Practical assembly questions (and especially high power)

Question

This is a two-part question about on-or-off-topic things.

1. Are questions relating to the actual assembly of an electronic circuit, as opposed to its theoretical design, on-topic? For instance, soldering techniques, removing components from PCBs, etc., etc.

2. If the answer to (1) is yes, are they still on-topic if they pertain to high power circuitry? For instance, attaching 175 amp Anderson Multipole connectors to 4AWG wire?

I've done enough electronics design to appreciate that there's a huge difference between (1) and (2), and narrowly speaking (2) seems a little outside what I'd usually term EE, but I'm not sure if there's any SE site more appropriate for that sort of thing. (If there is, please let me know!)

Answer 1

1. Yes, we've had various examples of questions like that and they're well received as long as you follow the StackExchange format (i.e. not too broad, not not constructive, etc.)

   Examples:

   • Best One-Off DIY PCB Creation Technique
   • Decoupling caps, PCB layout
   • What tools, equipment, and techniques do you use to solder fine-pitch SMT parts?
   • Is it bad practice to install an IC to the other side of a heatsink?

2. Sure. It doesn't really matter what field you're in, as long as you're designing electronics - household electronics questions aren't well received.

I don't know of any SE site which would be a better fit for high power circuitry.

Answer 2

Basically a power wiring question starts to veer off topic when the best answers are going to come from the experiential expertise of electricians or codes of practice, rather than from an engineering application of first principles to discover an answer. Practically speaking there is some overlap - territory where either an electrician applying their experience and an engineer applying their insight will come up with an appropriate answer.

But we also have to be very careful about what the question is - if what is actually being asked is why the usual practice or code is to do something in a certain way, analyzing the justification for that habit or standard using engineering principles would be absolutely on topic here.