When things don't go to plan
When things don’t go to plan
As a Software Engineer, and someone who likes solving problems, I like to plan and have at least a general idea of whats going to happen.
But life is not straight forward, and when you are working with things like electronics (as I have been doing with an APRS cable) things don’t always go the direction you want.
With the APRS cable, it has a 3.5mm jack, which worked fine when attached to a 3.5mm to USB-C adaptor and plugged into a phone, but when I directly plug it into the 3.5mm jack on another phone it does not.
I’ve been down extended plans, used resistors and capacitors to mimic microphones, and all of them have failed. I have one more route to fix this, making a cable, that has no additional electronics.
This process is one that I have gone through with other problems in software, and this is something that has helped me reduce initial planning, and iterate as I progress, its something that has helped me in my career as a software engineer, and in general in life.
So after this Sunday ramble of a blog post - I’d advise against large strict planning, but instead get a general idea of where you want to be, and adapt as you proceed.