Tales From The Cube
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Copy thatJohn E Rogers, Test Engineer, November 11, 2011A copy machine causes trouble for two engineers chasing phantom oscillations. More
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The $1 million recallSamuel Kerem, engineer, November 11, 2011An engineer’s reputation almost goes up in smoke after a power module comes back from the field heavily burned. More
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Cow tippingArnold N Simonsen, Electrical Engineer, November 11, 2011Open-range cattle have one engineer scratching his head when it comes to boresight measurements. More
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The silence of the circuitHarry Maddox, Senior Engineer, November 11, 2011A challenging VCR-to-TV connection is nothing compared to winning this engineer’s small-town mother and neighbors over after inadvertently playing The Silence of the Lambs. More
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Eastern dreamsSteven Goldberg, InterDigital Communications LLC, November 3, 2011Things that you assume are constants may not always be so. More
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You auto knowVishwas Vaidya, Tata Motors, October 20, 2011An 8-bit controller for air-path control of a direct-injection diesel engine fails miserably under EMC testing, leaving one engineer to investigate why RF radiation was tripping its outputs. More
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The red-cable bluesLarry Goga, Sound Engineer, October 6, 2011One engineer learns that although shielded wire and coaxial cable often look similar, they are not the same. More
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Not set in stoneThomas F Fava , Engineering Consultant, September 22, 2011A high-availability storage system was infrequently but randomly rebooting, resulting in temporary losses of storage access. Nobody could identify the cause, and major customers who experienced the problem were getting restless. More
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Coffee-break mistakeNigel Adams, Aeroflex Ltd, September 8, 2011In this intriguing case, stopping for coffee also caused a stoppage in several test systems. More
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Tales From The Cube: Tell Us Your Tale ContestEDN staff, August 26, 2011What's your Tale? Tell us about a memorable experience you've had successfully solving an engineering problem and you could win a Tektronix scope. More
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Going against the grain dustDouglas Forst, CMC Industrial Electronics Inc, August 25, 2011Solving the mystery of a locked-up microcontroller-turned safety feature provides a challenge for one company owner. More
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On the dark sideWalter Sjursen, Songbird Hearing Inc, August 11, 2011Address lines left floating can create strange symptoms that may be difficult to resolve. More
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Orange you glad?Steve Tomporowski, Kaman Precision Products, July 28, 2011Some call them "passive" components, but that doesn’t prevent them from actively disrupting designs. The physical characteristics sometimes make the mundane design turn ugly. More
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Unable cable proves stableJim Sylivant, Professional Engineer, July 14, 2011Discarded RS-232 cables, assumed to be bad, save the day for a manufacturing line experiencing a shutdown. More
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An illuminating discoveryGeorge Catlin, Exceptional Innovation, June 23, 2011An engineer faces a puzzle as a simple product improvement pushes a display module past its limits. Worldwide changes follow as others deal with the same problem. More
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Hammer it homeRoy Timpe, Engineer, June 9, 2011Failure to anticipate the consequences of scaling the circuits in a burn-in system leads to some tricky trouble-shooting. The company's production goals are threatened, and the pressure is on. More
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The Ex-scope-istAlbert Helfrick, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, May 26, 2011A creative intern drives out the evil spirit that seems to be lodged in an oscilloscope. More
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Silo slip-upLarry K Baxter, CapSense, May 12, 2011Poor cooperation between departments is common, but as one engineer recounts, his company carried the functional-silo scenario to extremes. More
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Floats like a butterfly, stings like a beeJan Gazda, Engineer, April 21, 2011A new chip works perfectly the first time it is powered up, but never again. Is the problem the design, or elsewhere? More
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Band togetherKunal Ghosh, Project Manager, April 7, 2011One engineer given the task of testing graphics equalizers devises a way to speed up the process. More
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