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:

3D Product Logistics Jan 15, 2016

Show notes

Dave will be on another podcast called Space Worlders.
While planning to fix his Aircon, Chris wonders why Dave doesn't buy a ladder on Amazon. Prime (or any simplified logistical setup) influences decisions about purchases.
Dave has become a product marketer/definer. He has a new secret project coming out soon. Some companies are more secretive than others.
Dave got a 3D model of his new product, which is important for showing off to people inside and outside your company.
Quality goes through cycles...China/Japan/Taiwan/Korea all started simple and have progressed to high quality goods.
Chris traded in his mill for a 3D printer. It is a Wilson II 3d printer, a reprap variant designed by his friend Marty.
David2 built a super high end 3D printer for his senior project and won contests with it.
The unwritten part of 3D printing is needing to get better at 3D modeling software.
Dave uses the simple eMachineshop as it fits how he thinks about mechanical assemblies.
CadJunkie (run by Adam who was also on Engineer v Designer) is a program for learning about how to model stuff in 3D.
Chris uses Sketchup, which can get you somewhat far. He is also investigating AutoDesk Fusion 360.
Dave asks Chris whether he is giving away all of his content. Not yet!
David Bowie (RIP) wrote about the future of the music industry in the NYTimes...in 2002. He was spot on.
One of the main ways to still make money is on tour. Adam and Jamie of Mythbusters tour around the world, including Australia (which Dave missed).
Chris had a list of life goals that he was reviewing at the beginning of the year. Dave has never had a list. What should Dave do?
Michael who was recently on Embedded.fm talked all about FIRST Robotics.
The introductory FIRST video this year is based on Monty Python and the holy grail.
Former guest Fran has started a kickstarter for her reboot of the peachfuzz pedal. A couple days left!
Zano went bust to the tune of 2.3M pounds. Kickstarter is doing an investigation.
Chris quoted Hans Gruber from Die Hard with regard to flopped crowdfunding campaings. We learned today (the day after the recording) that Alan Rickman sadly passed away.
A new article indicates that Atmel's board prefers Microchip buy them. Dave loves saying "fiduciary responsibility".
Brian Benchoff tried to prank Chris with "something ominous from his past". It turned out to be a t-shirt of his lame band.
Future product designers will be tempted by low cost platforms like the Pi Zero ($5). Dave and Chris went over why it would be a bad idea to think this is a long term plan (ie. a product vs a prototype).
- Form Factor -- It's not optimized for your design.
- Stock -- Recall when Octopart started their BBB tracker because it was so hard to get them.
- Price -- If they got good pricing on a chip, you probably can as well.
Looking for a fun way to ride for 20 minutes and/or get chopped up by blades while riding to work? Check out the Ehang 184!
Dave didn't know that LaVar Burton was the host of Reading Rainbow, which recently relaunched.

Crossovers and Call-ins Jan 08, 2016

Show notes

Welcome, Elecia and Chris White from Embedded.fm! Our 3rd Call-in Show for The Amp Hour, this one focused more on the embedded side of things with some other electronics thrown in!

Elecia is no longer working on mice containment but is still playing around with BB8. The newest project is disassembling tiny quadcopters. Check out the mentioned diagram here and ping her with any thoughts using the contact link on embedded.fm.
Chris asked if El/Chris had seen the Seeed WIO (kickstarter). It's interesting because of the app configuration of devices.
Guest calls!
- Steve Dalton (@spidie)
  - called in asking about pro makers and how they are perceived by traditional engineers.
  - He was a former guest on episode 63 of Embedded.fm
  - The Maker Pro book
- Lee Wiggins (@wigman27)
  - He wanted to know when to jump out of Arduino.
  - Lee has a popular Dummy load that is on instructables and Tindie.
  - Elecia recommends using mbed
  - Lee has used a SPI display from Adafruit in the past.
- Stuart McAndrew (@ssshocker)
  - Stuart wanted to know whether to use external or internal watchdog timers.
  - Jack Ganssle wrote about watchdogs.
  - He is working on the ozQube, a 5cmx5cm satellite.
- Jonathan McDonald (@5onathan)
  - Jon currently uses Flow code 5 and wants to know which language to switch to next.
  - The current software stack is used for tasks like controlling ladders on mining equipment.
  - Chris W suggests starting with Arduino, as Jon already has experience with system design.
- Chris Svec (@christophersvec)
  - Chris was also a guest on Embedded.fm in the past, episode 78.
  - He wanted to know what products should exist for embedded that don't already.
  - Elecia pointed out that there are many product/services that the founders started to "scratch their own itch". OSHpark, Small Batch Assembly, Tindie were given as examples.
  - Clang is a newer open source compiler, as opposed to using GCC.
  - Chris always wanted a serial output logging system that uses wifi, like a wifi bus pirate. It doesn't appear that anything like this exists but the ESP8266 is a good candidate for getting something working.

It was great having Chris and Elecia on the show again to help answer questions! Thanks to everyone who called in and chatted with us!

Thanks to Jeremy for the picture of the school bus

New Year Education Jan 01, 2016

Show notes

Welcome back, Akiba of Freaklabs!

Akiba was on the show back in April of 2015.
Freaklabs is moving from a consultancy to a product company.
One product that came out this year was a rice farm monitoring sensor node system. Developed in conjunction with the University of Tokyo.
- Uses single hop nodes with long range radios (couple kM)
- One aggregator node uses 3G to upload data.
- Software stack is Python flask
Another sensor network project lets farmers know when there are boar (an invasive species) are caught in traps.
Pigs in Space!
For prototyping, Akiba normally uses Dirty PCBs/Seeed for getting PCBs manufactured.
The Hackerfarm (located in Kamagowa) is still going strong!
Akiba and Chris are both very big on apprenticeship.
Chris has an issue when he was at the ECEDHA conference and company heads said they weren't interested in practical education.
Akiba's sister founded Hackermoms in Oakland.
The rise of HWstartups gives Akiba hope. He and Bunnie give tours to students from the MIT media lab.
They visited a mannequin factory. Creepy!
Quality factors in China require people on site to crack the whip. Akiba's gf had a low quality product delivered to her because the quoting company subcontracted to an unproven smaller print house.
Depression in technology can come from a lot of places. One of them is the seemingly endless treadmill of technology.
In 2016, Akiba wants to create products that strike a chord with people. Not necessarily super technical products.
One example is an electronic, "Choose Your Own Adventure" children's book.
Imposter syndrome, Hero culture and Ego are things we all have to deal with in technology.
"Nose to the grindstone, head to the stars" ~ The Roots, "Sacrifice"

Happy 2016! Thank you to everyone for supporting and listening to the show!

Merry Keyzermas! Dec 25, 2015

Show notes

Merry Keyzermas! Welcome again, Jeff Keyzer!

Jeff is still selling his Geiger counter kits.
He has been working on Valve on the Steam Controller
Part of the process for high volume manufacturing is doing Monte Carlo analysis.
If you haven't seen it yet, the video of the the Steam Controller is amazing!
Chris asked about using the Steam controller for layout but it doesn't seem like a good fit. Dave and Jeff use space navigators with Altium.
Jeff has a go-kit. He brings it everytime he goes to China
- DMM
- USB digital microscope - the dino-lite
- Tweezers
- Spudgers
- Soldering supplies
- Gloves sized for Jeff
- Finger cots (magnum sized)
Dealing with part switching due to sourcing issues is an ongoing process.
- Paper qual - if the datasheet looks good
- Full qualification - test rigs and sample builds
Jeff uses OneNote (Chris uses Evernote) for documenting projects over the product lifecycle. A paper trail is very important.
iFixit teardown of the Steam controller.
Chris asked about the reliability of Chinese manufacturers. Dave has been reading a book called Poorly Made in China. Jeff says the most important thing is representing the interests of the company paying for the manufacturing (often with an employee on the ground).
Jeff has turned into the "Quality Tzar", making sure the boards are up to snuff. Using the USB microscope, he shares problems he finds with boards. A picture is worth a 1000 words.
The level of competence in china is so high because they have consumer electronics experience. Getting to the point of "steady state" manufacturing will help you maintain quality.
Rework adds uncertainty and sometimes it's not worth it. For a finished goods product that is $49.99 retail the decisions are different than for a $4K board. The value of time is a big factor.
Could this all be done stateside? It's very dependent on the support and the supply chain. In China, there's no issue that can't be solved within one day (with a mfg rep).

We always love when Jeff stops by! Don't forget to follow @mightyohm on twitter!

Image courtesy of Jeff’s face and Chris’s family’s house

Interconnectorama Dec 11, 2015

Show notes

We will be having another call in show on December 16th around 8 pm EST (not 6:30 pm as stated). Keep an eye out for a post about it!
Dave gets grief from his wife about how he pronounces "math"
No, your town is not the new silicon valley. Sydney is trying this with the busted "ideas boom"
Dave has been playing around with a new linear power supply. Chris wonders about a switched cap output supply (to reduce noise) with a SMPS base.
The Steorn power scam is back. As is a new scam claiming to power your home with a bike.
The KiCad 4.0.0 release came out recently. It's time to update!
Saar from Boldport made some beautiful PCBs that made it into a fashion magazine.
A couple months back former guest Voja posted on Hackaday about PCB enclosures.
More mergers, this time Microsemi and PMC-Sierra.
There was a discussion about FPGA bitstreams on Hacker News. The Icestorm has been out for a while, as well as Yosys, enabling non-vendor based tools.
Thimble.io is doing a subscription kit based business. This is similar to Pirate Electronics and TronClub. Dave mentions this used to happen often in the 70s out of the back of magazines.
Dave is dealing with bulk order shipping for a product. Chris likes watching ship traffic.
Chris is struggling with finding interconnects for various PCBs. He is targeting pre-fabbed solutions and ended up landing on the Seeed grove system (because of the simple connectors and fabbed cables)
Dave will use SamTec for high speed connections, but those can be pricey.
Instead of working with cabling or battery holders, David2 is molding custom cases and putting retention and header features into the design.
Car harnesses can be huge and insanely complicated -- Here's a picture of a modest one.... That makes cable manufacturers love them ($$$).
Check out this gate level simulation/visualization of an ARM1 processor.
Dave talked with the president of Sigilent and Eric mentioned he's starting to have trouble getting labor (skilled and unskilled) in China.

Reminder: Our next call in show will be December 16th!

Eating An Elephant Dec 04, 2015

Show notes

Welcome to our two guest hosts!
- Michael from Programming Electronics Academy (formerly Open Source Hardware Group)
- Dan from Rheingold Heavy (he set up a special page for listeners of The Amp Hour)
Podcasts!
- Michael used to run the OSHWG podcast.
- Dan was also on Embedded.fm in the past.
Dan started wanting to make boards that have sensors underwater... now there is the OpenROV community!
Chris mentioned a /r/bestof post about life before internet and how things were different.
Michael recommends only "Kind of knowing something", because it forces people to be comfortable with discomfort.
Dan has been working on "Arduino From Scratch" posts, spec'ing cap for output and wondering about the ESR of capacitors (Chris had no idea)
Mentors are critical for learning electronics.
Niche communities like /r/arduino and various stack exchange sites are great resources. Forums can be dicey (especially if you ask rookie questions without searching first...) but are a great localization of experts.
Thinking about getting started tomorrow for the first time? Michael recommends starting with a soldering kit.
The recently announced ($5) Raspberry Pi Zero kit will bring in new people to the hobby/field.

Thanks to Dan and Michael for joining Chris on the show this week! Follow @RheingoldHeavy and @ProgElecAcademy on twitter for more!

Thanks to Lucas Santana for the picture of the (intact) elephant

No One Even Missed Us? Nov 20, 2015

Show notes

Jack Ganssle was in Australia and visited Dave's lab! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1apCAzCTZdQ
Dave has interviewed others in the past like DJ Delorie and Colin Mitchell of Talking Electronics
Chris interviewed Grant Imahara at the Superconference.
Mythbusters is ending but had a big influence.
Dave grew up watching the Curiosity show.
After creating the Superconference badge using the Truchet tiles, Chris better understood what Fabienne was talking about when she was on the shoe.
The badge modding was amazing:
- Best blinky
- Best dead bug
- Most over-the-top
TI is reducing their student sample program. Any student listeners out there should magically become "companies"!
Dave is considering incorporating in Wyoming, which is supposed to have a beneficial tax structure.
Dave is amazed by the finance magic that happened around the purchase and sale of Dick Smith.
ON semi is buying Fairchild Semi.
Bootstrapping a programming language requires starting from low level code.
There was a Quora article comparing D, Rust & Go.
What the heck is "D" as a programming language, anyway?
The Prometheus seems like a decent machine but "requires a 3rd party CAD/CAM tools"? It'd be ok if they mandated their partner site Upverter (former guests on episode 163), but a totally custom solution seems like a waste...

Our First Call In Show Nov 06, 2015

Show notes

Our first attempt at a call in show! We're using CallInStudio.com for the actual call handling.
It's been a year since Tom Magliozzi (of Tom and Ray/Click and Clack) of Car Talk passed away.
Our call screener is Gary Servin who lives in Paraguay. He works on Robot Operating System (ROS) during the day but then also creates educational programs using small robots at night
Our callers!
- Richard
  - He is from Vancouver is working on battery powered sensors that will be used in a high voltage substation.
  - The floating sensor is meant to measure voltages remotely.
  - The main concern is anything being ground referenced. Oscilloscopes have trouble measuring floating circuits because of this. Dave made a video on how to not blow up a scope:
  - Chris
- Arsenio
  - He is from Virginia called in about a problem with his i2c lines on a r ocket stabilization prototype. Pull up resistors may have been too high of values.
  - Chris recommends R heingold Heavy i2c tutorials.
- Brandon
  - He is one of our former guests and a lead engineer at Electric Imp.
  - Do hardware engineers have the same duty to quietly report security errors, like software people normally do? Or is it different for hardware.
- Steve
  - He teaches electronics and programming to 3rd and 4th graders and is worried about through hole parts disappearing.
  - The classics (LM741, NE555, etc) will be made in through hole packages for a long time because it's cheap to do so. "New old stock" is also a possibility.
Next week Chris is off to the S uperconference he is helping plan. Dave is busy judging the final round of The H ackaday Prize.
We were placed on the muffinworks podcast map! It's cool to see how they are all connected and use it to discover new shows!

Image courtesy of Mr. Show which did the "Pre Taped Call In Show"

Part Choice Triathlon Oct 30, 2015

Show notes

Chris went to the opening ceremonies for think[box], a 50,000 sq ft innovation space at CWRU. The effort was spearheaded by former guest Larry Sears! It was really really nice.
Georgia Tech has a similar space for students.
TechShop is a similar setup as well, but paid and meant for the public. They are nearly at 10 spaces nationwide (in the US) and opening more.
Dave wonders if these spaces should have Pick And Place machines. Is it right to have a higher volume tool for a space devoted to prototypes?
The tragedy of the commons explains the abuse of shared resources.
What will kids have for jobs in 10 years? Chris and Dave don't have jobs that existed 10 years ago. Perhaps following the hype curve could give a better idea?
TI may be buying Maxim.
Big companies are big...at a certain point, you pick one and go with it. Chris chose to start trying Web Bench again, which only has TI parts, but does a nice job explaining the parts needed for switchers.
Figuring out the equations in switcher circuits can feel like a triathlon (or IronMan™ race).
Dave made a video about designing a SMPS (the MC34060)
DC/DC modules are often easier to buy.
Dave talked about the Sigilent controversy going down on the EEVforum. Chris didn't care.
Sometimes there's nothing you can do with online review. Reply All did a show about the Ripoff Report.
Criminals are learning how to solder? Chip and Pin for some cards has been defeated with card mods.
Former guest Philip Friedin has just released the OSHchip, a small bluetooth device in a DIP package.

Thanks to Micheal Foley for the triathlon image

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