before they were running enough
amperage and speakerage to blow the hatches half an inch off their
seals. I can't imagine the overpressure in the vehicle, matched with
the decibels of the Rap (which I still refuse to call "music") does
their brains or bodies any good.


http://www.littelfuse.com/~/media/au..._fuseology.pdf
One young engineer kept asking me for Polaroid scope camera film by
the case, until I showed him that data sheet which answered all his
questions.

(facepalm) I imagine he found those as interesting as the paper
things we used to refer to as "manuals".
"What'll they think of next?"


The 30A output breaker on my welding transformer power supply can hold
70A for a few seconds, to quickly measure diode drop etc. At 300A it's
rated to open but not necessarily to close ever again.

I'd say that's most likely a good thing.

--
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplacable spark.

In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and
the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish
and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but
never have been able to reach.

The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real,
it is possible, it is yours.
-- Ayn Rand