Are any of you like me? 4

[huda79]

I have been out of school for 7 years. I graduated with a BSEE from a "top ten" engineering school with a good gpa. I have never worked in design or R&D. I work in compliance engineering. My question is how many of you can understand how a circuit works just by looking at the schematic of a product? In my role, I see many products and have a hard time understanding what is going on. I can "read" a schematic but cannot explain how it works and why certain components are where they are. Is this because I never worked in design or do I just suck at engineering?

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

ctopher,

Well I can explain how a watch keeps time, but don't know a thing about designing parts or tooling. Together we may just be unstoppable.

 

[Noway2]

One book that I really recommend is The Art of Electronics. It explains, in great detail yet in words that the average engineer can understand, much about how and why you do many things in electronics. For me, even though I read it 10+ years out of school, it filled in a lot of the missing gaps in my education and left me with the feeling of, "Ah, now I get finally it". I also think that book, coupled with Howard Johnson's High Speed Digital Design really helped me to become better at design.

 

[spongebob007]

So what kind of jobs do you guys who are doing all this math have?

I have been working for almost 16 years now and I can count on one hand then number of times I have solved a differential equation for work. I use math quite regularly, but most of it is HS level algebra done with Mathcad or Excel. I do a lot of analysis, but even there, the computer is doing all the math.

 

[spongebob007]

FFT? I use programs like LABVIEW and MATLAB for that, so while I use things like FFT all the time, I don't touch the math part of it. Same thing with shock response spectra. I don't use the convolution integral to find the SRS, I simply plug the time history data into a program and it spits out a shock spectrum.

 

[TheTick]

There are lots of people out there like you, that are not able to design. Unfortunately, many of them are employed as designers.

 

[Ron]

TheTick...well said. LPS for you.

Ron

 

[btrueblood]

Mike,

That book was our textbook for Junior level Aero Lab classes. Came in handy a few times.

 

[brandoncdg]

I use math for work. I also agree that we learned so much math in school so we would understand what all the equations mean. Just because I plug and chug manning's equation in excel doesn't mean I shouldn't know how to do that by hand using a calculator.

For the OP, besides asking questions, I always found it useful to ask why they did something a certain way. And probably even bothered the person more as I then asked something related to those questions so I could get a good understanding of how the topic worked together. I also could assume you just need more experience in whatever you aren't understanding.

My favorite quote from a project manager was the more someone tells you they know everything, the more they don't know anything.

Civil Development Group, LLC
Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading

http://civildevelopmentgroup.com

http://civildevelopmentgroup.com/blog

 

[GregLocock]

"So what kind of jobs do you guys who are doing all this math have?"

Vehicle dynamics development (ride and handling in the old money).



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[SomptingGuy]

spongebob007,

Some of us have the pleasure (?) of writing the engineering software used in our industries.

Some of us get involved with detailed analysis of time series data (mostly NVH people). This often involves a lot more than throwing data at a cook-book FFT algorithm and plotting a spectrum.

It's all horses for courses. Finding ones place in the big scheme of things. I'd much rather be a nerd in the corner imagining the effect of a hilbert transform on some tooth-passing data from an inductive probe than an engineering operations director.

- Steve

 

[IRstuff]

Systems engineering, analysis, concept development.
Mathcad and Excel, nothing terribly complex; almost exclusively algebraic in nature, with goal seeking.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[thruthefence]

I can relate a story, a bit long, but bear with me; years ago, I was about to run a vibration survey on an aircraft propeller. The equipment was a Chadwick Helmuth 177a:

http://www.turbinetraders.com/turbine177.htm

When preparing the machine for use, I noted the test function was not working,

I forget exactly what the symptoms were.

I brought the unit back inside the shop, and and was helplessly perusing the voluminous schematics, hoping to recognize a fuse (OR SOMETHING) that might be at fault. About this time, the head of our small avionics department came by, possibly drawn by the 'smell' of a schematic.

He Asked what the problem was, and then flips through the manual for a minute or two, settles on one page, and points to a component buried in this mess of lines. "There's your problem" he said. "That zener's open"

"Bullshit" is what I replied. "No way"! This whole exercise has taken maybe 5 minutes. Well, he looks up the p/n of the "zener" and says he probably has one for his bench work repairs, in stock.

I'm still not convinced, but get the Bosses' approval for some 'in house' labor. The tech opens it up, unstacks maybe four boards, and locates the culprit. It is replaced, and the box re assembled.

A quick run on the calibrator to check it, and it's good as new. I relate this story, only to illustrate that there ARE people who can think on this level. I personally believe such technicians are like the "Guild Navigators" from the old "Dune" SciFi books. They operate on a different level.

 

[KirbyWan]

Thruthefence

That's an awesome story. I was expecting you to end with something like "yeah that same thing happend last month and it took us three weeks to find the problem, but by omitting that fact he'll think I'm an electronics god." or "replacing zener diode $20. Knowing which diode to replace $10000". I hope to have that kind of mastery in some subject by the time I'm a grey beard. And I need to hurry because it's already getting salt and peppery.

-Kirby

Kirby Wilkerson

Remember, first define the problem, then solve it.

 

[kepharda]

Kirby,

Smart people can get to that level of skill if you work in the same field and are always trying to learn more about it. Its an easy thing to do for 1-3 years, gets difficult at 5 years, really hard approaching 15.

If you are always pressing to make yourself better you will have those situations when you solve a problem, someone asks you how you did it and then you go into a long explanation of how you connected the dots but it really just confuses people even more than if you told them "Magic!"

This is why companies are always trying to hire someone with "Experience" that is very specific.

this message has been approved for citizen to elect kepharda 2008

 

[thruthefence]

Actually, he was quite nonchalant about the whole affair. It was like "Rainman" when the toothpicks fell to the floor. This was may twenty years ago, and the fellow now owns his own successful Avionics shop, still terrible on paperwork, though.

 

[ScottyUK]

I'll second the earlier recommendations for The Art of Electronics and also anything by Bob Pease. I'll add in Douglas Self from over here in the UK, not because he is a master of amplifier design (which he is) but because his analysis of linear circuit design is so thorough. If you study and become competent with linear (analog) circuit design then the digital world becomes easier to deal with. Fundamentally it's an analog world we live in, however much we try to digitise it, and most of the problems with digital circuits ultimately have their roots in analog problems.


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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!

 

[SomptingGuy]

I have The Art of Electronics. Seemed like such a cool and potentially useful book when I bought it nearly 20 years ago. One day I'll take it into the shed and start using it properly.

- Steve

 

[Waidesworld]

I have no qualms going to our most senior electrical engineer with mundane questions every other day. If I don't ask, I'll never learn.

My engineering skillset is entirely different to his and he defers to me every so often on my knowledge.

drawn to design, designed to draw

 

[TheTick]

Most senior engineer should make sure you are assigned a suitable mentor.

 

[Waidesworld]

Tick, we are a small company so the most senior is one of five...and to be honest, he's the only one that I'd trust the answer from. The others are experts in their own fields some fields being much smaller than others.

drawn to design, designed to draw