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:

Open FPGA Toolchains at 35c3 Jan 02, 2019

Show notes

Peter's crowdfunding campaign for the IceBreaker
Symbiotic EDA
Yosys tools
nextPNR
Clifford's talk at 35c3
Tim Ansell's talk at 35c3
Adding a WS2812 controller to a PicoRV
Our remote correspondent
- Piotr Esden-Tempski (@esden)
Our guests
- Dave Shah (@FPGA_dave)
- Clifford Wolf (@oe1cxw)
  - Clifford's appearance on The Amp Hour
Follow the hosts/show on Twitter
Or on our subreddit /r/theamphour
Thanks to all of our Patrons!

Stick 'Em On Whales Dec 28, 2018

Show notes

This week Chris joins Elecia and Chris White of Embedded.fm for our yearly recap episode!

Check out embedded.fm to get show notes for the episode.

Thanks to lalycolon for the image on Pixabay

The Legend of Keyzermas Dec 23, 2018

Show notes

Welcome back, Jeff Keyzer AKA Mightyohm!

This is now our 5th Keyzermas! Check out the past ones here:
- Mightyhohm For The Holidays
- Merry Keyzermas
- The Ghost of Keyzermas Past
- Wait, Why is Jeff Glowing?
Last year Jeff had just quit his job but has since re-joined Valve as a contractor
Overhead
Jeff has not joined Chris's Consulting Forum. You can join here if you're interested (now 100+ strong!)
Jeff has been focusing on Signal Integrity
It's helpful to "Be the signal", a visualization popularized by Eric Bogatin
Dave things Jeff should get a video game maker to make a simulation. Maybe former guest Zach Barth of Zachtronics?
"The Terminator"
In his new SI role, Jeff is checking things like
- Jitter
- Eye diagrams
And using equipment like
- VNA
- TDR
Learn your Z transforms, kids! They're important!
We've had some great signal integrity guests on the show:
- Eric Bogatin
- Howard Johnson (though Chris completely forgot)
- Henry Ott
Elektor started carrying mightyohm kits
The Seattle scene for hardware has been growing. Jeff isn't a NIMBY yet.
The effect of recessions on new company creation
Boeing tour
Things that have or haven't happened
USB C
TS80
New bandwidths - 60 GHz
Hiber and other low earth orbit satellite offerings
Looking at the 2018 hype curve
Jon Beri talk at HDDG about Brett Victor's concept of "seeing spaces"
CES trends
Connected home
Autobiography of Tek (think it's "Winning with people: The first 40 years of Tektronix")
Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks by Tony Kordyban
Jeff pointed out the 27 series set from Rad Lab

Thanks to Mrs Mightyohm for the picture of Jeff and my sister's instagram account for the picture of the elf on the shelf :-D

An Interview with Joe Long Dec 17, 2018

Show notes

Welcome Joe Long of Hackerboxes!

Chris and Joe met (in person) at the vendor area of DEF CON 26
- 0h 0m 26s
Hackerboxes is a subscription service for people who want to build electronics!
- 0h 1m 15s
It's not solely security focused, but often has elements of security.
- 0h 3m 3s
It's also not just getting started folks
- 0h 4m 7s
Used to teach engineering
- 0h 6m 9s
Joe started as an engineer, going to school at CalTech
- 0h 7m 3s
AppleII on BBS
- 0h 7m 9s
Eventually Joe got into IP law
- 0h 7m 34s
He wanted to build a service the helped Build up the lab
- 0h 8m 49s
Model car kit vs Lego kit
- 0h 10m 42s
Most suggestions come from users
- 0h 15m 41s
Sourcing
- 0h 17m 25s
Theme sometimes come after the fact
- 0h 17m 47s
Constraints
- Under a pound
- Fit in the box shape (10 inches)
- Cost constraint
- Educational
- Coolness
- 0h 18m 42s
Yagi antenna in HB0023
Don't ship power supplies/ batteries
- 0h 22m 9s
FAQ
- 0h 25m 50s
Wielding electricity
- 0h 30m 41s
Hackerboxes team
- 0h 32m 39s
They employ someone in Shenzhen to help with sourcing from China
- 0h 35m 31s
IP attorney
- 0h 41m 0s
Do you really want a patent?
- 0h 44m 22s
patents are sometying you use to protect and asset to sell it
- 0h 44m 58s
chattel
- 0h 45m 35s
copyright is a simple form of IP
- 0h 45m 58s
useful, non obvious
- 0h 47m 58s
Patent troll
- 0h 48m 50s
Using a patent as a hammer
- 0h 50m 8s
just to get started, 6 figures
- 0h 50m 48s
Silicon Valley episode about the Patent Troll
- 0h 51m 53s
Will try to talk them out of it
- 0h 54m 8s
Disclosure meeting
- 0h 54m 46s
6 wheels instead of 4
- 0h 55m 8s
"Need in the art"
- 0h 55m 15s
"Unexpected result"
- 0h 55m 33s
Novel is "necessary but not sufficien"
- 0h 55m 51s
Utility patent - useful, novel and non obvious
- 0h 57m 1s
Limited monopoly
- 0h 59m 35s
patent office is giving a "reason for allowance"
- 0h 59m 43s
Joe writes claims that capture the engineering terms
- 1h 3m 27s
Don't want to allow people to "design around"
- 1h 4m 6s
Patent attorneys see new products every 4 - 6 days
- 1h 6m 20s
Software patents
- 1h 9m 5s
Patents for Google Wallet and Bing Maps
- 1h 9m 34s
Design vs Utility patent
- 1h 10m 53s
Data analytics example
- 1h 13m 15s
Machine or transformation test
- 1h 17m 1s
international patent harmonization
- 1h 17m 17s
Abstract concepts are never patentable
- 1h 19m 37s
It's tricky to read patents
- 1h 21m 21s
If there's an area of technology you like, you might want to read the patent
- 1h 23m 17s
Pro se patents
- 1h 23m 53s
Patently obvious
- 1h 24m 27s
The funnel
- 1h 26m 5s
$20K for patenting process
- 1h 26m 17s
70% get issued of that 1% who get through
- 1h 26m 27s
Patent granted (probably to a big company)
- 1h 26m 44s
longtechlaw.com
- 1h 33m 55s
USPTO
- 1h 34m 10s
Hackerboxes.com
- 1h 34m 36s
@hackerboxes
- 1h 35m 41s

Feels over reals Dec 10, 2018

Show notes

Chris has been recording from mHUB lately, which does not have great rooms.
Dave's slow purge from his move.
EEVBlog2 channel was banned from doing live streams
Dave won a copyright claim
Soldering irons made for 120 can't be plugged into 240...
SCRs
Core saturation
Blow throughs
One time fuse embedded in the plug pack
A new LoRa SIP from Microchip Microsemi RISCV
Learn more about the RISCV ISA
Rabbit 2000
RTOS in C
Zephyr Project
Electric scooters seem to be everywhere
Looking to repurpose a scooter you "find" on the street?
Building a new uCurrent
NeoDen4
"Don't Touch My Gerbers"
Dave had a great idea about a layout contest:
- Fastest
- Neatest
- Most circuitous
- Most artistic
There is now a Hardware Happy Hour (3H) in San Francisco! The first one is coming up in January
"It's what's in your heart"

Thanks to Perspective for the photo of the scooter

An Interview with Josh Datko Dec 03, 2018

Show notes

Welcome, Josh Datko!

Chris and Josh met at Black Hat this past year while Josh was helping former guest Joe Fitzpatrick give a training and Chris was "helping" past guest Colin O'Flynn give a training.
- 0h 1m 2s
Josh attended the US Naval Academy
- 0h 1m 24s
5 years in a sub, recalled to go to Afghanistan
- 0h 2m 10s
Josh was a Trident scholar
- 0h 3m 50s
Operational Security (opsec)
- 0h 4m 34s
Naval academy students all graduate as engineers
- 0h 5m 12s
Nuclear power school
- 0h 8m 45s
Submarine reactor system
- 0h 10m 45s
Primary and secondary loops
- 0h 10m 59s
Los Angeles class submarine
- 0h 13m 24s
The sub he was on was an independent operations boat
- 0h 14m 35s
List of stories was vetted by his wife
- 0h 15m 55s
"The military is not like real life"
- 0h 18m 3s
Cloud story
- 0h 18m 56s
IRC story
- 0h 22m 19s
Dog and cat story
- 0h 26m 40s
Practical cryptography
- 0h 30m 57s
Going to work for a defense contractor
- 0h 33m 34s
Very process oriented, lots of GANTT charts
- 0h 34m 23s
Went back to grad school at Drexel
- 0h 36m 47s
Tor is a network on a network - overlay
- 0h 37m 14s
Security and privacy lab at drexel
- 0h 40m 17s
Talk at DEFCON25 about glitching the trezor
- 0h 43m 51s
Josh will be giving a talk with Thomas and Dmitry at 35c3
- 0h 47m 45s
Symettric vs asymettric vs elliptical cryptography
- 0h 49m 29s
Dmitry on the show
- 0h 52m 57s
Supermicro servers
- 0h 53m 59s
Backscatter on a VGA cable
- 0h 56m 37s
Chuckwagon
- 0h 56m 50s
Best practices for embedded security
- 1h 4m 32s
Threat modeling
- 1h 4m 41s
Formalizing the process of security
- 1h 7m 20s
Blockchain hackathon in Wyoming
- 1h 15m 31s
Beefchain
- 1h 18m 40s
Story about Afghanistan
- 1h 20m 25s
JCREW
- 1h 23m 44s
Cryptotronix.com
- 1h 29m 17s
wallet.fail
- 1h 29m 35s
Josh can be found as @cryptotx on Twitter
- 1h 29m 55s

Cash Is King Nov 26, 2018

Show notes

This episode is all business! Well, not ALL business, Chris also mentions KiCon 2019, which will be taking place in April of 2019 in Chicago. Sign up to give a talk here!

Chris gives a terrible account of Thanksgiving, here's the real history of it.
Dave has a new accountant
Accounting system
ERP systems
Net 30
Lean manufacturing
Forecasting
Lines of credit
Apple I line of credit
DUNS
Dave ends up giving lines of credit to advertiser
Tindie selling is a great way to get started as a small electronics producer
Dave's former assembler charged 1 cent per joint
When bootstrapping a business, the initial profit becomes the cash pad
Dave did a video about how to price things
2.5x multiplier
MBAs don't teach about small business normally
Lifestyle business
Hit by a bus test
Dave is treating labs like a hermit crab
KiCon is a KiCad user conference happening in April 2019 in Chicago IL
New NeoDenUSA video shows how to set up the NeoDen4
We are now on Pandora Podcasts! You can apply to be a beta customer.

Thanks to Burning Bridges for the photo of the cards

An Interview with James Bruton Nov 19, 2018

Show notes

Welcome James Bruton, creator of the xRobots channel on YouTube!

James lives in Hampshire in the UK
He just recently released a robotics history at xrobots, he got started in 2004
He first started programming Z80 processors.
The Opendog project is re-creating a robot similar to the Boston Dynamics spot, spot mini and alpha dog
That project uses 6 Odrive controllers.
Inverse kinematics
James did a video explaining the math. sohcohtoa!
Force forward kinematics
Robotics players in the space
- Honda - asimo
- Toyota
- Anki
- Pleo
- Sphero
Bluetooth over serial
ROS
SLAM
CAN bus
Drone lipo batteries
Open CAD model
Exo suit series. See Part 25 for the ultimate outcome.
Skateboard ESC
Mini electric motor bike
Unreal engine serial protocol
Hulkbuster
How to build an ironman suit in 4 minutes
BB8 video
Starwars celebration panel
R2D2 builder club
BB9E
See James' stuff online!
- YouTube
- Patreon
- Twitter
- Instagram

Ergs Per Second Nov 11, 2018

Show notes

Chris just got back from the Hackaday Superconference, where he got to hang out with/meet Ben Krasnow, Andreas Spiess and many others.
Flex PCBs
Scotty from Strange Parts (our guest last week) gave Chris iPad PCBs, which were pretty thin!
Transmission line impedance calculator
PCBs inside of cameras
Always easier to Pick and Place as a flat thing
3D printing onto fabric
Dave and David found a thermal imaging watch project in the lab cleanup
Chris was impressed by a project that used a grid eye and a TI pico projector, built by former guest Robert Nelson
Chris was asking about off the shelf cases vs 3D printed ones.
This was discussed in our interview with Marcus Schappi when he talked about the Ninja Blocks project
uSupply moving to 2 part die cast case
Video about how to do an SMD board to fit into two part cases.
Writing a datasheet first helps to bound the constraints of a board
Pleasing the last .1% of the customer
Chris will be doing assembly again this week and released an intro video about using the NeoDen4.
Past guest Piotr Esden-Tempski did a great video/stream showing how to do PCB panelization in KiCad
Chris didn't understand how panels were spec'd and you didn't need to put out a full panel size.
Mike's video about the fish installation talked about stretching what was possible with PCBs and assembly.
Dave's old DfM video(s) go over good practices for getting boards assembled.
Dave's move is going slow
Dave was mentioned on the Techmoan channel talking about Data Play discs
At the Hackaday Superconference, Chris gave a talk about common circuits that can protect designs
Jimmy Carter's Solar panel
Dave's experience with solar
Ergs per second are akin to kW. Do your own conversions online.
Check out Ben Krasnow's talk from Supercon, his deposition of electoluminescent material was particularly impressive (including the methods he used to drive them)

Thanks to pagedooley for the picture of the solar farm

An Interview with Scotty Allen (Strangeparts) Nov 06, 2018

Show notes

(image thanks to the Hackaday.io)

Welcome Scotty Allen of Strangeparts.com!

Chris and Scotty were just hanging out at Supercon. Scotty gave a talk from there last year.
Scotty's latest video is about making an RFID chip
Kitchen Confidential
Scotty did software consulting in college and then joined the Google search team.
He decided to quit and travel more and was became a "Minimalist by default" when he accidentally set apartment on fire.
Blog posts in 2014 had him curious about Shenzhen, including posts from Ian from Dangerous Prototypes.
He first visited with Mitch Altman during his yearly tour to China.
Greg from RevRobotics makes parts for FRC
The process to stay in China
WePay (really "WeChat Pay")
QR codes
Scotty knows some conversational Chinese, but also relies on Google translate and Microsoft translate (OCR).
Videos
- iPhone
  - Making the phone
  - Bringing back the jack
- RFID
  - Checking out the stickers
  - 2nd video at Impinge
- Factory tours
- Videoes with Collin Abroadcast in the Yiwu commodities market outside of Shanghai
  - Inside the massive market
  - Cashierless convenience store
Places Scotty wants to tour (please contact if you know of any contacts)
- Silicon fab
- Batteries - LiPo
- Injection molding - greg nedall
- White label modification
100 units
- Chinese entrepreneurs use local manufacturing
- iPhone testing board (also pictured above) is a good example
- Intermeshed network of specialized manufacturing
- People shop around for quality/relationships
Finding factories
- Moving outside of Shenzhen
- Mismatched expectations
Chinese entrepreneurs
- Moving upmarket
- Shanzai phones
- Made in China 2025
- 100 year plan with 5 year plan segments
Scotty doesn't plan to start a QVC channel
DSLR video shooter
Video
- Background in video/theater
- Story telling
- Quest
The Engineers journey
- Any complex project goes through the heroes journey
- The only way through is to change who they are as a person
There are two ways the story can finish
- Succeed
- Explaining why it can't be done
Battery stories with past guest Steve Kreuzer
Boards brought from the market
Scotty is growing the Strangeparts team, namely looking for a COO.
Contact Scotty on
- Twitter @strangepartscom
Scotty@strangeparts.com

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