Kicad is the best free EDA I've used and I know many others that use it. The active development and large community make it a no-brainer. I use Altium professionally ($$$) and I feel like Kicad could cover most of the…
It's ok, if you wait long enough it'll go back down to a small number. Or maybe a negative number and then the car crashes? Please cap your numbers for both user experience reasons, and safety reasons. Yes, have dealt…
Chipset makers, probably correct but there aren't that many companies that make them. Depends on the analogue front end if they support the new frequencies. I know the 3rd party module makers do tailor their modules to…
Many of these SoC have HDMI directly from the IC without needing additional hardware converters. Something like DP you need a converter IC which adds expense and board space/complexity. Something like MIPI -> DP, I…
You encounter this in older industrial equipment. Some of the old ethernet chipsets don't support automatically switching the pairs around. It's not really a problem since at least in our local area they need to be…
One of my earliest experiences with USB was back in the day where I had a PC without any USB front ports that were free. So I grabbed my USB thumb drive and reached around the back of the PC tower and plugged it in…
Often I see someone who will design something in CAD but not think about how the product will be manufactured. Design for manufacturing isn't a buzzword. It happens with both plastic and other type of enclosures (metal…
This is solid advice. Find something you're interested in and go from there. If you can't find anything, maybe build something like a weather station. You'll start with a simple task: read the ambient temperature and…
I agree with the parent comments. You will spend an absurd amount of time making library components, and you can't trust 3rd party. The 3rd party sites are a great starting point to take out some of the grunt work, but…
You can get a business account with Mouser/Digikey and then they just become another distributor. Your login gets discounted pricing (it's not much though) which is good for quick prototypes, and you can sometimes get…
I would generally agree with this, however I do find the esp32 on the whole has been as reliable as any of the major brands (although haven't had to use an ADC). We don't drive them too hard though, but their cheapness…
M.2 and PCIE style connectors are great for board-to-board connections. We use them all of the time in industrial applications. Super cheap and super reliable if you follow the rules. Very common to see all sorts of…
yeah this looks correct and it's a different world if you have direct access to the modem IC. To clarify I was referring to the modules that the average person can get their hands on. If you rip open the module (or look…
You generally pick one interface and do everything on that. The modules are still using old school AT commands (so you still send ATD to dial a phone number). Yeah the 4G uses the same AT interface over serial. You…
Most people will be familiar with RS-232 when connecting to a computer (COM ports). In the industrial/embedded world, it's still used quite a bit to connect to devices for logs/terminals/programming and setup etc. Of…
As someone who cut their teeth in embedded before going into web development, I've seen a significant amount of similarities between the two. The most obvious to me is that now we spend a lot of time connecting prebuilt…
A bit of a generalisation, but I tend to find when a traditional EE writes firmware, they treat the firmware as controlling the hardware and are more direct with their instructions. i.e. if they need to set a gpio they…
Single pair communications are invaluable in industrial applications - almost all of our scenarios involve the restriction of not being able to run new cable. The costs involved in running new cables can be eye watering…
Kicad is the best free EDA I've used and I know many others that use it. The active development and large community make it a no-brainer. I use Altium professionally ($$$) and I feel like Kicad could cover most of the…
It's ok, if you wait long enough it'll go back down to a small number. Or maybe a negative number and then the car crashes? Please cap your numbers for both user experience reasons, and safety reasons. Yes, have dealt…
Chipset makers, probably correct but there aren't that many companies that make them. Depends on the analogue front end if they support the new frequencies. I know the 3rd party module makers do tailor their modules to…
Many of these SoC have HDMI directly from the IC without needing additional hardware converters. Something like DP you need a converter IC which adds expense and board space/complexity. Something like MIPI -> DP, I…
You encounter this in older industrial equipment. Some of the old ethernet chipsets don't support automatically switching the pairs around. It's not really a problem since at least in our local area they need to be…
One of my earliest experiences with USB was back in the day where I had a PC without any USB front ports that were free. So I grabbed my USB thumb drive and reached around the back of the PC tower and plugged it in…
Often I see someone who will design something in CAD but not think about how the product will be manufactured. Design for manufacturing isn't a buzzword. It happens with both plastic and other type of enclosures (metal…
This is solid advice. Find something you're interested in and go from there. If you can't find anything, maybe build something like a weather station. You'll start with a simple task: read the ambient temperature and…
I agree with the parent comments. You will spend an absurd amount of time making library components, and you can't trust 3rd party. The 3rd party sites are a great starting point to take out some of the grunt work, but…
You can get a business account with Mouser/Digikey and then they just become another distributor. Your login gets discounted pricing (it's not much though) which is good for quick prototypes, and you can sometimes get…
I would generally agree with this, however I do find the esp32 on the whole has been as reliable as any of the major brands (although haven't had to use an ADC). We don't drive them too hard though, but their cheapness…
M.2 and PCIE style connectors are great for board-to-board connections. We use them all of the time in industrial applications. Super cheap and super reliable if you follow the rules. Very common to see all sorts of…
yeah this looks correct and it's a different world if you have direct access to the modem IC. To clarify I was referring to the modules that the average person can get their hands on. If you rip open the module (or look…
You generally pick one interface and do everything on that. The modules are still using old school AT commands (so you still send ATD to dial a phone number). Yeah the 4G uses the same AT interface over serial. You…
Most people will be familiar with RS-232 when connecting to a computer (COM ports). In the industrial/embedded world, it's still used quite a bit to connect to devices for logs/terminals/programming and setup etc. Of…
As someone who cut their teeth in embedded before going into web development, I've seen a significant amount of similarities between the two. The most obvious to me is that now we spend a lot of time connecting prebuilt…
A bit of a generalisation, but I tend to find when a traditional EE writes firmware, they treat the firmware as controlling the hardware and are more direct with their instructions. i.e. if they need to set a gpio they…
Single pair communications are invaluable in industrial applications - almost all of our scenarios involve the restriction of not being able to run new cable. The costs involved in running new cables can be eye watering…