4 ms·

Make instruments and sell them like furniture makers, carpenters, most kinds of law (how many wills do you need?) etc

by wbl 7y ago

ChuckMcM 7y ago
Sort of a 'make on demand' model. It might work. These days it is hard to find parts that don't get end-of-lifed after 5 years, so you're re-doing schematics and thus your instrument's PCB. You could perhaps make a modular structure such that the instrument was constructed from modules but I'm not sure how well that would work. The open source trend is to put the instrument in its box and connect via USB to a computer that provides the UX. That works but has the issue of computer operating system compatibility. I've got a USB scope in my junk drawer that has a UI that only works on Windows 98. Not too useful these days, and the company is out of business. The instrument control protocol standards help here.
- blattimwind 7y ago
  To some extent standardized assemblies have been used for a very long time. HP System 2 (the cute 1/3 rack units) is from the 60s, System 3 from the late 70s (I think), though the actually walked back on that one and later replaced the standardized cast aluminium parts with unit-specific sheet metal bending (3478A and others). Later they re-used the display/input modules, both HP and Keithley did this for a lot of their later DMMs and SMUs.
- colonwqbang 7y ago
  I assume that the program that only ran on Win 98 is not open source. If it was, chances are someone would have ported it to Linux by now.
  - ChuckMcM 7y ago
    You would be correct. Of course it is just a USB 2.1 box and enumerates as a HID device and a bulk data endpoint so presumably spending some time with a USB protocol analyzer and running it through its paces would illuminate some aspects of its operation. This is why its still in my junk box and not in an ewaste skip somewhere :-)
    - simcop2387 7y ago
      What model is it? There's a non-zero chance that someone has done that work already and made it work via sigrok, https://sigrok.org/wiki/Supported_hardware#Oscilloscopes https://sigrok.org/wiki/Supported_hardware#Oscilloscopes
- lb1lf 7y ago
  -Perhaps a stupid question, but wouldn't that UI live and thrive inside a Win98 VM? (I am cursed by the instrumentation gods - I have to keep all sorts of late-paleolithic configuration software running to support the ditto hardware we still rely on for specific tasks in our service department. I've found that just about anything can be coaxed into working - at least as long as it doesn't involve some copy protection scheme relying on slightly iffy RS232 timing and a dongle.

Make instruments and sell them like furniture makers, carpenters, most kinds of law (how many wills do you need?) etc

by wbl 7y ago

Make instruments and sell them like furniture makers, carpenters, most kinds of law (how many wills do you need?) etc

Sort of a 'make on demand' model. It might work. These days it is hard to find parts that don't get end-of-lifed after 5 years, so you're re-doing schematics and thus your instrument's PCB. You could perhaps make a modular structure such that the instrument was constructed from modules but I'm not sure how well that would work. The open source trend is to put the instrument in its box and connect via USB to a computer that provides the UX. That works but has the issue of computer operating system compatibility. I've got a USB scope in my junk drawer that has a UI that only works on Windows 98. Not too useful these days, and the company is out of business. The instrument control protocol standards help here.

blattimwind 7y ago
To some extent standardized assemblies have been used for a very long time. HP System 2 (the cute 1/3 rack units) is from the 60s, System 3 from the late 70s (I think), though the actually walked back on that one and later replaced the standardized cast aluminium parts with unit-specific sheet metal bending (3478A and others). Later they re-used the display/input modules, both HP and Keithley did this for a lot of their later DMMs and SMUs.
colonwqbang 7y ago
I assume that the program that only ran on Win 98 is not open source. If it was, chances are someone would have ported it to Linux by now.
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  You would be correct. Of course it is just a USB 2.1 box and enumerates as a HID device and a bulk data endpoint so presumably spending some time with a USB protocol analyzer and running it through its paces would illuminate some aspects of its operation. This is why its still in my junk box and not in an ewaste skip somewhere :-)
  - simcop2387 7y ago
    What model is it? There's a non-zero chance that someone has done that work already and made it work via sigrok, https://sigrok.org/wiki/Supported_hardware#Oscilloscopes https://sigrok.org/wiki/Supported_hardware#Oscilloscopes
lb1lf 7y ago
-Perhaps a stupid question, but wouldn't that UI live and thrive inside a Win98 VM? (I am cursed by the instrumentation gods - I have to keep all sorts of late-paleolithic configuration software running to support the ditto hardware we still rely on for specific tasks in our service department. I've found that just about anything can be coaxed into working - at least as long as it doesn't involve some copy protection scheme relying on slightly iffy RS232 timing and a dongle.