not the Flux Capacitor?!?!
The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
81–90 of 269 posts
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#82It's a good thing that these machines don't even need -5 volts. With just the positive voltages provided, RS-422 still works, including LocalTalk.
I think the -5 volts is only there in case an expansion card needs it.
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
and Apple will very happily charge you for that privilege
TBH for such a critical piece of our modern lives, I would be more than fine to pay extra to be 100% sure I am getting original parts, put in professionally and in secure manner re my personal data. I wish ie Samsung had such service where I live. We anyway talk about expensive premium phones to start with, so relatively expensive after-warranty service is not shocking. This may actually eventually sway me into apple…
I don't. Such mechanisms also disqualify 3rd party replacements. It is just a wasteful solution. Not that any smartphone would qualify as decent here.
But as a customer it will overall be more expensive for you.
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#84I spent my mid childhood on an LCIII. One summer my friend brought his Performa over and we tried to play 1v1 Warcraft 2 over the serial port. LocalTalk or something alike?
But it just never quite worked right. I remember how frustrated and confused my older brother was. The computers would sometimes see each other but would drop off so easily.
Was this that?!
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#85The first board I ever designed and had manufactured had a reversed tantalum capacitor on the power rails and exploded somewhat dramatically when powered up. Lesson learned!
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#86[dead]
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#87The author seems to misunderstand PCB design flow. This is neither a "factory component placement issue" nor a silkscreen error. The error is in the schematic. The layout CAD is often done by a different team that follows the schematic provided by design engineering. Automated workflows are common. The silk screen is predefined in a QA'd library. It is not their job to double check engineering's schematic. The compon…
>The layout CAD is often done by a different team that follows the schematic provided by design engineering. Just as a note, this is a fairly archaic way of working nowadays. At my place schematic design and layout go hand-in-hand, and we rejected a candidate because he didn't do the latter. The main reason is layout is no longer an afterthought, it's a key part of the electrical design of the system, and there's lit…
Indeed, and this is true in other engineering activities such as mechanical design as well. Possibly with the exception of very large shops, there are no draftsmen any more, and the design engineer also creates the production drawings. And the software lends itself to this. Schematic / layout, and design / drawing, are joined together in the design software. It would be very hard to make a mistake like the one in TFA today.
Even the free software that I use -- KiCad -- would ding me.
We make bigger mistakes instead. ;-)
Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#88Well, today I learned to install one capacitor in reverse orientation on the PCB on a 34 year old computer... Definitely starting Wednesday off productively.
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Re: The capacitor that Apple soldered incorrectly at the factory
#89Well, today I learned to install one capacitor in reverse orientation on the PCB on a 34 year old computer... Definitely starting Wednesday off productively.
Well, until today I didn't even know capacitor can have orientation! So more productive Wednesday than yours. In entry level electronics class I had decades ago it was always treated as a component that works the same way no matter in which direction the current flows.
Once you have experienced blowing up a reversed elcap you will never forget its orientation. I never understood though what makes it leak current and hence heat up.