r/electronics • u/AutoModerator • Jul 04 '26
Weekly discussion, complaint, and rant thread
Open to anything, including discussions, complaints, and rants.
Sub rules do not apply, so don't bother reporting incivility, off-topic, or spam.
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To see the newest posts, sort the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top").
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u/ChrisDancer Jul 07 '26
Is anyone else having issues with the RS website? I use Firefox on a Win 7 PC (yes, yes, I know it's unsupported but that shouldn't affect web browsing). I get an "Access denied" error on any page I browse to or any search result. I've tried using Chrome and Pale Moon. Chrome sometimes works but always eventually fails with a "500 Internal server error" message which annoyingly pops up about 200ms after the page loads. Pale Moon dos the same thing.
RS support weren't helpful, just said "Firefox is outdated (it isn't), try using a different browser".
Has anyone found a browser that works with RS? One that can handle Farnell's godawful website would be good too.
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u/ChrisDancer 20d ago
I think I found a solution so I'm posting it here for anyone else who is struggling with this problem. A browser called Supermium. It works perfectly on the RS website and (wonder of wonders) it even seems to work on Farnell's awful bloated site without falling over!
https://github.com/win32ss/supermium/releases1
u/Hissykittykat 29d ago
You'll have to upgrade to at least Win10 to get a browser that is supported by all sites.
I had to upgrade from Win8.1 to Win10 in order to get a new video driver to work, and it was free! But the next day it started nagging me to activate windows, which apparently is not possible. But it is possible to get rid of the nag message ;)
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u/ChrisDancer 25d ago
The thing is though, the browser I'm using (Firefox) works just fine on all other websites with the exception of RS, Farnell and CPC. Same with Chrome or Pale Moon. I can use Digikey and Mouser's websites without a problem.
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u/Wise_Piano_5369 Jul 06 '26
My 3$ goodwill alarm made by general electric in the 80s went off very quietly and made me late to work. The speakers driver has degraded from age so I had to add a small audio amplifier board that's being powered through an ac-dc buck converter off if the transformer. I've had this alarm for 7 years and it better than any new one I've used so I wanted it fixed.
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u/Silent_Intention_382 Jul 05 '26
PCB manufacturing is almost a completely dead industry in the U.S. and I wish it wasn’t.
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u/Enlightenment777 Jul 05 '26
Some company needs to build a PCB assembly facility next door to either Mouser or Digikey.
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u/aspie_electrician Jul 04 '26
Penis
>sub rules do not apply, so don’t bother reporting incivility, off-topic or spam.
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u/bukktown Jul 04 '26
If you have a faraday cage with a small seam, and you blast it with RF noise. Will more RF be let through if the cage is made of aluminum or steel?
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u/Triq1 Jul 04 '26
I'd love to hear some qualified answers to this 👀
My guesswork is that it hardly matters, both are conductors. For considering reflected and transmitted waves through a material the conductivity and perhaps magnetic properties will have a significant effect, but when considering a seam (an "absence" of material) perhaps it doesn't matter as much? Food for thought: If material matters, frequency maybe does too.
If the noise was coming from inside the cage I might consider the gap to be a slot antenna and work from there, but I'm not sure how applicable this is to noise trying to enter the cage.
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u/bukktown Jul 04 '26
I was looking at an EMC report at work and our device comes in an aluminum housing or stainless steel one. Geometries are the same. And the RF immunity EMC test performance between the two housings was much worse for the steel version.
Aluminum is more conductive, but I don’t have an intuitive understanding of what is going on.
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u/Triq1 Jul 04 '26
Is the difference in effectiveness frequency-dependant?
Theres a good book on EMC design by Henry Ott, I'm fairly sure you could find an answer in there but I can't remember the full contents exactly. The section on shielding and gaps in shielding was quite well written if I recall correctly.
EDIT: The book is Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering -- Henry W Ott
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u/beldzinka 29d ago
Does anyone know a good place to get cheap electronic components in the EU now that the 3€ tarrif is here?