Macrofab Electronics Podcast

Stephen Melted Solid State Relay in electric brewery setup "Finally gave up the smoke" New SSR is rated for 40A Installed a blower fan on the heatsink for extra protection GFCI Breakers Monitors current on both legs of the circuit and makes sure they are within 5mA of each other Parker is going to use a SPA 240V 50A GFCI setup for his brewery setup Parker DAC board update PCM5122 based DAC design Same chip as what is on the HiFiberry DAC+ Had to change out the in series resistors from 1K Ohm to 27 Ohm resistors to get the communication to work Digital Logic Analyzer Verse Oscilloscope Soldering Iron ownership history R.F.O. PCM2912A USB microphone chip USB Interface, Mono Microphone Input and Stereo Headphone Output Found in a Datasheet for LAN9514 pg 15 When disabling port power, the driver will actively drive a ‘0’ The BenHeck show is losing its host Adventures in Autorouting /r/electronics thread It is definitely written by a software person They do not take in account RF noise, stability, power return and ground loops “Imagine today’s standard 4 layer boards routinely being fit into 2 layers without any human effort.” Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes and please review us, wherever you listen (PodcastAddict, iTunes), it helps this show stay visible and helps new listeners find us.

John Teel Founder of Predictable Designs, a company which helps startups, makers, and small companies develop new electronic products An award-winning design engineer for Texas Instruments (TI) where John designed numerous successful microchips which are found inside millions of popular tech products Predictable Designs Making product development process as predictable as possible Predicting the pitfalls and costs, with a focus on the initial stages of product development Common questions people ask How much will it cost to develop and manufacture my electronics product? How long will it take to get my product on the market? I don't have tons of money, so how can I get my product to market? I don't have any product development experience, so how can I get my product to market? Common mistakes made by new hardware entrepreneurs Underestimating the complexity and time to develop a manufacturable product Scalability of a product from prototype to mass production. Jumping head first into full product design without an understanding of the steps and costs that lie ahead Over focus on product development without enough early focus on marketing Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes and please review us on iTunes!

Stephen Community Dice Matt Parker - Standup Maths  Thingiverse Shapeways  What’s the highest frequency signal a home gamer can generate? (square and sin waves?) Parker New Engineering Article 3 Steps to Planning Parts Selection for Your Next Electronic Hardware Product Raspberry Pi Compute Module Motherboard Continuation from the Compute Module board from last year Added the PCM5122 audio DAC Learning about USB HUB design TUSB2046B TPS2044 for overcurrent protection Only rated for 500mA USB spec says only 120uF cap per hub required but 100uF per port is recommended with low ESR USB DM/DP signals require around 27 ohm termination resistors Optional filter of 22pF recommended for EMI suppression This creates a “low pass” filter with a cut off of 267.9 MHz 12M bit/sec full Speed USB 12MHz, well under this cut off Rapid Fire Opinion (R.F.O.) Mouser now Authorized Distributor for Espressif They make the ESP8266 Wifi stuff FPGA Dev boards Arrows $30 FPGA Board Altera MAX 10 Built in USB programming TinyFPGA Lattice $12  but requires a $9 programmer MacroFab is Hiring! Apply here Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes! If you have a cool idea, project or topic that you want Stephen and I to discuss tweet at us @MacroFab or email us. If you are not subscribed to the podcast yet, click that subscribe button above. That way you get the latest MEP episode right when it releases. And please review us on iTunes, it helps this show stay visible and helps new listeners find us. (:

Stephen PCB Design - Hexa Precision Converts MIDI codes to constant voltage What about using constant current to control functions and signals? Teensy 3.6 Pro-Level Breadboard Parker PCM5122 I2S Audio DAC Prototyped with a PiFi DAC+ v2.0 SMT film caps are hard to find for lead free reflow temps ECH-U1C222JX5 3 Different Versions Cost difference of $5 per unit in QTY Wima capacitors PinHeck REV8 Prototypes being built Future of the Pinheck Platform? Rapid Fire Opinion (R.F.O.) PT8A2514A Toaster Controller Has Defrost, Reheat and BAGEL function If you could have a chip that does a specific function what would you pick? Stephen: “Nothing super magical, like a bagel function” “Microwave with butter softening function” MacroFab is Hiring! Apply here Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes! If you have a cool idea, project or topic that you want Stephen and I to discuss tweet at us @MacroFab or email us. If you are not subscribed to the podcast yet, click that subscribe button above. That way you get the latest MEP episode right when it releases. And please review us on iTunes, it helps this show stay visible and helps new listeners find us.

Derek Brodeur Applications engineer involved in writing control software for atmospheric and vacuum robotics used in the semiconductor robotics industry Runs a YouTube channel called "The Current Source" where the primary focus is around electronics What made you want to go start a Youtube channel? Favorite old Project that you have completed? Most difficult video was the Doppler Shift SERs and PIN Diodes Projects that you are currently working on David Kronstein is letting Derek borrow one of his high speed Chronos cameras, so Derek is going to use an High Voltage capacitor and giant SCR to fry some electronic components and hopefully get some good footage Contact bounce in high speed using the camera (and ways to mitigate bounce) 16-bit flip dot array for demonstrations (instead of boring LEDs) Build a TEM cell from aluminum scrap Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

Stephen Alternative uses for assembly layers Assembly, document, and mechanical layers “It’s a way for us electrical engineers to feel like a mechanical engineer” Parker HackADay IO talk Friday, January 12, 2018 12:00 pm PST “The moment they invent smell-o-vision, this podcast would be done” MEP101 DSO138 Update STM32F103 Widely cloned If your cocktail of silicone is a little off, you’ll be okay Silicon actually change as the year goes around (according to a professor of stephen) “The chip just decides only to run on saturdays” Legit STM32F103's are $2.36 in QTY Can get “questionably sourced “ units for under $1 OctoPrint Use a Raspberry Pi to control your 3D printer You can load gcode wirelessly up to the Pi with SSH tunnel on browser Best open source project parker has come across Monoprice Ultimate 3D printer Had to set up bod rate manually Webcam setup  Printoid  Access OctoPrint over the internet R.F.O. Dragonfly 2020 Pro Additive PCB printing Google shuts down its CES booth because it’s not waterproof People said it was one of the better booths there Vishay VOR High Performance Solid State Relays Low turn-on current at 0.25 mA Does both AC and DC only 400V 140mA What is the application to maximize this part? MacroFab Hiring! Apply here Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

Stephen DSO138 Oscilloscope Comes as a kit (just through hole) but can be purchased assembled The "true" version can be had for ~$30 Counterfeit versions exist for $4 Open Source Firmware! Analog bandwidth: 0 - 200KHz Sampling rate: 1Msps max Sensitivity: 10mV/Div - 5V/Div Sensitivity error: Vertical resolution: 12-bit Timebase: 10us/Div - 500s/Div Record length: 1024 points Built-in 1KHz/3.3V test signal Waveform frozen (HOLD) function available Save/recall waveform In short - it’ll getcha through college Parker Pinheck REV 8 is routed Finishing silkscreen after the podcast Placing an order for prototypes this week! Switched from standard SD card to microSD card Next board is the I2S Audio Amp TAS5755M Working with the  TAS5755MEVM So far it kinda works Need to generate a clock for it? R.F.O. Making A Classic Chip From Discretes Motorola MC1466 - voltage regulator Stephen has made opamps with Discretes before - that was a project we finished! MacroFab EP11 Apple says sorry iPhone Batteries and Performance Zapp from the Slack Channel asks "If my MCU has internal pullups on an IO why would they recommend additional pull up resistors externally?" MacroFab Hiring! Apply here Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

Iris Weeden MacroFab's Marketing Director Award-winning marketer with ten years of experience Native Houstonian and lover of music, dogs, and beers Episode 100!!!!!! The Q&A Episode Thanks to our listeners who submitted questions through email and our Slack channel Questions Brandon Drury How in the hell does one survive engineering school? What should a person expect to get from a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering? What's the dumbest/smartest thing a person can do with shift registers? What's a good resource for learning how to prototype? My wires are always a mess. I have no idea what kind of box can hold panel-style outlets. I'm looking for a resource that will improve my ability to take a circuit that works into a form factor, that will allow it to be tested in a halfway reliable way. Emmett Naughton What's the best way to get a electrical engineering job? Mostly for somebody with a degree but who doesn't have job experience in the field. Stephen Newberry What is the best method for us hardware engineers to monetize our side projects? I personally don't have the time to handle manufacturing or customer support in the long term. I've considered contacting companies to sell a design for a lump sum or royalty based model, but I've never gone through with it. What are your suggestions on what will or won't work best? Tom Anderson I would like to hear the story behind: What is the worst electrical shock that (one of the guys) has ever had? From Episode #85 Hyr0n of the AND!XOR team What is the difference between a duck? All of a sudden one of the following two things no longer exists: Craft Beer OR Lead-Alloy Solder. Which do you pick? Zapp of the AND!XOR team Would you rather assemble 1,000 duck sized horse PCBs or 1 horse sized duck PCB?

PCB material as structural elements and enclosures FR4 Material - glass-reinforced epoxy laminate sheets Custom face plates aren’t cheap - the solution? Face plate out of PCB material! Silk screening and milling Easy to order Get to use the same design tool for PCBs P.O.W. From Bryan with Poetic.io "Do you have a guy that knows lots about sensors? I need one that will tell me the distance to any solid material out to a range of about 60 feet. Could be ultrasonic but not sure there's one that's strong enough." Microwave kit 24GHz radar evaluation kit K-LD2-EVAL How do lasers find absolute distance? Comment below with your answers R.F.O. Eagle 8.5 Push shove routing Altium Designer 18 MacroFab Hiring! Apply here Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

Taylor Smith Works at MacroFab as the Production Account Manager Manage all of our large customers as they go through prototyping to full production Graduated from Texas A&M last fall Joined the MacroFam early this year Favorite Star Wars Character? Organic Taylor: Loves the locks on Qui-Gon Jinn Stephen: Bossk Parker: Storm Trooper #38  Robotic Taylor: R2D2 even though he slept through Rogue One Stephen: IG-88 Parker: Not K-2SO Thrawn Books Tech that stood out in Rogue One Data Storage Devices Three different storage methods USB Flash Drive: small amount of data. Data Tape: looks like an external hard drive. Contains Death Star plans. 8-track tapes style Some sort of other kind of storage device that the plans get transfered to Looks solid state Newer format then the empire’s data tape? Why doesn’t C3-PO have a wireless transmitter built in?! There does not seem to be a ton of wireless communication No Drop Box Most radio transmission seems to be analog in nature Trans-intergalactic data system Star wars servers Data Tapes stored in giant rooms which require physical access by manually manipulating robot arms Transmission of data Besides radio there seems to be a distinct lack of wireless transmissions in StarWars. To transfer Death Star plans they needed a giant dish. No digital communication over RF? No lag with hologram communication via hyperspace Analog data travel through hyperspace?  Death Star plans data size? 160km in diameter: 1.72×10^16m cubed Couldn’t find engineering drawings for an aircraft carrier 3D file for a building would be around ~100MB but probably 300MB looking at solidworks stuff 900m cubed area goes into a death star 19,111,111,111,111.111 times trillion 5,733,333.333 (5.7million) petabytes Solar freaking laser roads No hacking in Star Wars Reason similar to Battlestar Gallactica? Death Star accuracy Hitting the top of the tower a the end of Rogue One See images for maths and figures Scott Manley: Death Star Orbit from Planet Surface CGI Tarkins and Leia in Rogue One: Future for The Last Jedi and other Star Wars movies Will we see CGI Carrie Fisher? Parker hopes she won’t die off-screen Taylor thinks there will be a nice parting gift for her Stephen thinks they’re going to kill all of the old cast (including Mark Hamill) What are looking forward to in The Last Jedi  (new movie) and predictions Stephen thinks Luke will die in this movie Parker thinks Rey isn’t a Jedi. Stephen clarifies - she’s Force Adept - he thinks she’s going to be the balance. The gray Jedi. Rey changes her name to Neo. Taylor Get more of Luke and Kylo’s backstory What happened to make it go so wrong Previews for Rose - curious to know more about her Stephen Wants to see the Jedi academy Parker Closure on Luke saga Wants to see more of Star of Death Killer - give purpose to what the good guys need to do First order mess more things up Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

Agustin Pelaez Electrical engineer from UPB/FH Münster Helped engineer a remote monitoring solution for Airbus Germany Founded the IoT Application Enablement platform Ubidots.com Cameron Klotz Joined Ubidots as the Director of Operations Graduate of UC Berkeley Previously worked in Operations and Project Management at Getaround Inc. and UBS Financial Services Always focusing on efficient team/client dynamics and quality assurance About Ubidots Difference between their IoT platform and others Long tail solution - through app development for engineers What can Ubidots do for me? How to get started in IoT Overview of what IoT actually is Devices Connection protocol Cloud Application development What makes a device IoT? Convergence of digital to physical Embedded design What is an API and how is it tied into IoT? Hardware? Stephen’s arduino with temperature control sensor and valve Program to send data; Ubidots library; search for existing HTTP libraries, put API token into firmware What a payload looks like, what a token is Create alerts within Ubidots Designing the app - see your device online, create widgets, email, web hooks, SMS, Different ways to display data or act on it Exporting data Can send data out or pull it in from outside sources Supports CSV downloads How humans interact with the web and how devices interact with the web How do you view the term “Internet of Things”? Agustin - it’s a concept, solutions to a proble. Cameron -”IoT” is a buzzword, getting hardware to connect to systems, “IoT solutions” get purchased. Gateway to finding solution Stephen - something that exists today b/c the idea hasn’t fully coalesced. It’s a buzzword - protoword for what it will become. Parker - data management and analytics, in a single spot. In the cloüd.   Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

Episode 100 is coming up! It’ll be a Q&A session - so send in your questions to podcast@macrofab.com 2nd Annual Star Wars Xmas Special Engineering Podcast. Check out the video from last year! Parker Built a mounting surface for the Jeep Electronics Stephen Failure of the Science Museum Project Was expecting soft foam at the bottom of the "well" to move the cones of the drill bit Hard plastic was installed instead Coupling bent up that connects the rotational shaft to the large nema 34 stepper Safety first, equal amounts of time spent on safety as engineering the rest of the project Pick Of the Week (POW) How to reduce Arduino Uno power usage by 95% - Deferred Procrastination Replace the linear regulator with a DC-DC converter Adjust the USB-to-Serial circuit so it’s only powered from the USB port Cut out (or desolder) the always-on LED’s on the board Use the processor sleep mode. Before: 53mA After: 2.5mA DC -DC convertor used was a Traco TSRN-1 for $6.07 Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) Internet of Toilet Paper Holder - HackADay Revolutionized entire toilet paper supply management life cycle Tracks usage statistics - Manage wiping data and share on social media Instructables to make your own! Man is about to launch himself in his homemade rocket to prove the Earth is flat - The Washington Post Self-taught rocket builder Mike Hughes - 61 yr old limo driver Holds record for biggest limo jump Plans to launch himself 1,800 feet high U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) "told me they would not allow me to do the event ... at least not at that location," Will have to reschedule the launch Not atmosphere its atmosflat $20,000 rocket had a fancy coat of Rust-Oleum paint and “RESEARCH FLAT EARTH” inscribed on the side Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

The Houston meetup is coming up next week. RSVP here if you are in town!  Mike HackerBox - LootCrate for Hardware and Software hackers Parker PinHeck EOTL REV8 Update Another shout out to Chris Gammell and Contextual Electronics Some work on the Pinotaur design R.F.O. (Rapid Fire Opinion) Tesla SemiTruck 500 mile range. In a 30 minute charge it can get up to 400 miles of range back. Roughly what truck drivers do now. 100-mile routes, the Tesla Semi will cost just $1.26 per mile to operate, compared to $1.51 for diesel Emberlight KickStarter shut down Every time a customer wants to turn on a light, it requires the company’s cloud service to process the command Not a problem with kickstarter but with IoT devices Solution to this problem? Better exit strategy App to connect to them via modem Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

FPGA Mega Podcast with Al Williams: What is an FPGA? Field-programmable gate array Bunch of logic gates and sea of gates, we tell them what to do Writing hardware description of what it will do - writing requirements language, You’re describing requirements Using VHDL or veralog, syntax is close to the C programming language Why not a microcontroller? Advantage with FPGA = parallel hardware, not a brain with steps and time running out People use FPGAs to get fixed deadline on when processes get finished 100 arduinos on an FPGA - next HackADay Article Mike “Hamster” Field Do you need hardware? No, you can do things via simulation. EDA Playground Can play around for free and don’t have to create login IceStick/IceStorm IceStick is a Lattice FPGA dev board: good starter tool IceStorm is an open source development tool chain HackADay Learning FPGA Links Learning Verilog for FPGAs: The Tools and Building an Adder Learning Verilog for FPGAs: Hardware at Last! YouTube series   Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

Episode 100 is coming up! It’ll be a Q&A session - so send in your questions to podcast@macrofab.com 2nd Annual Star Wars Xmas Special Engineering Podcast. Check out the video from last year! Parker Update on the Jeep Electronics LM22678TJ-5.0/NOPB 5V switcher regulator with 5A capacity Used Ti Webench to design it ADP3338AKCZ-3.3-RL 3.3V LDO Linear Regulator with 1A capacity CU40045-UW1J 40 x 4 VFD Propeller code for driving this display Keep Tabs on this project on github! Decent cheap toggle switches on Amazon Stephen Science Museum Update Video screen that plays animation - in house engineer setting it up and built an Arduino circuit around Stephen’s project DipTrace update 3.2 You can now rotate and flip by groups, when making patterns WOOT! Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) Solder? What is the best kind? What about Flux? The Amazing $1 Microcontroller - Jay Carlson Best comparison of MCUs I have seen Goes through IDEs, Performance, Peripherals of each IC Alibaba buys into CPU company to support AliOS - Electronics Weekly Alibaba has bought a stake in a Chinese microprocessor manufacturer to promote development of of processors which support Alibaba’s operating system – AliO AliOS has two flavours – called AliOS Cloud Link for cloud computing, and AliOS Things for IoT Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

Parker Jeep Cruise Control update Ordered a late model TJ wiring harness Speed Control Servo: 4669979 Cable: 4854156 Vacuum Line: 52109525AD Jeep Electrical Control Have wiring diagram done Bussmann 15303-5-2-4 Stephen Science Museum Almost commission day Last minute preparations and it is working great Adding counterweight Gif! Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) Beverage Coaster Reference Design - Intersil The beverage coaster reference design lights up, plays music, and indicates beverage drinkability! Plays the Chicken Dance when a drink rests on it  Thoughts on high-volume through-hole wire soldering - Reddit ECE Stephen has some thoughts about this Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

Kaylan Smith Houston native, rice owl , UX designer, artist, die hard Astros fan, and MacroFaber since July 2016 One of the strange breeds that went from being an artist to software development Attended a talk that Stephen Kraig gave about MacroFab at her school where she was learning to become a developer Mike Williams Fascinated with computers since 7th grade, when he first got to use a TRS-80 model 1 Seen the software development industry advance from MSDOS to smart phones and cloud computing Written and designed software for flying cameras, high speed trains, and lots of business apps Joined MacroFab about 2 years ago and moved to Houston last year with his wife Loretta and his dog Kosmo Heard about MacroFab from the episode of The Amp Hour where Chris Church and Parker Dillmann where guests Kaylan and Mike talk about the new PCB experience on the MacroFab platform they helped develop Overall cleaner interface that provides more information to customers Quick turnaround Eagle 8 and zip file uploading Supporting Eagle 8 - challenging because of their new subscription model and purchasing by autodesk Only need to upload a board file and BOM will populate with it automatically Actual color preview of board, part notes & moves Updates to BOM Screen Price break graph For inspiring devs what are some tips to getting a solid background for getting that first dev job? Williams: Tech is always going to be changing. Need to have great problem solving skills, and research and find information. Don’t be a specialist. Good language to start with is Python or Javascript. Kaylan: Be a good collaborator and communicator. Stackoverflow article about different programming languages used today Who at Macrofab writes the worst Jira tickets? What do hardware/electronic people do that drive you nuts? Eagle writing out gerbers, it fills in with rasterized lines and default is .01 mil per line that generate monster files. You have to know to go in and change it. Longest you have looked for a semi colon or any other kind of syntax error? Williams spent three days to find a missing ampersand. Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!   If you have a cool idea, project or topic that you want Stephen and I to discuss tweet at us @MacroFab or email us at podcast@macrofab.com. If you are not subscribed to the podcast yet, click that subscribe button. That way you get the latest MEP episode right when it releases. And please review us on iTunes, it helps this show stay visible and helps new listeners find us.

Chris Gammell Electrical engineer and electronics instructor Runs an online course is called Contextual Electronics and is host for the podcast The Amp Hour Guest on the MacroFab Engineering podcast episode 33 Currently works for Hologram Consumer Vs Industrial Electronics  Longest running devices? HackADay Superconference Chris is doing a workshop on cellular, low level serial commands to modems via AT commands. Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) MacroFab Announces Production Manufacturing Services, Expansion in Mexico. - Found on The Amp Hour Subreddit MacroFab has a new website! Launching 10-day prototyping Have no more than 50 units Have fewer than 2,000 surface-mount placements (SMT) Have fewer than 20 unique SMT line items No through-hole placements Giant Robot Battle Iron Glory Vs Kuratas Was pretty lame Next time remove pilots for more destruction? Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!

Podcast Notes Parker Tom Anderson Long time listener just launched his own podcast called Function. It is a podcast that is about Art and Engineering and where those two meet. Jeep Factory Cruse Control Most of the parts have not arrived. Mopar part 05013979AB Connector for the speed controller that pulls the throttle cable Stephen iSpindel Does it work?! Made a bucket full of prison wine, and measuring with a fancy hydrometer Diatomaceous Transformation aka shifting dirt Stephen and Patrick Renner have an installation coming up, Nov 10 in Plainview, TX 8x8 grid, Can access any point on grid and drop any rod Pick Of the Week (POW) Intersil Unveils First USB-C Buck-Boost Voltage Regulator - EEWeb Converts voltages 3.8V-24V to 5V-20V range with no dead zone. “It leverages Intersil's patented R3™ modulation technology to deliver acoustic noise-free operation (not buzzy), superior light-load efficiency and ultra-fast transient response.” Reminds us of the Turbo Encabulator Scishow youtube channel Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) How to Stop People from Stealing Your Oscilloscope Probes - Keysight #1 cause of workplace violence How would you prevent people from taking your cables. Visit our Slack Channel and join the conversation in between episodes!   Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

Podcast Notes Stephen iSpindel - First time on the MEP: Introduce a tropic and finish it in 2 episodes! Parker Next Jeep Project: Factory Cruise Control RetroFit Currently missing the wiring to go to the PCM (Power Control Module) of the Jeep Buy a used harness for connector pins and modify the current harness PinHeck REV8 EOTL Update Inner layers are 0.5oz copper. Watch out for that. RPI3 CM will have its own power rails to keep the power clean Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) Google Clips is a new $249 smart camera that you can wear - TechCrunch Passive use camera 3hr battery life Grabs “Motion Photos”. Its 1910's all over again. It looks for people it recognizes and captures information “Automatically suggests the best moments” The Art of Blinky Business Cards - Brian McEvoy on HackADay NFC powered buisness cards NXP: NT3H1101 which has energy harvesting built in Parker's SuperBoost business card that is all forgotten about on HackADay. Stephen’s business cards that demonstrate all of your capabilities   Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!