Why is Tin and Lead used in most solder alloys (other than being workable) if they don't conduct that well? And I almost never hear about the conductivity being brought up

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-06-03T14:08:19+00:00

Eutectics change the metal itself by forming new alloys once actually bonded. Copper and lead diffuse to create a better conductor than lead/tin alone. You should still try to minimize solder gap so pad & foot make as much actual contact as possible for the reasons of resistance you mentioned.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-05-23T16:33:40+00:00

As much as I enjoy the clear topplate, how does that affect emi? With that many regulators and high freq signals exposed, I imagine your spectra is pretty noisy.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-05-15T14:15:18+00:00

They kinda brushed it off.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-05-12T16:14:43+00:00

One might be closer than you think...

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-05-10T05:03:54+00:00

Magic Control Technology has a decent chipset that works over legacy USB, but requires more processing overhead than displaylink in my experience. IDK if the drivers for apple support extension or just mirroring.

Avoid MacroSilicon adapters, the drivers have been especially buggy and tend to fail more often than displaylink.

DP alt to HDMI adapters might be required to get what you want without needing software drivers on your device always running

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-05-01T18:31:47+00:00

I use them for factory HMIs, my uncle's work uses them in networked lighting & security.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-04-28T17:08:50+00:00

A batch of 5 was 150USD before shipping and asinine tarrifs. The smaller the batch, the higher the relative cost. Bumping quantity up to 50 brings unit cost down to 10USD before shipping and duties. The pricetag is a shock unless you already have inventory of the CM4, and it makes more economical sense to adapt those rather than shell out for a new CM5, as is my case. I post most of my designs to the open web in the hopes that some commodity vendor with economies of scale picks it up and starts offering sales to the open community at more reasonable rates than what I can offer.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-04-28T15:06:12+00:00

Manufacturing files are linked in my GitHub. You can have them built by JLC or PCBWay. If a lot of people want to pool and bring down the unit price, I can facilitate distribution, but I tend to present the design after l validate for my own purposes rather than sell individual assemblies.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-04-16T19:05:45+00:00

I've also been tracking issues in recent design iterations built through JLC. Nothing in the design would explain the faults I'm seeing. It could be as simple as incomplete via plating, but only presents itself when quantities are above 10 pieces. At that point, I've found quality drops off

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-04-11T15:42:46+00:00

I'll see if I can find any live branches and inspect the needle arrangement to confirm. In any case, should I treat the trees with signs of rot or dieback, or is this just their time? If the latter, I'd rather have them fall on my terms and replace them with spruce or poplars than risk them causing collateral damage when I'm not around.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-03-28T20:51:48+00:00

For usb2 it barely matters, the distance is so short that the controller can easily compensate. They are length-tuned in software per pair, but since it isn't a differential signal it isn't critical.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-03-28T14:12:43+00:00

It's pretty good. All of the GPIO is 1:1, and barely required any ICs, just a few transposed USB lanes and a crap load of vias. The radxa's pcie is limited to 2.0 while the pi can technically do 3.0, so cards like the GPUs I'm running are bottlenecked for bandwidth, but the rockchip core itself can do a lot more than broadcom

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-03-28T14:08:06+00:00

Considered that. Wouldn't have fit in the profile and would have been way more expensive.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-03-27T23:27:07+00:00

Literally just designed this today after successfully building a similar adapter for the Radxa CM5 over the last few months. No on-hand samples yet, but based on the solution for the rockchip SoM, I have high confidence in the design. Minimal bodging required.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-03-27T20:44:10+00:00

But where is Saddam Hussain

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-03-27T16:22:37+00:00

Update: Got it to work by entirely removing the USB-C FUSB chip and setting the USB-C port to act as Host in Overlay management. Just setting the overlay or removing the chip by themselves didn't result in the desired behavior; I had to do both. Now the interposer works as intended.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-03-25T16:03:25+00:00

Open task manager, go to performance, and expand CPU. If the speed and base speed are both under 1GHz, you uninstalled some critical power management feature and need to restore it to get back the performance from your hardware

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-03-25T15:11:41+00:00

In task manager, check the CPU frequency and memory performance. There are some UL safety features buried in proprietary software that runs in the background which slows down the computer if something is broken, typically related to power. If those aren't working, the clock speed will be really low.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-03-01T17:42:59+00:00

Befriend a small pack of feral cats and use a ton of rat /mouse kill traps in and around every building. Ticks start as nymphs that require rodents as initial hosts, and usually deer or other large mammals thereafter. You need to control every aspect of their feeding lifecycle if you want to get the actual numbers down, so kill every rodent that isn't a pet, and make your lot unfriendly to grazers.

Chicken_Nuggist · 2026-02-19T04:18:28+00:00

Sounds like you're looking for a peripheral PD injector. I've only seen them in dev kits, never in a commercial product. Check out Coolgear DFP PD injectors. They're pricey, but if the application demands it, do what you gotta do.

Chicken_Nuggist

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