Re:How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs
by andrewem on Monday February 15, 2021 @08:33PM
(#26149942)
I had to look up why not to put diodes in parallel, and here’s an answer: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/6151/is-para...
Re:How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs
by taneq on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @10:26PM
(#26162287)
Everyone's talking about negative temperature coefficients there. I thought it was more to do with diodes having a roughly constant voltage drop in the first place, meaning if you put two diodes with different voltage drops in parallel, the one with the lower drop would steal most or all of the current from the start?
Re:How Tim Cook transformed Apple after Steve Jobs
by raverbashing on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @12:48AM
(#26151316)
The "diodes in parallel" thing sounds like cargo-culting and lack of knowledge beyond the basic stuff.
I wouldn't be surprised if reference circuits would have the double diode. Sad, but not surprised.
I found that diodes in parallel are surprisingly common around the industry.
This is such a thing which you are pretty much told on day 1 of any electronics course that it is impossible to not to know.
My only thinkable conclusion was that people keep doing it on purpose.
Other extreme cost cutting measures I saw were things like LEDs being used in double role as a diode. Wire wound around PCB used as inductor. Plug pegs being directly soldered to the PCB. Near paper thin plastic with holes from molding defects. Through hole components being soldered to each other. Flybacks without feedback. A 555 coaxed into use in a charger circuit.
You cannot come with any of that unknowingly, nor will you find any of that crap on the open market easily even in China.
It's pretty much an engineering equivalent of a "controlled flight into terrain," a direct result of suppliers being consciously directed into "stripping to the last cent" of the products by such unwitting buyers.