The Amp Hour

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**The Amp Hour**

The Amp Hour is a weekly conversation about electronics and the people who design them.

Latest Episodes:

An Interview with Scott Miller (2nd) Jul 22, 2019

Show notes

Welcome Scott Miller, CEO of Dragon Innovation!

Scott was originally on The Amp Hour in episode 113
Dragon raised money from VCs and was acquired by Avnet 2 years ago.
Non traditional customers (avocado example) don't want to stand up a hardware team
Dragon/Avnet built a toolbox for IoT, so don't need to recreate
Scooters
Education is important for customers
BOM health risk assessment
MLCCs had 72 week leadtime
Supply chain risk over time
Dragon is now moving up the chain
"Product as a service" (PaaS)
Pricing in the costs of repairs and support
Not many other companies doing that sort of thing these days (yet)
GE was trying to do with engines
Risk is that the customer goes another direction
There are now stockholders to think of (being part of Avnet)
Scott is seeing a trend in the US of a constriction of B2C startups, but more industrial IoT
High profile bankruptcies
- Anki
- Mayfield Robotics
Excited about growth in Europe, including more building in EU.
Companies moving out of China quickly (due to 25% tariffs) but into other Asian countries
Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia
RFQ would normally have 3-5 quotes, maybe half of them from China.
Now doing it on a more global basis
How are factories being chosen?
Looking to get to domestic factories every month to build out their "Contract Manufacturer Database" (CMDB). Vetted factories are a service that Dragon provides to customers.
"Vietnam is like China 10-15 years ago"
2000 global factories on the CMBD
Trying to build up the list for Mexico factories.
What are some of the cultural differences for things coming back on an RFQ?
- China is more vertical. Or at least it looks like it's vertical. Integrated CM would make their own cardboard!
Labor costs are $5-6 per hour in China right now.
Depending on the region and the factory
Factory owners are really focused on automation
Making their own soldering iron robot
Home grown automation
Focus on flexibility of the robots
Strategic focus from every factory
Tier 1, 2 ,3 contract manufacturers
Tier 1 has access to more capital, so have fancier technology
Level of tracking is really good, to tell for returns
Used to be a prof at Olin
Took all the lectures and put them on Dragon Website
Scott does AMA sessions as well!
Pulling manufacturing knowledge back into design
Get to 80% done to bring in a factory
Pulling data back into the process for BOM
BOM health risk assessment
Most Dragon customers are between 5000 units -1M
Pebble and Dropcam examples
Most started small, needed to get in early
Ring example
Dragoninnovation.com
DFMA courses

Stories from Teardown 2019 Jul 08, 2019

Show notes

Teardown 2019 was a great event!
These are a couple of shorter interviews, meant to show what the networking is like in a conference setting. It's not for everyone, but I think it's a good thing to try at some point.
Interview 1
Interview 2
- Adrian Studer, creator of the Wegmatt AIS receiver.
- He was giving a talk on reverse engineering called "It’s 8051s All the Way Down". Video isn't available yet but slides can be found here.
Interview 3
- Zach Archer of Control Z Inc
- He did an interactive display for the Seattle Symphony recently (and is now looking for new work).
Interview 4
- A recap with Piotr Esden-Tempski and Jeff Keyzer

The image for this episode is during the "puzzle hunt" section of Teardown (Jeff Keyzer is the only guest shown). I was on the winning team, but did nothing of consequence to help them out.

Pulled From A Working Environment Jul 01, 2019

Show notes

Chris just got back from Teardown 2019. Shows next week will be with guests that he interviewed during the conference, while Dave is away.
While there, Chris did two workshops, both with FPGAs and the open toolchains.
The first was a workshop with our sometimes co-host Piotr Esden-Tempski. The workshop involved the 1bitsquared iCEBreaker.
This used the Yosys toolchain by past guest Clifford Wolf (holy moly that interview was two and a half hours!)
It also uses NextPNR, which was discussed by Piotr, Clifford and Dave at Chaos Communication Camp
Altera is now Intel FPGA, if you didn't remember.
Git paper
VHDL vs Verilog
"Cross platform code" works between two separate chipsets meant for USB C
- Richtek RC1716
- TI TUSB422
USB C PD
Dave was actually discussing cross VENDOR code, because of the standard register format between the chips.
Chris also took a workshop with Sean "Xobs" Cross that involved 3 levels:
- Micropython
- C written for a RISC V processor (soft IP core)
- Writing hard logic for the FPGA
Xobs is co-creator of the Novena laptop and the creator of the Fomu project.
The Fomu was inspired by the Tomu, a project of past guest Tim Ansell
Raspberry Pi 4 announced with new specs. Dave not impressed.
The new Sparkfun Artemis Module puts TensorFlow lite onto a Cortex M4 processor with Bluetooth.
This is similar to the Audeme project (in a much smaller form factor) by Gerald and Bertrand.
Dave has made a video about how voice recognition was done in the 80s.
Udemy is moving to a model where creators must be exclusive. The video is by past guest of the show Robert Ferenec.
Chris is looking at buying a simple VNA.
The "Buy/Sell section" of the EEVblog forum links to auctions. Dave recommends finding labs that are shutting down.
Past guest Derek Kozel suggested to look at the HP 8753, based on this wonderful reference site.
Beware the phrase "Pulled from (a) working environment"
One last thing from Teardown, Kate Tempkin did an amazing talk about USB analyzers and software around decoding USB traffic.
Building a STM32 open source multimeter.
Simone Giertz (yep, also a past guest!) built a "Truckla" and showed how she did it!

Thanks to Billie Ward for the image of the "fantastically overpriced junk"

An Interview with Jean Rintoul Jun 24, 2019

Show notes

Welcome Jean Rintoul of Mindseye Biomedical

Spectra
- 0h 1m 1s
Startups
- 0h 1m 8s
Open source movements
- 0h 2m 32s
"Is there a safe way to get into biomedical?"
- 0h 2m 57s
Looking inside the body
- 0h 4m 29s
2/3rds of the world doesn't have medical imaging
- 0h 5m 31s
Greg Charvat
- 0h 6m 31s
MEMS based ultrasound
- 0h 7m 8s
Labs using current based techniques
- 0h 7m 20s
Tests between 100hz and 80 khz
- 0h 7m 48s
Inverse radon transform
- 0h 8m 0s
Thinking of the body as a circuit
- 0h 8m 36s
Cell membrane is like a capacitor
- 0h 8m 50s
Impedance tomography
- 0h 10m 47s
10 uA of current
- 0h 11m 42s
TDCS is mA
- 0h 12m 1s
EEG also measures contact impedance
- 0h 12m 14s
IEC60601-1
- 0h 12m 44s
2D vs 3D imaging
- 0h 16m 3s
Technique has been used in labs
- 0h 17m 21s
Diagnosing cervical cancer might be posible
- 0h 17m 56s
Zilico
- 0h 18m 19s
Open source hardware, makes no claim
- 0h 19m 10s
Tumor detection
- 0h 20m 54s
Gesture control for amputees
- 0h 21m 11s
Biosensor wearable companies
- 0h 23m 14s
Was wondering what other kind of information could get out of the body
- 0h 24m 0s
Lir Scientific, bladder device
- 0h 24m 28s
Device was prone to noise
- 0h 26m 58s
Ended up being a diagnostic device
- 0h 27m 41s
Denovo = new
- 0h 28m 44s
Last Week Tonight (John Oliver) talking about implants
- 0h 30m 7s
Transhumanism
- 0h 32m 50s
Open source insulin project
- 0h 34m 9s
Looking into the body is possible with Spectra
- 0h 35m 12s
Block diagram
- 0h 40m 35s
ADI parts
- 0h 40m 45s
MCU with analog front end
- 0h 40m 52s
16 bit ADC
- 0h 41m 2s
Flex PCB around the outside of the tank
- 0h 42m 23s
Different patterns you can send through the electrodes
- 0h 45m 21s
"Stim patterns"
- 0h 45m 38s
Fast switching analog multiplexer (mux)
- 0h 48m 51s
Other EIT systems have been around since the 90s
- 0h 49m 29s
Has a DDS on it to make sine waves
- 0h 51m 59s
Knowing what kind of stuff is in there
- 0h 58m 0s
Using standard models for MRI data
- 0h 59m 5s
Using average data over individualized data
- 1h 0m 3s
Google doing machine learning on MRI data
- 1h 1m 14s
Data comes out over UART or Bluetooth
- 1h 8m 44s
Python and Electron app
- 1h 9m 51s
Open EIT project
- 1h 15m 14s
Bluetooth used to allow it to be battery powered / untethered
- 1h 16m 33s
Money raised on Crowdsupply
- 1h 18m 6s
Making a test jig
- 1h 18m 15s
Ordered custom cables and flex pcbs
- 1h 18m 27s
Keithley 6221
- 1h 21m 16s
ADUCM350
- 1h 24m 2s
Community response
- 1h 26m 28s
7 people are contributing
- 1h 26m 43s
Lots of different applications
- 1h 27m 59s
@jeantoul on Twitter
- 1h 29m 58s

Voltnuts for Flashlights Jun 17, 2019

Show notes

Dave is sick! (it's winter in Aussieland)
Toy switches
DC arc over
Dave's home solar system failed
Louis Rossman has been dealing with water ingress on mac connectors
Saturn PCB toolkit
CR123A. Previously used for camera flashes, now used in torches/flashlights
Specify battery packs in Wh
AAAA batteries
Could electronics folks be trusted to do a design on its own?
Design For Hackers (book)
"Specialization is for ants"
Designers taking apart a Tesla
Alerting cost problems in the design phase
Selective solder
Scotty (Strange Parts)'s tour of PCBway
Wave solder
Maker Media, owners of Maker Faire and MAKE magazine shut down
Silicon Chip has 1/10th of their magazine numbers
EMSL did a nice retrospective
So did Mightyohm
Branding
Infineon buys Cypress
Backing for RISC V chip companies
Rabbit 2000
Chris will be at Teardown next week, hopefully recording.
Dave...might start a conference?

Thanks to Brian Wong for the pictures of the torch/flashlights

An Interview with Pete Bevelacqua Jun 10, 2019

Show notes

Welcome, Pete Bevelacqua of Antenna-Theory.com!

This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Rohde & Schwarz. They just announced an industry first: complete solutions with all the upgrades up front—for one price. Now through December 31, save up to $10,000 on Rohde & Schwarz solution packages that come with fully loaded test & measurement instruments, right from the start. For more information about their latest product offering, check out AskAnEngineer.us

Chris first met Pete when he was giving a talk at HDDG about a custom made VNA
- 0h 0m 55s
Pete has been an antenna designer at Boeing, Apple, Nest
- 0h 1m 16s
Pete got started in this because he really liked Electricity and Magnetism classes.
- 0h 2m 12s
"Do I come out [of the class] and know how to put an antenna in a phone?" (answer: no)
- 0h 3m 4s
Pete studied with Dr Bilanas at ASU
- 0h 3m 20s
Convex optimization program
- 0h 4m 12s
Used a lot in signal processing
- 0h 5m 38s
Compared to linear optimizations
- 0h 6m 29s
Boeing wanted to put 20 antennas on a plane
- 0h 7m 37s
DC to daylight
- 0h 8m 20s
Starting with a specific problem
- 0h 9m 43s
"I want to put a bluetooth antenna in my device"
- 0h 9m 51s
Start from a place of practicality
- 0h 11m 16s
Do not make anything hard that doesn't need to be hard
- 0h 11m 32s
The one piece of math you need to know: the lowest frequency you're using
- 0h 12m 52s
Half wavelength for GPS is 3.5 inches
- 0h 13m 13s
Efficiency is how much you're putting in vs what you get out
- 0h 13m 30s
Everything in RF is dB
- 0h 14m 49s
...except for the antenna
- 0h 15m 13s
"This meeting is 3dB too long"
- 0h 16m 35s
Didn't design antennas at Boeing because they didn't need them to be custom/integrated
- 0h 18m 53s
Directionality of antennae
- 0h 21m 6s
"Do you want a high gain antenna?"
- 0h 21m 12s
Gain specifically is the efficiency (in dB) plus the directivity (in dB)
- 0h 21m 52s
FCC matters for consumer. If you have a directional antenna and it's out of spec, you'll need to take the overall power down
- 0h 23m 7s
Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP) = conducted power + antenna gain
- 0h 24m 0s
dDm is milliwatts of power
- 0h 24m 59s
RF and antenna teams are different at hardware companies.
- 0h 26m 6s
RF team assumes a 50 ohm antenna. The antenna team assumes a 50 ohm driver.
- 0h 27m 7s
Went from Boeing to Apple
- 0h 28m 7s
Consumer electronics and how it works
- 0h 29m 3s
Industrial design team starts the process for look, feel and materials.
- 0h 29m 10s
Mockup or simulation
- 0h 31m 36s
Integration and understanding what will be interfering
- 0h 31m 58s
Simulation is HFSS and CST
- 0h 33m 4s
Pete isn't big on simulating
- 0h 33m 16s
Some people don't simulate at all
- 0h 33m 57s
Not that many types of antennas
- 0h 35m 3s
Hybrids of dipoles
- 0h 36m 7s
VNA
- 0h 36m 21s
VSWR
- 0h 36m 37s
VNA just tells you it is matched, not that it's radiating
- 0h 37m 1s
Once it's matched you go about measuring its efficiency by putting it in an anechoic chamber
- 0h 37m 42s
Dealing with multiple frequencies
- 0h 38m 30s
GPS, Bluetooth, Wifi, Cellular
- 0h 38m 45s
Cellular bands
- 0h 39m 5s
Antennas are not meant to reject anything, that's the job of the filters
- 0h 40m 20s
1850 (MHz) spectrum in cellular
- 0h 40m 35s
"The ground in your PCB is part of your antenna"
- 0h 44m 20s
How a flat antenna can create a unidirectional radiation
- 0h 46m 27s
Omnidirectional is actually a donut pattern
- 0h 46m 46s
For lower cellular frequencies, the phone is shorter than half the antenna
- 0h 47m 33s
Explaining the polarization without looking
- 0h 48m 49s
"The more volume you have the more bandwidth you have"
- 0h 50m 34s
Fixing things with an exacto knife
- 0h 52m 34s
Choking the lines allows you to select the frequencies
- 0h 54m 5s
You start testing cert right away
- 0h 55m 23s
Building your own VNA (talk at HDDG)
- 0h 56m 41s
Went to Maker Faire, saw someone building a VNA
- 0h 57m 58s
Need a bidirectional coupler
- 1h 0m 9s
Need a frequency synthsizer
- 1h 1m 8s
Coupler has directivity
- 1h 2m 24s
Reflected comes back and you can measure with a chip
- 1h 3m 11s
Got the Chazwazza (VNA project) on kickstarter, but the demand wasn't there
- 1h 4m 0s
The unit operates from 400 MHz to 2.7 GHz
- 1h 5m 4s
Super light, especially compared to commercial equipment
- 1h 5m 16s
After VNAs, testing chambers are also useful
- 1h 6m 36s
Size of the chamber is a function of the wavelength
- 1h 6m 54s
Pete's current project is putting a working on putting a rocket in a balloon
- 1h 7m 56s
Check out more of Pete's work at Antenna-theory.com
- 1h 9m 53s

Ludicrously High Frequency Interference Jun 03, 2019

Show notes

Younger kids watching YouTubers
The FCC does regulate what can be said on TV/Radio
Chris had the opportunity to talk to someone from a local testing house (we'll try to get him on the show later)
- He pointed out a new document that gives better guidance for people trying to get devices passing compliance.
Starlink satellites use krypton gas for propellant.
Ludicrously High Frequency
Cars are not regulated for FCC stuff, they self regulate.
A list of automotive compliance facilities
Dave didn't have to test his old stuff for his job, it's "a free for all in the ocean"
Mil spec used as a guideline
Huawei is being iced out by more than the US government. Google also stopped supporting them, meaning the Android app store will no longer work.
ARM memo tells staff to stop working with China’s tech giant
Challenge coins
Contact Dave about coins (dave@eevblog.com)
Chris has been reading Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs
How do you create a name for each part?
PLM
Component obsolescence engineers
Pulling new part numbers
KiCon videos are posted on the Contextual Electronics channel!
Chris is going to the following conferences this year:
- Teardown
- CCCamp
- Black Hat
- Supercon
Dave sent out for a box build for uSupply! He'll be getting 4 made for early evaluation.

Image above from Spaceballs

An Interview with Ben Eater May 27, 2019

Show notes

Welcome, Ben Eater! You may know Ben from his YouTube videos showing how to build a breadboard 8 bit computer

Ben's background is in software/networking
- 0h 0m 33s
He has been an electronics hobbyist for a long time
- 0h 1m 21s
Digital electronics - Albert Paul Malvino
- 0h 3m 0s
The 8 bit computer started for a hackathon
- 0h 3m 54s
Bottom up learning
- 0h 12m 59s
We depend upon abstractions
- 0h 15m 19s
We have leaky abstractions
- 0h 15m 36s
Micro instruction
- 0h 17m 54s
16B of memory
- 0h 18m 25s
Instruction or data
- 0h 18m 33s
Program with dip switches
- 0h 18m 41s
Program in and then switch into run mode
- 0h 19m 17s
4 registers
- 0h 21m 37s
ALU
- 0h 23m 24s
Output register
- 0h 23m 26s
Can go a couple hundred hertz
- 0h 24m 26s
Instructions and microinstructions
- 0h 25m 50s
Combinationatorial logic circuit
- 0h 28m 0s
Control word
- 0h 28m 7s
Assembly programming and register model
- 0h 32m 46s
Optimizations
- 0h 33m 39s
every instruction takes 6 clock cycles
- 0h 34m 24s
What does the community look like?
- 0h 35m 6s
14 breadboards
- 0h 36m 5s
Accessibility
- 0h 36m 55s
Using TTL logic chips
- 0h 37m 30s
Can stick an LED on an LS output
- 0h 37m 47s
The community is mostly on the subreddit /r/beneater
- 0h 39m 37s
Ben is now selling a kit
- 0h 39m 43sTTL
Comes with the LS chips
- 0h 41m 1s
Seeing how people struggle
- 0h 44m 21s
microcosm of the education system
- 0h 45m 44s
Extrinsic motivation
- 0h 47m 43s
Dopamine loops
- 0h 48m 7s
Ben previously worked at Khan Academy (KA)
- 0h 48m 35s
In his student days he didn't like math
- 0h 50m 48s
Stumbled on a bug when checking out KA.
- 0h 51m 44s
Volunteered time to KA.
- 0h 52m 3s
Hired on in 2011
- 0h 55m 19s
They are a non-profit tech company
- 0h 57m 37s
Taught classes in the networking space
- 0h 59m 7s
Books on education
- 1h 1m 16s
Mindstorms by Seymour Papert
- 1h 1m 45s
Logo programming language
- 1h 2m 31s
Turtle
- 1h 2m 49s
Mindset by Carol Dweck
- - 1h 6m 4s
Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset
- 1h 6m 34s
Metacognition at Khan
- 1h 8m 6s
Game designers have figured this out
- 1h 9m 8s
Mario level 1
- 1h 9m 28s
RSA animate of Dan Pink
- 1h 13m 33s
Mastery Autonomy Purpose
- 1h 15m 15s
Making more videos, there is a newer one about CRCs
- 1h 19m 28s
Find Ben on Reddit, YouTube, or Twitter
- 1h 20m 38s

An Interview with JP Norair May 19, 2019

Show notes

Welcome JP Norair of Haystack Technologies!

Chris knows JP from the Consulting Forum. Want to join us? Apply here
- 0h 0m 40s
LoRa
- 0h 1m 49s
Chirp Spread Spectrum
- 0h 1m 53s
LoRaWAN
- 0h 3m 16s
The standard initially came from IBM
- 0h 3m 23s
Formed the LoRa alliance
- 0h 3m 34s
Comcast strategy shifting
- 0h 4m 9s
Sigfox was a competitor
- 0h 4m 55s
Senet
- 0h 6m 53s
Campus deployments
- 0h 8m 44s
Moving data on LoRaWAN
- 0h 9m 25s
Was probably meant for meter reading
- 0h 10m 17s
Haystack
- 0h 11m 30s
DASH7
- 0h 11m 35s
Savi
- 0h 11m 58s
Asset tracking on a global scale
- 0h 12m 49s
Exposed to technology standardization
- 0h 15m 43s
iso18000-7
- 0h 15m 59s
People who are contacting are using LoRaWAN and it hasn't worked
- 0h 20m 11s
QOS means there are packets that are received correctly
- 0h 21m 21s
LPWAN is not that mature
- 0h 22m 58s
Borrowing from space based telemetry
- 0h 23m 6s
Claude Shannon - Information theory
- 0h 24m 15s
There is built in error correction in the LoRa hardware
- 0h 27m 43s
Matt Knight episode from ToorCamp
- 0h 27m 55s
Alphabet soup of standards
- 0h 32m 26s
One of them specifies a convolutional code
- 0h 32m 35s
Soft decision
- 0h 33m 39s
Proprietary stuff sweetens the deal
- 0h 35m 56s
LDPC error correction
- 0h 36m 9s
Startups are willing to take a risk
- 0h 40m 25s
Bigger companies are worried about failing
- 0h 40m 33s
Working with startups
- 0h 41m 52s
Larger businesses are willing to pay for time and materials
- 0h 42m 1s
Payment on milestones
- 0h 42m 34s
Selling hardware allows you to put cost into it
- 0h 44m 3s
Mobile vs fixed
- 0h 45m 22s
Link budget
- 0h 49m 7s
ITU region 2
- 0h 49m 50s
RSSI
- 0h 51m 41s
Fresnel zone
- 0h 55m 33s
SolPad
- 0h 58m 33s
Have to be ready to bounce between full time and consulting
- 0h 58m 50s
Not a solar company
- 0h 59m 36s
Battery backed storage and conversion solutions
- 0h 59m 40s
John from Cree
- 1h 1m 24s
Doing GaN inverters
- 1h 1m 28s
Smaller inductors
- 1h 2m 9s
Roof mounted inverters and batteries
- 1h 3m 15s
Shahriar talking RF
- 1h 7m 13s
Trying to broaden expertise
- 1h 7m 18s
Dash7 over a wire
- 1h 9m 6s
RS485
- 1h 9m 33s
Sometimes wireless feels like it's actually more reliable than something like RS485
- 1h 12m 8s
JP has a person site called Indigresso
- 1h 19m 3s
Using MATLAB to simulate antennas
- 1h 20m 28s
Johanson antennas
- 1h 23m 1s
Making a different frequency antenna by adding extra wire
- 1h 24m 11s
Start with a higher freq chip antenna and modify it downward
- 1h 24m 25s

An Interview with Travis Goodspeed May 13, 2019

Show notes

Welcome, Travis Goodspeed!

Chris and Travis first met at after ESC Chicago in 2010.
TI Developer conference 2008 got into msp430
Chronos watch, had an "open source" design, much of the info was missing.
The GoodWatch project has an RPN calculator, assembler , disassembler, radio onboard
The chipcon430 was targeted at electric power meters
POCSAG
dapnet
IM ME
P25 PTT
Travis wrote a jammer for P25
Why special agent johnny still can't encrypt
Sandy Clark
IM ME uses the same radio core
P25 is 4FSK
DMR
The MD380 is a digital mode HT radio (larger than a baofeng) for HAMs that costs about $90
MD380 tools on github
"As soon as open tools catch up, I jump ship to them"
The GoodFET project was built upon a similar msp430 Flash Emulation Tool
Mask ROM bootloader in msp430
Mike Ossmann wanted to redesign and paid Travis $5 for the files. This became the GreatFET.
Goodwatch also has python env
Travis got into ham radio at SkydogCon
Old tv newsvan
Facedancer project, now run by Kate Tempkin
Initially was for testing usb vulnerabilities
Time of check to time of use check
Kate attacks the Nintendo switch
Studebaker
Vapor lock
Knoxville
Recon Montreal
Camp++
Follow Travis on Twitter @travisgoodspeed
Do you know anyone at TI? Please have them reach out to Travis about the TI conference and how to bring it back

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