[time-nuts] Anybody want a Thunderbolt power supply?
Charles Steinmetz
csteinmetz at yandex.com
Wed Aug 31 23:02:54 UTC 2016
Bob wrote:
> I don't mean to cause offense, but is everything you don't like crap? The reality is that whatever the market will bear is what determines what comes to market. If you can find high quality goods on ebay that can be modified to fit your needs, then you win. There is a substantial market that either cannot do those mods or would rather spend their time elsewhere. So, what they're willing to pay is going to determine what's available for sale.
No, but I often view things that don't do the job they need to do as
crap, especially if they are offered in such a way as to suggest that
they are, in fact, useful for the intended purpose. So, let's take the
proposed power supply -- a switching regulator to develop +5v and -12v
supplies from an existing +12v supply, with noise of 35mVp-p, offered
specifically as a power supply solution for Tbolt GPSDOs. If the
offering said explicitly that a Tbolt can't provide its best performance
with the product because of its high noise level, then I might be on the
fence about whether it was "crap." But if it were offered as a power
supply for Tbolts with no mention of what I consider to be a large
departure from acceptable performance for the intended use, then yes,
I'd probably consider it "crap."
The issue is that many users do not know what the relevant needs are.
Rightly or wrongly, they are relying on suppliers to do that job for
them. So, offering something for a particular use carries the
implication that it is really useful for that purpose. If a seller
tells a time-nut that a power supply is designed to run a Tbolt, an
implicit representation has been made that it will work in that role as
a time-nut would expect it to. But IMO, the proposed product would not
do so because of the high noise level.
So, what distinguishes this from packages that have been sold to
time-nuts in the past that included power supplies that also did not
work in that role as a time-nut would expect? In those cases, due
largely to this list, there was widespread discussion of the issue and
equally widespread knowledge that for time-nuts-quality results, the PS
that came with the package needed to be replaced with something better.
So at this point, if someone offers a PS to time nuts for use with
Tbolts, it would be natural to assume that the seller was familiar with
that history and was offering the "something better." So today, if that
is *not* the case, it should be stated explicitly.
Best regards,
Charles
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