Nuts and Volts - September 2008

by Bryan Bergeron, Editor

DE VELOPING

PERSPECTIVES

Economical Electronics

In the current economic downturn, it may be difficult for you to rationalize spending what’s left of your dwindling disposable income on electronic components, test equipment, and other non-essentials. However, your electronics avocation needn’t be an all-or-nothing proposition. There are numerous ways of cutting costs without diminishing your enjoyment. In fact, if your focus is circuit design, then you’ll probably find the engineering challenge of getting the most from affordable components more rewarding than simply ordering and using the latest generation chips. And there are also options for

construction enthusiasts.

Doing more with less is nothing new to those of us who work in electronics. Most electronic engineers face economic pressure on a daily basis from both management and the market. As enthusiasts, we often have the luxury of working at our leisure, of relatively flexible budgets, and of over-engineering circuit designs so to cover any likely operating constraints. In comparison, a five cent difference in the cost of a component can destroy the profit margin on a product run of 50,000, and can make the difference between commercial success and failure. So what can you do, as an electronics enthusiast, to minimize cost? I suggest the following:

• Design With Cost in Mind

If you’re designing, for example, an audio circuit, do you really need the latest, ultra-low-noise op-amps? Can you get by with an inexpensive, somewhat older chip without a discernable difference in quality? Are the components in your design available from suppliers in single units? Do you really need a printed circuit board, or can you achieve the same results with an all-purpose board? Are you over-embellishing your design with marginally useful LCD displays, meters, LEDs, and switches?