In the movie Core the computer geek hero (yes he was the hero) says at one point, “My Kung Fu is strong”.
That’s exactly how I felt yesterday. I wasn’t really designing a new circuit. I was was locked in a ‘to the death’ martial arts struggle. Each component threw obstacle in the way and fixes impacted other components. This board reads many very small, (and I do mean small) voltages off a customers experiment then notes the direction of the sensor. It takes the data and writes it to a memory stick and fires off a copy with a short range wireless serial port to another computer.
I would give a karate chop and layout one solution only to find that design fought back with a “manufacture stopped making that components six months ago” kick. Thinking fast I ducked with the replacement part, but I got nailed by USB interface and A/D converted pushing me over my power budget.
Normally I would spend a couple of weeks designing, then prototype and test one then build up the flight article. However with the schedule I had yesterday to design it, today to build two and tomorrow to write the software for it.
Late last night it all came together. As long as the Saturday part deliverys really make it, all will be well. My Kung Fu is strong.
I wonder if I could recruit David Carridine?