# Electronics Dopers: Timebase from 60Hz power. How?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronics-dopers-timebase-from-60hz-power-how/630056>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 1, 2012, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronics-dopers-timebase-from-60hz-power-how/630056 "2012-08-01T14:13:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronics-dopers-timebase-from-60hz-power-how/630056/21 "2012-08-02T01:28:18Z")

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> [@Cheshire\_Human](#):
>
> And most of those are either a) SMC, which I can’t deal with, or b) a heluvalot more complex than anything I’ll ever be able to design something to use. So really, designing to a 40 year old standard just means I’m designing to a standard that I can do without looking up specs every time, _And can buy cheap components for_. The Basic Stamp, which I mentioned in the OP, uses TTL spec. And that’s about my speed. I _could_, if I really had to, design something that uses an 8080 or 6502 processor, but those are both far beyond anything I’ve ever done, and also use TTL spec, anyway. So does USB. And, of course, so does anything that uses RS232. It hasn’t been abandoned, by any means.
> 
> Feel free to show me how a 3.3v RS232 or USB connection might even work, if you really think 3.3v matters.
> 
> Designing to modern standards that I would have to learn, _and_ get SMC tools, would make my life more difficult than sticking to what I know. I’m not a professional.
> 
> Gimme a break. I’m a moronic old fart hobbyist. I don’t do it for a living.

I go even further than you in this regard - I have never made anything that uses RS232 or USB; instead, I make up my own transmission protocols when I need some sort of data link (such as between a controller and the main circuit, or a monitor). Similarly, I have never found any inclination to use a graphical LCD display or whatever hobbyists usually use - I make my own displays (and in ways, they can be simpler and easier to use; for example, a computer monitor needs a video signal locked to horizontal and vertical sync, while I can just send a continuous stream of data locked only to vertical refresh (or a submultiple, meaning a data rate less than a standard “pixel clock”), with no blanking intervals or anything like that). Or even a data link that combines data and power, with data modulated so that a clock can be easily extracted from it, so only two wires are needed. I have used a parallel port for interfacing to a computer, but I don’t use it in the way it was intended to (i.e. the transmission protocol).

In other words, conforming to standards only applies if you WANT to be able to interface to stuff that you didn’t build.

Also, for SMT parts, I use larger parts (mainly capacitors) as if they are through-hole by soldering wires to them (in fact, some through-hole parts like monolithic ceramic capacitors are really chip capacitors with leads), or for chips, connecting them with thin magnet wire to sockets so they can be handled like through-hole parts, including rearranged pinout and other parts built onto them (except for the ones with really small lead spacing; I don’t find it that hard to solder onto leads 1/20th of an inch apart for example).

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