Interview with Paul J. Clarke

Featured Engineer

Paul J. Clarke

Paul J. Clarke - Electronics Design Engineer at ebm-papst UK Ltd.; MIET; Blogger

How did you get into electronics/ engineering and when did you start?

My Dad used to fix TVs when I was about 8 or 9 and I remember looking into the back of them, the glow of the valves and smell of solder. By the time I was ten I had learned what a transistor was, could do Ohms Law and had started building Maplin projects. At the same time I got a ZX81 and the next year a ZX-Spectrum and very quickly learned to not only program them in assembler but to fix them too. I loved building projects and pulling apart of broken VCR’s, radios and anything electrical. I also wanted to build a robot, so was constantly hooking up bits of electronics circuits to bits of computers to make them do stuff. I eventually built my own Z80 computer board and have not looked back since.

What are your favorite hardware tools that you use?

There is not much you can’t debug without a LED hanging on the end of a 330R resistor, but a good DVM and scope are a must. I also love the Microchip PICKit Serial Analyzer which is a great little tool for SPI, I2C and RS232 serial communications. Other than that and because I work a lot with PICs it’s a PICKit2 Programmer and debugger.

What are your favorite software tools that you use?

I use lots of smaller packages for odd little jobs that help me though the day, so NotePad++ is a great editor and WinMerge for comparing files. However I’m really starting to like the new MPLAB X that has lots of nice features built in. All my PCB design is done in PADs however the most useful software tool is a web browser to all the social media engineering world.

What is the hardest/trickiest bug you have ever fixed?

The oddest bug I had was with a TMS UV erasable microcontroller. Program and hardware were all fine on the desk but once fitted in the case would not even boot. Another engineer joked it did not like the dark so we fitted a small light in the case and guess what, it booted and run ok. Was finally traced down to vector table not being programmed. I did not have the UV window covered so somehow when the chip was in the light the chip was effected such that it would run. Took days to track down.

What is on your bookshelf?

Art of Electronics
VHDL for Logic Synthesis
The Designers Guide to VHDL
PHP 6 and MySQL 5
Wurth Elektronik – Trilogy of Inductors
Also have a Red Hat Linux book but can’t remember title as our IT department have borrowed it.

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve?

Problems are never as hard as they look and easy to make more complex than they are. When I get stuck I walk away, make some tea, walk round the block, or sleep on it. You have to clear your head to fix problems however best debugging tool is talking it over with another engineer – you will get half way though a sentence and then think of something new to try or see what you have done.

From a design point of view – design step by step. I always design, build and test it on its own.

What has been your favorite project?

For me its always the next project, the one I have not totally figured out or started. I like the challenges, big or small. This is one of the great things about my job at ebm-papst is that we are not only working on standard product but we design bespoke designs for customers so never know whats coming next!

However a project that is clean and simple and has the biggest impact are nice – so that would be my Metrication project that took place just after 2000. This was a project to retro fit all the supermarket checkout scales so they could be converted from imperial to metric. There was a total of 50,000+ checkout scales all converted over a few days. So the design had to be made so that users in a store could trigger the conversion. Hardware and software wise it was very simple, but the testing had to prove it was better that 99% reliable – and it was.

Do you have any note-worthy engineering experiences?

Being a engineer and being good at it is like becoming a great motorbike racer – only only learn the limits by falling off. So there have been a few shocks – small thankfully. Lots of dead devices and blow trips. Its not like I do it on purpose you know – however after working on Power Factor Correction circuits for a few years, well anyone who has will tell you that you get used to devices exploding – especially 1nF 600volt caps that have had heat stress!

What are you currently working on?

There is so much! At work I’m looking at lots of new stuff that I can’t say too much about (I just hate that!). But outside I’m busy blogging on DesignSpark and EngineerBlogs as well as reviewing dev kits. I don’t have a lab at home unfortunately but am playing with Arduino’s and mbeds and maybe who knows I may get that robot I always wanted to build built, but manly want to get back to writing VHDL.

What direction do you see your business heading in the next few years?

Electronics is getting smaller and smaller and there is more and more packed in a chip. my Z80 computer was massive compared to a signal chip microcontroller you can by for 70 pence now. We are just going to see more and more in these chips. Like a 28pin dual core 32bit micro with 500k+ FPGA gates for under a dollar. Tools are going to get more and more easy to use and can even see micro’s running and or complying C code script themselves. Its going to be mad but really exciting what ever happens.

What challenges do you foresee in our industry?

I feel resources as in getting people interested in engineering and in my view, into electronics. Many schools I have visited will cover the mechanical side but very few run electronics classes. We need to get kids at a early age building kits and playing with electronics or any engineering tools. If we don’t then we will have a massive engineer vacuum or a bunch of people who only moved into engineering because all the art or business classes were full!