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 Eric Bogatin - Tilded Thumb Tenets Jun 04, 2015

Show notes

Welcome, Eric Bogatin!

Eric is the Dean of Signal Integrity (SI) Academy, now part of Teledyne Lecroy
He has also been teaching engineering for many years, including at Colorado University.
Learning SI "on the streets" can't replace central (essential) principles like understanding and applying Maxwell's equations.
The website that started it all is called, "B e The Signal", thought up by Eric's wife.
Three tools in the toolbox
- Rules of thumb
- Approximations (formulas)
- Numerical simulation tools
Eric posted over 25 "Rules of thumb" articles on EDN.
One example (and the first posted) was how bandwidth is (.35/rise time).
Dave talked about similar principles in his video about oscilloscope bandwidth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-ZDiGmLvTs
"Sometimes an OK answer now is better than a good answer late"
One reason Teledyne bought LeCroy is because of the matching of the need (and solution to) Indium Phosphide technology. This was in the 100 GHz real time scope that Shahriar reviewed/tore down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3w_EWgGQuk
A good general 2D field solver is Polar Instruments, though Eric was careful to point out that there is a wide variety of capabilities and price points for these pieces of software.
The continued shrinking of circuit boards means that gridded (crosshatch) planes are in the market, especially for flex/consumer products. This helps with Signal Integrity.
Instantaneous impedance is what the signal "sees" at each step. Characteristic impedance is expanding the instantaneous impedance to the entire line.
Grace Hopper was one of the first programmers and was an admiral in the US Navy. She was a big fan of the ENIAC and tried to integrate them into programs. She carried a piece of string to help illustrate the distance a signal travels in air in a short amount of time.
Signals travel roughly 15 cm per 1 nanosecond in FR4.
Another rule of thumb involves ratios: get a 50 ohm line with a 10 mil width to 5 mil to dielectric ratio. It's the aspect ratio that's important.
Layer stackup is often left to fab, which can be dangerous. Doubly so if you're depending on stack up because your power and ground planes are in the inner layers of your board.
Yet another rule of thumb is to keep spacing twice the line width to reduce crosstalk.
Making board bigger to guarantee it works is "buying insurance"
10MHz and above range is where you need the intuition. A handful of design rules will get you to 100 MHz. Beyond that, you need to pay attention and begin considering simulation.
Eric will soon be writing Nuts and Volts articles about Arduino.
SI academy was took the in-person classes and put them (mostly) online. They are now offered to individuals and corporations on subscription basis.
The CU classes are also available on the site, as are some other example classes.
It is interesting seeing where MOOCs are going, especially since very few are charging for courses.
Chris doesn't like how testing / exams are handled right now. The SI academy doesn't have testing.
Classes on the resume get you through the door, even if they are MOOCs. The interest level is what interviewers are looking for.
Eric has written a large variety of books
- Signal Integrity Characterization Techniques (free online)
- Signal and Power Integrity Simplified (Prentice Hall)
- Out of print books:
  - High Performance Packaging
  - Roadmaps of Packaging Technology

Screen Shot 2015-05-27 at 9.27.24 PM — **Shifting Away From DIY - Pedetentious PnP Progress** May 28, 2015
Show notes

Dave wants The Amp Hour to have a Loony Toons intro. Old Bugs Bunny cartoons used to have an entire orchestra.

YouTube is giving $100K to develop a new series. Dave wants feedback on what he should develop. Chris suggested "dancing" + "soldering" and calling it "dancing with the scars".

Chris has a new t-shirt design that represents a "solder jockey". You can get one on Teespring.

Chris has ben trying out the ESP8266 with a Teensy 3.1.

At Maker Faire there were a wide range of tools that were interesting:

Shaper (formerly Taktia) was even more impressive this year. Chris things it will change woodworking for novices.

Circuit printers by Cartesian Co and Voltera

Carbide3D CNC machine was there, which has a great software tool flow (similar to other milling machine Othermill). The Nomad (by Carbide3D) also had a recent piece about milling boards beautifully.

Pick and Place machines from OpenPNP, F irepick delta and the L itePlacer (which Dave now has)

Chris also saw a TM-245 at a Seeed Studio event (they just opened an office in the bay area).

Dave is getting an Inventibles X-carve (the smaller one).

Radio Shack was noticeably absent from Maker Faire, and from paying back their small suppliers. This year at Maker Faire, Google took over the "Learn to Solder" tent.

Chris Anderson gave a great talk about the Next Maker Movement (now at 2.0): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKDv37fHZu0

As Chris mentioned, computing is basically free. New platforms like the CHiP and the O nion Omega make super powerful hardware ubiquitous.

Chris thinks there should be silly connected stuff everywhere. The Internet of ________

Hammers

Toilet paper

Whatever

Dave backed the Lily quadcopter, recently announced.

Vicash asked on our subreddit about the point of learning basic electronics. There are some great discussions on that thread. Chris stressed top down learning.

After recording, Dave did and extended blab also about this topic.

Chris got to go on a tour of the Tesla factory (under NDA, no pictures). The robots were amazing. You can see some of them featured here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lfxPI5ObM

Dave has been trying out the Beta version of CircuitMaker, now mostly available to people. Dave also found that not committing projects allows them to stay "private".

Chris saw a talk by Adam and Matthew of Wayne and Layne about the future of KiCad at Maker Faire.

Chris is looking for an embedded engineer to help out with Contextual Electronics (pay will be revenue sharing from member fees). Email chris at theamphour.com with the title "Contextual Electronics Embedded" if interested.

This week turned out to be a jam packed episode! Please let us know what you thought in the comments!

An Interview with Vic Aprea - Federated Firmware Functionalism May 22, 2015

Show notes

Welcome Vic Aprea (@vicatcu) from Wicked Device!

Vic offered listeners of The Amp Hour 20% off at the Wicked Device store. Get your Air Quality Egg today! Use coupon code, "theamphour"
Vic's first computer was a C64 and then he graduated onto the 486dx. Dave shared a story about fake cache memory from the 90s.
While attending Cornell University, Vic was one of the first students of Bruce Land's microcontroller class. Bruce is also very active on the Hackaday projects site.
The microcontroller class site and the YouTube channel continue to be a great resource for beginners, students and hobbyists. You can watch the entire course online as well. Here's the first video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT0xxaG1DhM
After undergrad, Vic stayed on at Cornell and taught a course in computer architecture.
Once the early 2000s slump started to subside, Vic joined Lockheed Martin in Owego NY. He was working on various systems that fed into the display for military helicopters. The site was previously IBM's federal systems division.
During this time, Vic started working with a local group that did enrichment activities like launching weather balloons with instrumentation on board. This lead to Vic getting his ham license (KC2QLW).
The radio on board was a small FSK radio, similar to the one used on the Wicked Device Node. They also use the Amateur Packet Reporting System (APRS) using a Yaesu FT-60R.
The balloon project required multiple ways to abort the mission. One was "cutting" the string using devices that contained black gun powder.
Apparently there are 1000s of balloons per day. NOAA alone launches 70K per year (~180/day). These help inform weather forecasters about high altitude winds. Many balloons are never recovered.
Chris was reminded of hint.fm, which shows awesome visualization of wind; however, this is likely done from networked ground stations, not balloons.
Vic said that the balloons can experience odd weather patterns and strong shear wind forces. Chris wondered how this would have affected jetman. A new video came out from Dubai recently and it's awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czy0pXRRZcs
After working with balloons for a while, Vic met his current business partner Dirk Swart. They started Wicked Device, which is a product design and manufacturing company.
They were tapped to design and distribute the Air Quality Egg (AQE), which had a successful Kickstarter back in 2013.
The egg uses a reporting service called Xively, formerly Patchube ("patch-bay").
The sensors work with chemical reactions; this in turn changes the resistance of the sensor. They currently have CO2, NO2 and a few others.
The choice of sensors was informed by the list from NAAQS
On board the AQE v1 there was a RFM12B FSK radio and an ENC28J60.
Since they were between low and high quantity, they decided to manufacture in house. They bought a used Mancorp Pick and Place machine, which seemed to go surprisingly well. Vic had to redesign the board to move away from through hole components.
Doing sensor linearization and conversion proved difficult. Vic had to do fixed point math on the smaller processor to get the sensors behaving as expected. They also used sensors never meant for absolute measurements.
For v2 of the AQE, they began develping the WiLDFiRE, which is now available. Since it has a wifi module, the remote code loading can be tricky. Vic wrote about the bootloader here.
Each sensor has its own micro and individual firmware, which caused some of the headaches. They communicate using RS232 (serial) protocol without the level translators. The EggBus is over I2C. Vic had emailed after last week's show where we talked about delivering firmware payloads to a variety of devices.
The AQE v2 is available to purchase now. You can also see the planned upgrades for the future.
If you're interested in contributing to the Air Quality Egg project, email victor dot aprea at wickeddevice dot com.

Many thanks to Vic for stopping by and talking about the projects he has worked on. Remember you can get a discount using the coupon code "theamphour" over at wickeddevice.com

Wearables Might Have Limited Fashion Options - Lachrymogenic Lane Language May 14, 2015

Show notes

After returning from Serbia, Chris met and hung out with Kenji Larsen at the TechCrunch Hackathon in NYC. He brought an amazing suitcase full of hardware.
Hackathons are a young man (or woman)'s game. Chris was not happy in the morning.
One chip that was used in the hackathon (and many other places since) was the ESP8266. Still no idea where this comes from...but it's cheap!
Dave made a vide about the newly updated data about solar roadways: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-ZSXB3KDF0
South Korea does covered solar bike paths instead of roadways. It seems like a much better solution.
Telsa recently released the Powerwall, which is touted as a great (and sleek) way to store the power from your solar panels. The NYTimes wrote about it as well.
Chris has a friend that claims the Apple Watch will obviate all other wearables.
Wearables in general will have a tenuous future. The Intel Curie is interesting, but likely not going to have longevity.
Micrel is being bought by Microchip.
Dave asked why the small fabs in China aren't being bought by larger (non Chinese) companies. Chris says it's because the rules of China require the owner be a Chinese national (in name at least). There is also the concept of a WOFE.
The consolidation doesn't stop with Microchip buying Micrel...ST Micro announced they will stop their manufacturing past 16 nm.
There have been a couple of public hardware failures including Wattage and Ninja Blocks. This has always happened but it's more public now because they are being funded via crowdfunding.
There is generally a larger focus on startups, especially wrt hardware. In popular culture there is the startup podcast and Silicon Valley talking about a lot of the issues.
Chris has been working on modular development for his robot modules. This was partially inspired by Nadya's episode of The Amp Hour.
We didn't get a chance to talk about all the great stories this week. Dave brought up the fact that we have each story posting to @theamphour via the service IFTTT

Thanks to Jill Clardy for the picture of the path that looks like it's covered in solar cells.

An interview with Greg and Tim of Backyard Brains - Boethetic Bug Brainwaves May 08, 2015

Show notes

Welcome Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo of Backyard Brains! (hereafter annotated as “BB”)

The focus of BB is to make simple to use electronics so that neuroscience is taught sooner in students' lives.
The Spiker box is a signal chain with bio instrumentation amp, then bandpass filtering, then an amplifier to output through a speaker
It turns out that plants also have electrophysiology (action potential firing). Especially
The cortex is done in layers, so the polarity lines up and the signals are detectible
The human brain initiative is part of a push from the Obama administration. It's meant to increase the understanding of the brain.
Tim did some predication of the future:
- 2035 neuromotes, silicon wrapped in biocompatible material.
- 2165 is the completely controllable to the single neuron layer.
There is a bluetooth kit to control bugs by manipulating their antennae. It's called The Roboroach; it uses similar science as to the experiments by Luigi Galvani on frog legs.
Greg gave a TED talk about the human to human interface
Chris knew what the Myelin sheath is; a coating over neurons that allows signals to travel faster.
Squid giant axon and the entire equation is governed by the t elegraphers equation.
Communication between axon of one neuron and the dendrite of the next is done via neurotransmitters. Check out the diagram of a neuron on wiki.
The Spiker box can also act on the output of electromyograms.
Chris had a chance to meet Greg and see some of the electronics in action (with bugs) with Hackaday in Ann Arbor, MI.
On the educational front, BB's goal is to make more experts via their tutorials and kits.
For neurological disorders, doctors are starting to look at using electroceuticals instead of pharmaceuticals.
Ben Krasnow did a video about creating his own TMS. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUW7dQ92yDU
Chris confused DBS (where they install an electrode) vs TMS (where there is an external magnetic field).
BB has done some educational based research papers.
They have been working with marine biology in Woods Hole. Aneonomes and jellyfish have loose neural nets and there is very little understood about them.
BB got a fellowship from Chilean gov't (Startup C hile). They also have worked with folks from the Santiago Maker Space.

An Interview with Voja Antonic - Gerontogenous Galaksija Genesis Apr 30, 2015

Show notes

Welcome, Voja Antonic!

Chris had the opportunity to interview Voja while in Belgrade for work.
Voja is the inventor of the Galaksija computer, which was the first (legally available) computer in Yugoslavia in 1984. It was based on the Z80 processor.
There is also a more in depth discussion of the Galaksija in Serbian that can be translated with Google Translate.
It was illegal to import other computers that were available at the time because of the cost of the finished goods.
Over 8,000 DIY builders wrote in to the magazine published by Dejan Ristanovic (computers in your home) to mention the article inspired them.
The cost of components was 230 Deutschmarks, which this site coverts at 2.871 / 1$. That means it cost roughly $80 in 1984 which would cost roughly $185 in today's dollars (if this is wrong, please correct in the comments)
They used to broadcast games over the radio station, which people could record onto tapes and then play on their computers.
Voja will be demoing and running a workshop based around his DIY Single-chip 2D Retro Game Console at Choas Communication Congress (CCC) this year. Be sure to download and check out the (assembler) source code! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbTwWFwbsE4
In the late 90s, Voja wrote in about the Engineer's Assistant, a multitool that could do logic and protocol analysis. This became Microchip's AN689 but was later pulled because of sanctions against Yugoslavia at the time.
Voja also wrote books such as The Guide To Critical Thinking and Patents That Won't Change The World (Wayback Machine version).
He also talked about the Vampire Detector (also only available on the Wayback Machine), a machine with switched mirrors that allowed you to see if someone in a crowd is a vampire. This was a send up of the patent system.
Chris didn't know about Voja's site until after the interview, unfortunately. Check out this other awesome project with an OCR system for Bingo Balls.

Voja was a wonderful guest and I'm so glad we got to meet in person! Many thanks to my co-workers at Supplyframe for introducing me while I was in Belgrade.

Robots are coming - Ominous Operational Overhaul Apr 22, 2015

Show notes

A new Star Wars trailer was released! Nerdy goodness! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCc2v7izk8w
The BB8 robot was actually created and was recently rolled out on stage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_K10fX9DSY
It was announced that Sphero was the company behind the real life build...and that they will be selling it come Christmas 2015.
Dave asked whether people would patent the balancing technology. John Oliver from Last Week Tonight did a piece about patents. The show also has done a piece about how bad for profit schools are.
More people in the US trust the Daily Show over other news programs. Chris is one of them.
Dave had a chance to buy an amazing collection of components. However he later found out they were all desoldered and exclusively throughhole.
Dave saw a video from Adam Savage talking about storing parts. It is a fantastic, if not expensive, solution.
TSMC 16nm FinFET recently began qualifying
Chris went to a Freescale event to see if it would be a good fit for a micro. He didn't ask if the NXP/Freescale merger would affect part availability.
Wired wrote about John Deere tractors claiming the software on board entitles them to DMCA protection. LAME.
We had previously discussed this when walking about enabling firmware that unlocked higher level features on scopes that users did not pay for (having tons of trouble finding it, if you know the episode number please let us know in the comments)
There is legislation in NY and Minnesota that would require hardware makers to allow for repair of products they make.
MakerBot is laying off 20% of their NY staff and shutting down the retail stores. This was not surprising though it stinks for the people working there that got laid off. Chris recommends the documentary, "Print The Legend" which shows how messy it got at MakerBot (and slightly less messy at Formlabs).
Dave has seen people walked out by security upon layoffs. Chris has not but thought of "Black Friday" from Arrested Development.
When thinking about the shutdowns due to business changes, Chris mentioned the glassblowers at Bell Labs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJI1dOLmaQY
The robots (machines) are coming. Chris is worried, Dave is not. Some workers love them now, will they forever?
It might not necessarily be silly like a chef mounted to your cabinet or a robot that feeds you tomatoes while running, but there are useful robots and bits of automation that will begin to obsolete workers.
Baxter is a good example of why robots are coming: cheap, simple components, easy to program and has kind features. They were sure not to cross the uncanny valley.
Perhaps we can set up some kind of monkey guards from quadcopter.
There was an episode of Innovation Hub talking about the economics into the future
Ending on a positive note: 3DRobotics and DJI Quadcopter just released awesome new aerial cameras (with drones). They are effectively self piloting. They will give us tons of beautiful new images. Chris was struck by this album of aerial photos (via reddit) where the photographer took pictures that would now be considered illegal.

Thanks to David Blackwell for the picture of the robots coming

An interview with Akiba from Freaklabs - Dimissory Diagraphical Debt Apr 16, 2015

Show notes

Welcome Akiba of FreakLabs!

Akiba currently lives on the Hackerfarm, which is 1.5 hours outside Tokyo. It's an alternative to the more expensive and hectic Tokyo.
When not on the farm he is a researcher at Osaka University (working on a DNA Sequencer design) and a staff member at MIT Media Lab.
Manufacturing tour in Shenzhen with Bunnie and MIT media lab folks, which we've talked about in the past.
Chris overdubbed the intro to a video of Ian from Dangerous Prototypes doing a tour of Akiba's smaller Tokyo workshop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoiIup5gnno
Akiba still has a lot of gear in that smaller space: PCB Milling (capable of 8 mil trace/width) and a desktop pick and place made by MDC in Tokyo.
Prior to starting FreakLabs, Akiba was an ASIC designer, prototyping on FPGAs. It was 10+ years ago, so this was with Xilinx 4000 series parts using ABEL. This became designing IP cores with verilog, including a USB core.
From the technical role, he transitioned into a technical support/sales role. This brought lots of money but little fulfillment.
A professor asked if he wanted to participate in the Zigbee 802.15.4 standard back in 2005. This included working with the Zigbee Alliance which was very political (as many standards committees apparently are).
After getting out of the sales/support game, he got back into sensor networks and in 2007 started Freaklabs.
One of the first projects was attempting to write an open source zigbee stack, which was blocked when licensing issues came to light.
Akiba was also on the USBIF standards committee and worked with Smartgrid standardization, all with the same political problems.
The future will not be Zigbee or Bluetooth, but probably WiFi with the ESP8266 now in the market. If not that chip, MediaTek will likely come in and offer a super low cost wifi chip (makers of the chip that powers the Gongkai phones).
Regardless, Akiba wrote a book about BLE with past guest Bob Davidson, Kevin Townsend (@microbuilder, who now works at adafruit) and Carles Cufí.
Another FreakLabs area of project interest is stage control. This is centered around (but not limited to) Wrecking Crew Orchestra, who were recently signed by Sony music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ydeY0tTtF4
The communication for the suits (and other projects) is built around openFrameworks for timeline and sequencing.
Hackerspaces are changing and have never just been about the tools. FabLabs in Tokyo flounder if there isn't sufficient community involvement. "Interesting projects draw in people who make interesting projects"
When looking for a new building, the Hackerfarm got rid of negative energy at a property they're renting with the help of a Shinto priest who is a php programmer.
Overall, Akiba feels there is lower computer literacy in Japan. It can be hard to find programmers. Some are versed in older languages like Delphi, which is actually what Altium is written in.
Chris asked if they are working with any of the open village construction set, which they are not yet. They are monitoring water levels in the rice paddy with wireless sensors.
Dave asked about the impact of the earthquake/tsunami that caused the plant failure at Fukushima Daichi. Chris saw that there was a "robot that died after 3 hours" there the other day.
One fab that was impacted during that time was Renesas, as well as some of the hard drive manufacturers, due to logistical interrupts.
Akiba helped with the Safecast project, which did open monitoring of radiation levels. It turned out that most places on the coast have a higher level of radiation due to past nuclear testing in the pacific.
A bunch of folks pitched in to buy a scanning electron microscope, which now resides at the Hackerfarm. In the future this could turn into a time-shared, connected, cheap scanning service.

https://twitter.com/freaklabs/status/577451365229711360

Between the SEM and the sputtering machine they might get, they are one tenth the way to a fab (Akiba says 'maybe'!).
Akiba bought Bunnie a set of silver (not platinum) grills.
The low current transimpedance amplifiers that Akiba showed on twitter are part of the DNA sequencing project. They actually measure the conductivity across a single gold atom while forcing a DNA strand through it.
FreakLabs is always on the move: Akiba did 40 designs last year. These included a charger for 60+ batteries simultaneously charging, lights for flair bartenders (think the movie "Cocktail") and a lot more.

We are super impressed with all the work Akiba has been doing. Hopefully we'll get to visit the Hackerfarm sometimes soon!

The Art Of Staying Interested In Electronics - Exponible Electronics Ennui Apr 09, 2015

Show notes

Dave has been having troubles with his SD card not recording video footage. Chris has had the same problem with KiCad crashing over and over again (on copper pours).
Chris has a new video setup that he claims beats out Dave's setup. It uses Xsplit and changing views and pausing makes things a lot easier.
Chris has been feeling down about "what's left" in the electronics industry as things continue to change.
- This was prompted by Chris playing his new piano (Korg SV-1) which pulls in tons of different features.
- The Teensy 3.1 shows how much can be packed into a simple platform (and how little else is needed!)
- Reading The Art of Electronics version 3 seems like a good start but doesn't feel like it will change much (it likely will).
yCombinator demo day startups continue to be silly. Day 1 was worse than Day 2.
Dave has been starting a product design with an outside design firm. He won't say what it is, but we know he'll be able scratch his own itch with something that has his face on it...
Sam asked about when to pull the trigger on moving to the next stage of a design.

https://twitter.com/samrustan/status/585554711060811777

Hardware constraints from a target end product can really help decision making for design.
Being a reseller of hardware isn't a great business model, UNLESS you add value through education like adafruit and sparkfun.
Chris is looking for help finding micros. Please leave some ideas in the comment section!
The mBed IDE looks interesting, but a recent Ganssle newsletter points out some of the pitfalls of being dependent upon an online compiler.
Chris got to see Mike Estee from Othermill talk about the genesis of the machine. The performance is nice but the workflow is nicer.
The Carbide3D Nomad also looks exciting but has yet to be released.
Dave has a version of The Art of Electronics vol 3 but has yet to crack the book. Chris just ordered his.
Chris posted a picture of his #ElectronicsBookshelf on Twitter. You should do the same!

https://twitter.com/Chris_Gammell/status/585586196975394816

Finally...a good use of a 3D printer: Making a pogo pin holder. However, you could still order this from a provider online (just like PCBs), the tradeoff is time.

Thanks to TRF_Mr_Hyde for the snarky picture!

An interview with Macrofab - Macro Manufacturing Mechanization Apr 02, 2015

Show notes

Welcome Chris Church and Parker Dillmann of Macrofab!

Macrofab is a new contract manufacturing service to allow for low cost single or multi board runs using a very friendly UI interface.
The facility is in downtown Houston. There is a brewery next door and the Houston MLS team plays down the street.
Someday they would like to bring PCB manufacturing in house so that they can get a 24hr turn on assembled boards. They recently announced that a 5 day turn is available.
Macrofab has raised 2 angel rounds, one in fall of 2013 and one in mid 2014.
Listeners should try out the service using the demo link that shows the price of a propeller dev stick board.
A big way of lowering costs is having users verify rotation and alignment of the parts from the placement files (derived from the uploaded EAGLE, KiCad or DIPtrace files.
Another way of keeping costs down is using the house parts. The labor is free on all of those parts. There is currently only a part library for EAGLE, others coming later.
Macrofab has a Universal GSM2 pick and place, built in the mid 2000s. It can do 0402 parts, up to 6000 parts per hour. There are 32 feeders per side plus platform tray of 28.
Reflow is the long time sink for a lot of boards. They can also do selective solder for through hole parts.
There are 4 full time employees at Macrofab plus a range of part time line workers.
For the low quantity boards, a lot is placed by hand. Each part received after being bought is also recorded for lot control.
Programming firmware is done in house, but is disabled even though it's shown in the UI.
Currently the UI can do 2 layer but 4 layer is coming soon.
The low quantity boards are done by OSHpark and bundled or higher quantity boards are ordered as panels from Korea.
Solderpaste is done with kapton (for low quantity) and stainless stencils (for higher quantity). Parker wants to get a solderpaste printer.
They want to solve the problem of providing enclosures by the end of this year.
Chris and Chris are both fans of the schematic as a control document. This requires revision control and only making changes in the schematic (the "canonical representation").
The Macrofab group focuses on API "microservices" and a strong UI with a lot of tool tips (mouseovers) to help explain the different features.
Interested in working at Macrofab? Send an email with a resume/portforlio to jobs [at] macrofab.net

It was great hearing about the future of getting boards made from the Macrofab guys! We hope to talk to them as they keep expanding!

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