Schematic checking buddy - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ddavidebor
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2019, 10:19:39 pm
content: Crazy idea:For those of us who mainly design "alone", why don't we pair up to check each other designs?Pros:* limited exposure of the design (not publishing it online). Assuming the pairs are not competitors in the same market.* good way to learn new ways of doing stuff* cheaper to fix issues at an earlier design stage* 1+1=5 (cause you know how to do precise stuff, and i know how to do cheap stuff, and cheap is good, and precise is good, but cheap and precise is much better)* profit!

author: 001
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2019, 08:25:17 am
content: Quote from: ddavidebor on August 18, 2019, 10:19:39 pm

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2019, 12:47:36 pm
content: What could possibly go wrong trusting a stranger to not share your secret design?

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2019, 01:06:00 pm
content: Discuss your design with a colleague.If you're the only engineer in the company, hire another one (possible part time) or make use of a consultant, with whom you have a non-disclosure agreement.Don't expect something for nothing.

author: DTJ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2019, 01:15:09 pm
content: I actually like the idea. It may take a while to build some trust.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2019, 01:34:10 pm
content: Even if you build some trust, doing this without a proper NDA first can be pretty risky.The other person may not even break your trust intentionally. What if their computer gets hacked and your files get in the wrong hands or something?The problem with a 100% free relationship like this is that you can't really establish a working NDA. Those usually include some kind of damage clause in case something goes wrong. Nobody working for free will want to sign this.Even the "good way to learn new ways of doing stuff" you mentioned is problematic. Where do you draw the line?If you still want to do that, one suggestion is to never send any critical file via e-mail. Put them on secured online storage with passwords, do not send the passwords via e-mail, and remove the files after they have been downloaded.

author: ddavidebor
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2019, 02:09:53 pm
content: Quote from: DTJ on August 19, 2019, 01:15:09 pmEverybody trust Aussies!

author: ddavidebor
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2019, 02:30:18 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on August 19, 2019, 01:34:10 pmOf course, it needs to be balanced. If you share super-critical if-the-competition-knows-i-am-using-this-ic-i-am-doomed kind of documents dum you.Here two examples of two product I designed:a) cheap thing produced in the 1000s. Uses rf analog electronics that took 2yrs to develop. is super cool-looking and precise and awesome due to this electronics. The competition is 100 times bigger than my company, and their products suck.b) super advanced scientific instrument that goes -150°C to 150°C with a fancy variable magnetic field mechanics and liquid nitrogen. Electronics is a bunch of analog circuitry and some basic digital. Half the circuitry is literally drawn in the manual. Any good engineer could re-design it given the manual and a 10 seconds video of how it operates.a) for god sake don't shareb) meh.In general, everybody has their thresholds. As long as demand and offer meet the market works :-)

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2019, 03:38:32 pm
content: I could see contacting someone by PM for something like this.OTOH, I do not personally like PMs and generally do not respond to them ... unless they are from a bank officer in Nigeria telling me I can get 1.6 million $USD$ if I just give them my bank account details.If you think someone might be able to help you then maybe ask in a relevant thread if it is OK to contact them by PM.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2019, 03:57:06 pm
content: Because a review is time consuming if done right, or not sufficient if you dont spend enough time on it.An average engineer in the EU can easily charge about 100EUR/hour for engineering consulting.How many hours do you think the review takes?

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2019, 05:53:13 pm
content: Back in, er, can't remember but it was 3-day week time in the UK, we created schematics using pen, ink and paper on pukka drawing boards (and PCB layouts using tape on film). You can imagine that the potential for mistakes was quite high. Being a contract house, it was important that everything we released was error free.So, the way we checked stuff was to have two guys working together, one on the schematic and t'other on the layout. The schematic guy would call out some track endpoint (device or connector pin) and the layout guy would then trace that track and call out whatever it connected to. The schematic guy would highlight (on a copy print, obvs) those connections as they are called out. A bad connection would be one that didn't exist on the schematic, and at the end all the schematic tracks should be highlighted. Each chap would check the tracking or drawing as they're ticking stuff off, so every single segment got checked along the way.It didn't take too long to do this and was very effective.And then computer systems got to be affordable and couldn't make mistakes, so that practice fell out of favour. You can hand over a design to a colleague for perusal, but he's not going to made to look at every track as he would be the old way, so there's stuff he'll probably miss. Still, you know it'll pass the ERC and such like.