The Amp Hour

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Natural Sciences
**The Amp Hour**

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

Latest Episodes:

World Trade Futurity (WTF) Nov 11, 2016

Show notes

Donald Trump is the president elect of the US. Dave (and Chris and the rest of the world) is asking "WTF?"
Tesla500 ponders whether NAFTA being repealed would impact sales of a device from a Canadian to the US.
Chris has been hanging out with Tony from adafruit who is working on MicroPython tutorials
Dave got a large format poster of the Spectrum printed in his latest mailbag
Chris got to hang out with Brent and Bryce from FaradayRF at SuperCon last weekend.
More about SuperCon
- Akiba was there!
- Alan Yates gave a talk abut the Valve LightHouse. He also talked about this on a recent episode of Embedded.fm.
- Ken Shirriff from Righto.com
- Steve Collins from JPL
Chris skipped Electronica, which is going on now.
Two more acquisitions
- Qualcomm acquires NXP
- Lattice Semi was acquired by a private capital firm.
Dave wrote old programs for Lattice devices. Chris started out with FPGAs using Altera's Quartus.
Muntzing technique
EMI app note from TI
One way to reduce EMI is to slow down the slew rate. Dave talked about this and more in an older bypassing video.
Chris wants some kind of "Evernote for datasheets" that locally syncs datasheets over time. Does anyone know of a service like this?
The satellite that came back online (back in 2013).
Dave stayed up late for the European Mars landing but hoped for more pomp in the presentation. You can watch some of the archived videos here.
Chris recalls XKCD's depressing comic about Spirit on Mars (695).

Monster Scale Production Oct 28, 2016

Show notes

Did you know you can suggest guests for The Amp Hour? Be sure to check out our posts of past guest shows first though.
Chris is starting to do pro-bono engineering. Check out the details and submit an application for help on his blog.
Jesse from Keyboardio did a box o' stuff from the Shenzhen markets. We also featured his tweet a while back comparing the smart watch to starbucks breakfast.
Dave really liked the Wired video special about Shenzhen.
Wired also did a video about the production of a 737 at Boeing.
If you're going into production, Jim from Mindtribe wrote about the tests to consider.
Mouser tracked an order through their warehouse on video. Pick and pack for warehouses is still the domain of humans but solutions like Amazon's Kiva could speed that up.
We enjoyed devttys0's "Faux Intelligent Light Switch". A nice analog circuit!
More attacks from IoT devices. Recode asks, "Should the manufacturers be held responsible?"
XKCD gives guidance on passwords. Chris prefer's the "Ready Player One" method of quoting songs for passwords (to log into VR), his favorite being "No one in the world gets what they want and that is beautiful." (They Might Be Giants)
Shenzhen is copying Kickstarters before they even finish funding. Good or bad?
Dave is flabbergasted at how much money a juicer raised ($120M). We are planning to have a VC on soon to discuss similar issues.

Thanks to Barnaby Walker for the picture of monster feet

An Interview with Brent of OSHstencils Oct 21, 2016

Show notes

Welcome Brent of OSHStencils!

Chris and Brent first met at OHS Boston. The company started in July 2013
Previously Brent had been ordering from OharaRP. Ryan has been on TAH before as well.
The beginning stencils were Kapton / Polyimide. Thicknesses were either 3 or 5 mil.
Low quality paste is a huge problem for stencils. The best past "rolls" like an ocean wave. Brent recommends (and sells) Kester products.
Most traditional stencils are mounted to frames, with sizes like 23"x23" or 29"x29"
One OSHStencils user did over 300 boards with a single kapton stencil! The recommended is maximum 25 - 50 uses.
The minimum feature size for Kapton stencils is 5 mil in each direction. These are made with a CO2 laser (like an Epilog), which limits the low end of what can be done.
The company was first formed as a potential OSHpark partner business, but that got sidelined when OSHpark had the opportunity to buy batchPCB. Laen has been on the show in the past as well!
GerbV is the gerber viewing tool built into gEDA
Mentioned previously on the show, OSHStencils now sells stainless steel stencils. These can have features as small as 1 mil.
This requires a fiber laser from LPKF, which needed to be retrofitted to "trick" it into cutting stencils that weren't in frame.
Terminology
- Aperature - pad cutout
- Kerf - diameter of laser beam
Watching a video of paste application shows the "ocean" effect.
You can find out more and order your own stencils over at OSHStencils.com. Or email them for custom requests (either listen to the show for the address or go through the site contact page)

Photon Rich, Cash Poor Oct 14, 2016

Show notes

Dave has been testing U1272A's again after learning about a possible EMC issue. Dave had previously tested Fluke 87s with GSM.
A new open source radio project (FaradayRF) has Chris wondering if there are possible.
Dave is back to working on his Supercomputer idea (with BOINC).
A new board might use a Microchip SPI -> Ethernet part, the ENC28J60
NextThingCo (makers of the CHiP) announced the ChipPro and the GR8 SOM.
They include a non-NDA datasheet for the AllWinner R8.
Chris got to see the Chipsetter up close and personal at MFNY.
The Open Hardware Summit went ok! Interesting discussions about the new license.
The "Got Milk" campaign was used as PR for drinking more milk
Taking 11 hours to get a Wifi kettle working
Chris and Dave may start licensing "DC-Ether™" for products.
Randall from XKCD discusses design decisions
Solar roadways installs are a disaster
You can watch MegaBots discuss their design decisions.
3D Robotics seems to be in trouble. It seems like they are pivoting to a "software only" model. We had Chris Anderson on the show back in 2012. Contrast this with bootstrapping a business like MailChimp.
The reddit thread about SpaceX was actually about "why" we're trying to colonize mars, not the space race between boeing and them, but is interesting nonetheless.
Dave has been watching an LHC documentary. It has not destroyed the world (yet), keep an eye on that here.

Thanks to acidpix for the image of the solar panels

Impedance Matching with Michael Ossmann and Dmitry Nedospasov Oct 07, 2016

Show notes

Welcome (back) Dmitry and Mike!

A Decoupled Episode Sep 30, 2016

Show notes

(Note: changed the title to “Decoupled” instead of “Decoupling” as said in the intro as it sounds less negative)

Thanks to Windell Oskay (EMSL) for the image of the capacitors!

An Interview with Robert Feranec Sep 23, 2016

Show notes

Welcome Robert Feranec of Fedevel Academy!

Robert started designing electronics in 2000 post university. His first project was designing an IP telephone using Linux.
While his paid course is at Fedevel.com, he has free videos on his youtube channel called "matarofe"
We enjoyed his video on how to work as a freelancer. There are two kinds of freelancer:
- Lifestyle freelancers
- Status seekers
He later realized 3 things about freelance
- Limited by hours
- Always working for someone else
- Only get to sell work once
The iMX6 Rex is one of his large projects, though you can view all 4 projects (and associated courses) here.
Robert just attended PCB west and saw the new active router created by Altium. This was discussed at length on the EEVblog forum.
When Altium changed how the board outline was done, Robert did a video on how it had changed (instead of updating the private course)
Robert has been trying out Circuit Studio. Dave likes the pricing.
The main open design for Fedevel is the OpenRex.
Dave recently proposed changes to the OSHW logo that he believes will unify the ideas.
Chris will be at OHS in early October and Robert may join as well!

Mashuppery (with MEP) Sep 16, 2016

Show notes

Co-Podcast with Parker and Stephen from the Macrofab Engineering Podcast (MEP)
Parker finds new ICs through the subreddit /r/nicechips and subscribing to manufactures mailing lists.
Chip manufactures should just advertise the specifications of new chips and link direct to the datasheets.
Other sources for new parts and information are EEweb and Electronics Weekly.
Parker and Stephen do a really bad job explaining what MacroFab does. MacroFab does end-to-end electronics manufacturing and operations for low volume companies. Everything can be done via API end point which can enable your webstore to automatically drop ship inventory to your customers.
Last time MacroFab talked with Chris Gammell it was only four people. Now MacroFab has over 20 employees and is moving to a 11k sq ft warehouse space.
Renesas to Buy Intersil for $3.2 Billion. Everyone agrees that competition is good and these mergers go against that.
How to defend against the USB Killer Thumb Drive. Best solution is to just not give users access to a USB ports.
Samsung Note 7 exploding. Samsung says it is a mechanical issue but it sounds more like a failure of the Battery Management System.
Parker has used the BQ24075RGTT for lithium battery management.
Cycle life of Lithium batteries is around 500-600 recharge cycles.
GM creates Elon Musk's dream car first. GM will be using LG Tech's batteries.
Chris went to IMTS, International Manufacturing Technology Show a couple days ago. See Figure 1. Has lots of huge machines that Chris enjoyed looking at. How does electronic trade shows compete with this?
Sword fighting robot arm by ABB.
Stephen has been to Turbomachinery & Pump Symposia which is held in Houston, Texas.
The ESP32 wifi module has been released. It is the successor to the popular ESP8266. If the price for the modules drop then the ESP32 will probably be as successful as the ESP8266.
Stephen and Chris gotta go fast with SPI over I2C.
Power will be the limiting factor going forward for IoT and other small devices as chips like the ESP32 drive the price of silicon down.
Parker and Stephen are working on the SSPS (Super Simple Power Supply) and it is up on the MacroFab's github account. It is a 700W water cooled beast of a powersupply that runs a couple OPA541 opamps. See Figure 2 for the Analog test board for the SSPS.
For EDA/CAD tools, Parker likes Eagle, Stephen likes DipTrace, and Chris is KiCad.
MacroFab has seen lots of different EDA tools; Altium, Eagle, DipTrace, KiCad, PADS, Cadence, Ultiboard, Fritzing, EasyEDA, and MeowCad.

Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro mashup!

An Interview with Josh Lifton Sep 09, 2016

Show notes

Welcome Josh Lifton of Crowd Supply!

Doesn't like the term crowdfunding, refers to CS as a "product launch platform". They do much more than funding including returns, marketing, design and storefronts. Chris came up with a name called "CollectiVenture" during the show.
On the Launch page, you can see the stats of their campaigns, which includes a 100% success rate of delivery (if funded). There are really 4 stages of "success"
- Did you get funding?
- Did you deliver?
- Was it on time?
- Was there profit from the entire venture?
We've discussed some of the funded projects on the show before:
- LimeSDR
- Bunnie's book
- the Novena Laptop
- Snap VCC
Not included in CS's offerings is manufacturing. That is taken care of by the campaign and is done is all over the world.
Sometimes the fulfillment continues past the campaign and CS takes over the project to continue to sell it (giving a cut to the original creator). This was true for the Novena and SnapVCC.
Josh's background was MIT media lab. He built lots of devices and saw the looming problems when Kickstarter/Indiegogo started promoting hardware.
In addition to working on things like Puppet Labs and Storm Pulse, Josh also worked on early versions of Pix Mob, which are programmable LED audiences. He was contacted because of his work at MIT on sensor networks.
Along with Mirabai Knight and various other collaborators, Josh works on the Open Steno project. This is to bring an open source stenography solution to the world.
The world record for stenography is 360 wpm, need 225 wpm to pass the steno exam. You can try it online with a
Josh created an open source piece of hardware called the Stenosaurus, which has a pre-launch page on CrowdSupply.
There is a handheld device called a Chordite which allows for "typing" (albeit quite slow) while on the go.

Image via Portland Biz Journal

My Kind of Town Sep 02, 2016

Show notes

Chris has moved to Chicago, among other life changes.
The Steam Controller Video shows the device was manufactured in the suburbs of Chicago.
Sadly, we didn't talk about it much, but Dave got to see The Woz speak!
Chris had to leave his bench behind, but that leaves the opportunity to build a new bench!
The Chicago hackerspace is Pumping Station: One, where Chris got to meet other technology folks.
On demand making services
- Shapeways
- Ponoko
- Plethora
- MakeXYZ
You can get rental test equipment, it's just expensive and only really targeted at high end stuff.
There is a manufacturing/hwstartup space launching in Chicago called mHub
Dave got a 50 year old watch with early transistors
- Here are some pictures
- Here is how it works!
The machining required for clocks is amazing. Check out Clickspring's channel for amazing videos on the topic.
The planar process for ICs was not invented until 1959 (found here), so Dave's (1963) watch has a single transistor
More mergers
- Renesas is buying Intersil
- On Semi is buying Fairchild
- Check out this yet-to-be-updated map of semi mergers.
The Ampere will soon be redefined in how it's defined. We talked about standard measures with Jon (Prof Gears) a few months back.
Using Amazon prime, Chris got the "Learning the Art of Electronics" book same day. Dave is beginning to use the Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) service for his multimeters.
The LTAOE book is amazing! It's written a different style than AoE, even more conversational.
The White House invited 400+ hacker/maker spaces to a one day conference; they called the spaces "A National Treasure" which was awesome!