[time-nuts] HP Stories: Battery Chargers, and a fading idolization of HP

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

On 2/10/2019 4:35 AM, Rice, Hugh (IPH Writing Systems) wrote:

> 
> Somewhere over the years I picked up this line:   “A good engineer is a lazy engineer.  They are always looking for the easiest way to do things.”     The designer of the 5061A battery charger was definitely not a lazy engineer.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Hugh Rice
> 

As Hugh writes about the "ghost engineer" (analogous to "ghost writer")
behind the charger, I can't help thinking about Len Cutler for at
least 3 reasons:

1.  Len was the leader of the flying clock mission.  I can easily
imagine that Len wanted the fast recharge capability based either
on some actual incident concerning the flying clocks, or it could
just be Len being a perfectionist.  Len will be Len.  The 10 dB
design margin philosophy was a constant point of discussion during
the 5071 project.  The results speak for themselves.

2.  The giant unobtainable mica capacitor has Len's fingerprints
all over it.  On the 5071, Len wanted to use a tantalum capacitor
for the power supply filter.  Imagine what that cap would now cost
in these days of "conflict minerals".  The project team mutinied and Len
backed down.  It was all moot anyway after we decided to use Vicor
modules.  That seemed very avante garde at the time, but now seems
sensible.  BTW, I heard the those giant WWII military mica capacitors
were made from large contiguous chunks of mica.  A some point after
the war, the mica mines were played out, similar to the quartz mines,
and only small pieces of mica were available.  The capacitor vendors
made "reconstituted" mica out of crumbs.  The crystal vendors didn't
have that option so they had to invent synthetic quartz.

3.  "A good engineer is a lazy engineer".  Definitely not in Len's
wheelhouse.  When I replaced the harmonic generator with a phase
locked DRO, Len didn't have any real technical criticisms of it,
but scolded me for "taking the easy way out."

Hugh's comment about the disconnect between the architect defining
the design and the engineer implementing the design is right on
target.  As I got more experience in engineering, it became clear that 
the architect is responsible for 95% of the success or failure of the 
project.  Hugh is to be congratulated for putting on his architect's hat
instead of throwing good money after bad.

Rick