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    Natural Sciences

    The Amp Hour

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

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    Copyright: Copyright © The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast 2020

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    Latest Episodes:
    Interview with Michael Ossmann - Gifted Grimgribber Grokker Sep 04, 2013
    Show notes

    Welcome, Michael Ossmann!

    • Michael's open source company is called Great Scott Gadgets.
    • He got started in software and IT security work.
    • It was only 4 years ago that he got back into and started building electronics. His first big project was the Ubertooth Zero.
    • This was designed with Dominic Spill, one of the authors of the paper that inspired the device. It can discover "non-discoverable" bluetooth devices.
    • This turned into the Ubertooth One, a successfully funded Kickstarter project.
    • Michael was inspired in hardware by people like Joe Grand, Travis Goodspeed, Amanda Wozniak. All doing security work and designing cool conference badges!
    • Started out looking through sparkfun beginning electronics tutorial
    • Michael also works with Jared Boone, OSHW developer.
    • Designed the UberTooth Zero in EAGLE.
    • Manufactured in Shanghai based on a recommendation.
    • Most recently, the Hack RF Project has caught everyones attention as an SDR that goes from 30 MHz to 6 GHz for less than $300, both TX and RX! Funded nearly $550,000 on Kickstarter.
    • Works with existing software like GNU radio (which helps you program SDRs in C++ or Python) and SDRsharp.
    • Everything that Great Scott Gadgets does is open source hardware and software. So is the layout program (KiCAD).
    • GNU radio companion is a graphical tool to get beginners started.
    • The HackRF Jawbreaker (prototype/beta unit) has the LPC43xx as its main micro. Chosen for the highly configurable SDGPIO. Also has a small CPLD on board.
    • Regardless of not having an FPGA on board, it can still do 1000 FFTs per second and stream lots of data back to PC for processing.
    • The power on board is limited by design; this reduces cost and stays under the radar (sic) for the FCC. Regardless, it still has 10 dB of front end gain.
    • The newest project is called Daisho. It's an open, high speed man-in-the-middle protocol analyzer
    • Includes super speedy standards like USB 3.0 and GB ethernet. The implementation is similar to the NETV by Bunnie, but that can only do 1080i.
    • Marshall Hecht is doing a lot of the design for that. The USB 2.0 stuff already is up and running.
    • Had one kickstarter that wasn't successful, the Firefly cap. It used an energy harvesting circuit, which priced it out of the perceived hobbyist market. Michael liked that KS showed the project was not viable in the market.
    • Everything is open source and tracked on wikis, GitHub and standard open tools.
    • One "designer" for the hardware, but they are using Git for design reviews (awesome!).
    For more info, check out Great Scott Gadgets or Michael's Blog. He's also on twitter under the handle @MichaelOssmann.

    And in an Amp Hour first, Michael wrote in with even more…stuff he forgot to mention, links and answers to questions on the subreddit that weren’t fully answered! Wow!

    Here are a few things from the "How did I talk for over an hour and not mention that?" department that might be good to include in the show notes:

    The person who has published some information about using HackRF with Remote Keyless Entry systems is dragorn (who introduced me to Chris): http://blog.kismetwireless.net/2013/08/playing-with-hackrf-keyfobs.html

    One of the more exciting aspects of the HackRF Project was that I gave away 500 Jawbreakers for beta testing. As far as I know, this was the largest ever give-away of open source hardware: http://ossmann.blogspot.com/2013/05/giving-away-hackrf.html

    I’m adapting my two day SDR class into a free online video series. It will consist primarily of lectures with a whiteboard and demonstrations and exercises using GNU Radio Companion: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mossmann/hackrf-an-open-source-sdr-platform/posts/563588

    At this point it is very safe to say that HackRF will be available for sale post-Kickstarter. If people want to be notified about this and other Great Scott Gadgets happenings, they can sign up for the GSG-announce mailing list: http://four.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/gsg-announce And here are some answers to questions I see on reddit that we didn’t get to:

    oojingoo asked about tracking Bluetooth devices “idle in one’s pocket” with Ubertooth: The primary use of Ubertooth One is passive monitoring of Bluetooth communications. If a Bluetooth device is idle and is not currently connected to any paired device, it may be totally silent such that an Ubertooth One would not detect any packets. Such a device may (as long as its Bluetooth function isn’t switched off) periodically attempt to contact paired devices to see if they are available, and those connection attempts are observable with Ubertooth. More about tracking people with Ubertooth can be found on the Ubertooth blog: http://ubertooth.blogspot.com/2012/11/so-you-want-to-track-people-with.html

    itdnhr asked about HackRF support in software other than GNU Radio: My primary software goal for HackRF is to maintain strong support in GNU Radio. Beyond that, we maintain libhackrf, a cross-platform software library that anyone can use to add HackRF support to their software.

    A few people asked about the future of Great Scott Gadgets and HackRF: I see HackRF being an active project in something like its current form for a long time to come. One of the potential uses for Daisho beyond wired communication applications is SDR. We don’t have any Daisho front-end modules for SDR yet, but we probably will eventually. In particular I’m interested in being able to do SDR with much higher RF bandwidth (100 MHz or more) than we can achieve with USB 2.0. So I’ll likely have some USB 3.0 SDR stuff based on Daisho, and HackRF will remain the lower cost, more portable, USB 2.0 solution.

    codebudo asked if HackRF can be used for ham radio: Certainly. Several of the HackRF beta testers already use HackRF for operation in various amateur bands. It is very easy to use HackRF for receiving such transmissions with software like Gqrx or SDR#. HackRF can transmit too, but you’ll likely need external amplification and filtering as we discussed on the show.

    drabanus asked about HackRF applications including the possibility of measuring distance with a moon bounce: Wow! It would be so cool if someone did a moon bounce with HackRF! You would probably need some large antennas and external amplification and filtering to do it. One of the things I find so exciting about HackRF is that people can use it for things I never even imagined. It has already been used to receive weather satellite images, track automotive tire pressure monitors (TPMS), experiment with remote keyless entry system security, monitor GSM communications, listen to wireless microphone transmissions, control radio controlled toys, and more.


    Troubleshooting, PCBs and LEDs - Quaintized Quich Quelling Aug 28, 2013
    Show notes
    • Dave's PCB ruler went gangbusters on Pozible! So much so that PayPal locked down his account!
    • Octopart has a handheld tool for referencing footprint sizes and reading resistors. It's made out of FR4 and has some serious silkscreening!
    • NXP had a chart that showed relative footprint sizes in the past, but Chris still wasn't satisfied.
    • If you don't want to go with the traditional crowdfunding sites, you can always roll your own like Lockitron did. They called it SelfStarter.
    • Do you hire in your country specifically? Is it a matter of supporting your countrymen/women? Is it convenience?
    • Will you hire them if they're instead robots? What happens when robots continue the march towards more productivity, specifically for workers?
    • Troubleshooting gave Chris a particular case of heartburn this week. Dave told stories of past troubleshooting.
    • One possible cause in Chris' analog circuits is layout issues and will always be a problem for analog circuits. There is a guide for mixed signal boards that is pretty good from Maxim Integrated.
    • Todd Bailey and friends worked up a badass demo showing off a vector screen and all the hardware involved in driving it at 4+ MHz for a game they invented. It reminds Dave of Vectrex. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEkPHPiHuio
    • Ambient backscatter (absorbing or deflecting ambient RF) is a way of communicating between devices without batteries...slowly. Dave asks, "Why not just add a battery?"
    • Chris got chance to hang out in Cleveland and Akron with Dale Dougherty, founder and publisher of MAKE. Super nice guy. They met in Akron at Tiny Circuits, a former Kickstarter project that now is producing boards full time.
    • In-person networking is important! Chris and Martin Lorton (mjlorton on YouTube) will be having a regular meetup in Cleveland called "Charged Conversation". Subscribe on meetup or start your own in your city!
    • Were you stumped by the LED circuit videos released a few months back? The creator, Henryk Gasperowicz, has released the schematics on his Google+ page.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1eMryiU1rohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvXKSSmItls
    • Interested in quadcopters but don't want to dig all the way down into building from scratch? Now platforms are being released to build applications on top of the assembled quadcopter.
    • Next week on the show we'll have Michael Ossmann of HackRF and the UberTooth project. Get your questions in on the subreddit!
    • Want to see Chris's crowdsource project? Too bad! He's doing Contextual Electronics instead!
    Going to be at the Open Hardware Summit in Boston? Keep your ears peeled for info about The Amp Hour meetup, including a tour of Bolt, the hardware accelerator!

    Interview with Eric Ries - Transorted Testing Tachydidaxy Aug 21, 2013
    Show notes

    Welcome, Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup!

    • Even after reading the book, Chris needed some help grasping some of the contents. This slide deck helped The Lean Startup - Visual Summary from Brett Suddreth
    • However, we highly recommend getting and reading the book!
    • In addition to being a book, there is also a yearly conference in San Francisco in December discussing The Lean Startup methodology.
    • The basis of The Lean Startup methodology is the build, measure, learn cycle. Every action is meant to increase knowledge of your market and what your customer wants.
    • Eric got started in software but now has been consulting for and applying the lessons of The Lean Startup to hardware companies.
    • One of Eric's mentors and now a champion of the methodology is Steve Blank. He has written about "Why The Lean Startup Changes Everything".
    • One example used was bolting a tablet into a car to test out a car entertainment system.
    • Another was selling a test model of a large scale appliance in the company store, to see if anyone would want it.
    • You can find meetup groups in your city to learn more about and to participate in discussions about The Lean Startup.
    • To hear regular updated and get great links about TLS, follow Eric on Twitter: @EricRies.
    Many thanks to Eric for taking some time to chat with us about how the field of entrepreneurship is changing and how that might impact innovation in general. It was great to speak with him and learn more about The Lean Startup!

    Hyperloop, Upverter and Soldering - Unbelievable USB Ustulater Aug 14, 2013
    Show notes
    • It's faster AND cheaper for Dave to have a courier deliver a package vs go pick it up. This shows the system effect of lots of packages being delivered.
    • SpaceX just announced their white paper and intent to work on the HyperLoop, a high speed train from SF to LA.
    • There will be a mini Maker Faire coming to Sydney! Dave will be making something for it, anyone who guesses gets a free t-shirt.
    • Dave has been hacking and capturing IR signals for his new segment. People are never happy with how you do projects online. Especially if there's code.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOzaDQmAW0g
    • Dave has been putting code up onto GitHub Gist. This is separate from the main GitHub site and is similar to Pastebin.
    • If forking is your style, you might like Upverter. They allow designs to be forked and showed off how to create a simple design in their CAD program (online CAD! Gasp!)
    • Chris will be joining them for the second session of the work on this board, Wednesday night. You'll be able to watch live on their blog page about it.
    • What do you think about our advertising? Fill out the survey at the bottom of this post!
    • More services are allowing forking and sharing of revenues. OSHpark now has a marketplace for existing designs. Tindie is doing revenue sharing.
    • Shonky Product of the Week: a USB Soldering Iron. Heat capacity is still a thing, right?
    • There's a teardown of this unit by Connor Wolf showing how it's put together.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oklHlZwPLas
    • They also say you can use 9V batteries. This is limited by the internal electronics resistance (which is usually the spec'd value) but also the ionic resistance, which limits the current due to the speed of the chemical reactions.
    • Intel is jumping into the open hardware space with the Minnow Board. Their add-on boards are called "lures". Dave thinks you should just buy a mini-ATX board but Chris thinks there's value in having access to this kind of tech from Intel.
    • You can see a lot of the different boards out there at the Big Board List.
    • Development platforms are nothing new. PC/104 (which utilized the ISA Bus) has been pluggable and around since the 80s. Chris likes the Freescale tower platform, which is similarly stackable.
    • The thing that makes a difference is the software layer (like the Arduino IDE) and the community (which is why open source helps!).
    • Opening up designs is even older! There were standardized interfaces on the Altair 8800 and the IBM360. These really helped fuel the computing boom.
    • HackRF is a new kickstarter project to get you started with SDR. It was laid out in KiCAD!
    • If you're laying out boards and need to work on panels you can do MouseBites or Vscores to get your boards free of the panel.
    • If you're starting at a new company, you'll be subject to documentation tribal knowledge. Just flow with it, at least at first.
    • There are printable electronics at PARC (and a few other fun things). Dave still gets upset about it not being a chip printer, but we can all agree he's wrong on this one, right guys?

    Tune in next week when we post the interview with Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup!

    Thanks to Leigh Honeywell for the USB Soldering Iron picture


    An Interview with the SparkFun Team - Efficacious Engineering Ensemble Aug 07, 2013
    Show notes

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    Welcome to (most of) The SparkFun Engineering Team! This is comprised of:
    • Jim Lindblom - Content/Tutorials
    • Chris Taylor - Engineering Project Manager
    • Mike Grusin - Design Engineer
    • Pearce Melcher - Tech Researcher
    • Toni Klopfenstein - QA
    • Mike Hord - Design Engineer
    Wow! That's a lot of people on one show! (our most ever by far)
    • The SparkFun tutorial system has been reworked in the past 6 months. You should now be able to click any topic and get the background info to work back through more basic material to build up to what you want to learn.
    • SparkFun is in the middle of a national tour. Some of which the engineering team has joined in on.
    • They also offer a range of in-person classes.
    • Each year, SparkFun has a meeting and discusses what the company culture should be like. This includes the company values, the size of the company (how big they should get), whether/when skateboarding needs insurance, the dog policy and more.
    • If you're in the area, you can join in on tours of the building on Fridays at 3. This will be even more exciting as the new building is built (slated for Q1 of 2014). Or you can just stop by and pick up your order!
    • Great video showing a board go from start to finish through SparkFun manufacturing and shipping https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNW4dmqbr9o
    • There has been a push to get all projects onto GitHub on the SparkFun channel. This helps to distribute the open information and to
    • Dave was asking about the frustrations of people replicating ideas and references his previous video about the unwritten rules of open hardware. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOUaoLjrNPo
    • The Makey Makey was copied almost immediately.
    • Some companies/individuals don't even try, they just scrape the SparkFun site...including the pictures of the employees! Yikes.
    • Interested in getting your project into the store? There is a "Pitching Your Product" tutorial.
    • The environment is a concern too, which is why there is an explanation about where your stuff comes from, in this case, the Pro Mini 5V.
    • Counterfeit parts have affected SparkFun, especially when there was the atmega 328 shortage that affected lots of arduino-centric companies.
    • Mike (Hord) did a Leap Motion teardown http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOhIhvSZG94
    • SparkFun recently did a donation day for the EFF.
    • In addition to helping other companies/organizations monetarily, they also have in-person and on-site events such as the Autonomous Vehicle Competition, participating in the upcoming Northern CO Mini Maker Faire and the short-lived-yet-awesome Antimov competition (an anti-Asimov robotics showcase) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqemNzvJVJ0
    • FPGAs aren't a focus at SparkFun yet, but might be in the future. Chris suggests the eBook, "FPGAs...Now What?!" by Dave Vandenbout (of Xess). The Papilio by Jack Gassett of Gadget Factory is a platform highlighted as a good starting point.
    To keep up with all things SparkFun, be sure to subscribe to their YouTube Channel and Twitter feed, as well as hopping over to their forums if you have questions. Oh yeah, and don't forget to buy some stuff from them!

    Tesla, FPGAs and DigiKey - Zesty Zippy Zynq Jul 31, 2013
    Show notes

    As our sponsorship winds down, we want to thank NetBurner for supporting The Amp Hour. Be sure to check out the special deals they have for listeners of The Amp Hour and if you are interseted in the auto-update function, check out this example video of creating an application on you NetBurner development board!

    • Chris continues to work on his 10 week electronics training program. If you're interested in being part of the Beta Program, head over to the Contextual Electronics Beta Program page and apply to be part of the initial group of participants. The applications close and participants will be chosen by the end of the week (8/4).
    • Sponsorships abound! Both EEVblog and The Amp Hour are sponsoring the Open Hardware Summit!
    • Chris will be attending the summit and we will likely have another meetup for The Amp Hour on Thursday September 5th in Boston!
    • Dave has been riding Malcolm Faed's Sinclair C5 vehicles. Chris thinks some of the images are ridiculous and hilarious.
    • If you don't want to ride around in a scooter looking thing, try out a skateboard like Boosted Boards! The powe rdelivery is impressive for such a small package.
    • And if that still isn't enough power and you have some money lying around, go buy a Tesla vehicle. Even better, go to t he factory and see how they're made! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_lfxPI5ObM
    • The sheet metal stamping at Tesla is impressive, but the Ford sheet metal prototyping is even more amazing for quick-turn, one-off type of prototypes.
    • Listener Ben Hest wrote in about his amazing Digikey script. It basically makes DK into a more useful, visual tool with a host of other features. Check it out!\
    • Supply Frame (online search engine company for parts and sponsor of Dave's forum) has bought HackaDay! Seems like a great fit!
    • There are a few new Kickstarter projects that implement the Xilinx ZYNQ, a FPGA/Dual Core Microprocessor combo with other integrated hard logic.
      • The Red Pitaya is a test and measurement platform that is very flexible.
      • The Parallela is a supercomputer platform that can be paired with other boards to dramatically increase processing power. They are now taking pre-orders for non-Kickstarter boards!
    • Dave has a new videos explaining both FPGAs and JTAG chains. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUsHwi4M4xE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlWlLeC5BUs
    • Chris is still getting used to Glass. His favorite function is the translate, which utilized the Google Translate servers. This would be useful in the markets of Shenzhen.
    • Speaking of, Ian from Dangerous Prototypes visited Shenzhen...and never left!
    • It's important to have a good translator in a market (or anywhere), so you don't end up like this situation at the Tobacconist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7j-jS9Vuec
    • Google is continuing their work on Babelfish-esque technology to make translation even better.
    • Dave likes the Shonky Product of the week, which may look like it's only an ethernet passthrough, but is promoted as a speed-up device.
    • Listener Daniel Amesberger is working on a completely DIY Pick and Place machine. It looks amazing, but the low volume prcie for materials is a little high.
    • Listener Michael Curran wrote in about the treasure his folks dug up in their back garden in England: a 1920s Bakelite electric coupling!
    • Chris and Martin Lorton (of the mjlorton channel on YouTube) got a chance to meet now that Martin moved back to Cleveland. They will be doing regular meetups. Dave is now considering doing the same in Sydney.
    Next week, we'll have the entire Sparkfun Engineering Team on the show. Get your questions in for them now. It should be pandemonium!

    An Interview with Jeff Rowberg - Mini Module Master Jul 24, 2013
    Show notes

    Welcome, Jeff Rowberg of Bluegiga Technologies and the KeyGlove Project!

    • BlueGiga has a proprietary BT stack called the iWRAP stack
    • Bluetooth itself has a bunch of different profiles. Some of the ones discussed were:
      • HID - Human Input Device
      • SPP - Serial Port Profile
    • Sparkfun now carries some that are single profile devices, such the BlueSMiRF Gold
    • These are based off modules by Roving Networks
    • There are 2 halves of a BT stack
      • Controller (the radio and HW)
      • Host (network interface)
    • Most communication wi th the modules is through a UART connection.
    • The BlueGiga modules use the CSR chips BlueCore line. This is an XAP processor and the low level utilizes the BlueLab dev environment.
    • Chris asked about the TI family, such as the CC2541 by Texas Instruments. This is actually integrated on other BlueGiga modules.
    • Jeff has been selling breakout boards through InMojo, a marketplace site for OSHW. It preceded but is similar to Tindie.
    • Chris points out that Jeff made the unusual transition from software to hardware. Jeff blames the Arduino and the face that his dad was an EE.
    • Growing up, Jeff worked on TRS80 and Graymark kits with his father and brother.
    • The KeyGlove project was not directly influenced by the Nintendo Power Glove. This was prominently "featured" in the 1989 film, The Wizard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AacoxHFYvZw
    • Jeff is interested in wearable computing (obviously) and is in the Google Glass Explorer program, same as Chris.
    • It was at the Google I/O "Voiding your warranty" session where he decided to start hacking at getting the KeyGlove to interface to Glass. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPethpwuYEk
    • Windows 8 has an odd way of adding unsigned drivers, which the Android environment is right now for Glass.
    • The KeyGlove kickstarter is still working on delivering prototype units, nearly 2 years later.
    • Keyglove fabric interface is tough. Chris suggests Jeff talked to Hoeken about his keyboard pants. Jeff has talked to Lynne Bruning in the past about conductive fabrics.
    • Aside from working on KeyGlove and at BlueGiga, Jeff has also been working on a standardized library for interfacing to I2C parts with not-so-transparent registers. This is all documented at i2cdevlib.com.
    • The device that started it all was the Invensense MPU6050.
    • It has been co-developed with Noah Zerkin, who is a wearable computing enthusiast. He also was the one to take the picture of Sergey Brin wearing Glass on the NYC subway.
    • Debugging and reverse engineering the I2C bus was assisted by the Saelae logic analyzer by watching a dev board boot and monitoring packets between the dev board micro and the chip.
    • The database driven register map is a great way of visualizing register sets, without using Excel.
    • All code for this open source project can also be found on GitHub. People are also working on porting to other devices like the MSP430.
    • When asked about why Google doesn't already have Bluetooth Low Energy support, Jeff guessed it was because they were counting on the alternate standard, ANT+which never took off.
    Many thanks to Jeff for answering all of our questions about Bluetooth and interfacing with modules that implement the standard! Follow Jeff on Twitter, @SectorFej.

    Arduino, IndiGoGo and Hack-a-Day - Doodad Dealer Dancing Jul 17, 2013
    Show notes

    Thank you to our sponsor NetBurner! If you want to get your ethernet device up and running quickly, check them out. For a listener discount, go to NetBurner.com/TheAmpHour

    • The Amp Hour will be having a meetup in NYC on July 19th at 7 pm. More details in the subreddit. Dave had to regretfully decline.
    • Want to get freaked out without meeting Chris in person? Listen to "The Amp Hour minus The Amp Hour" to hear Dave, Chris and Jeff...laughing...and not much else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dESWV27chqs#at=19
    • Hack-a-Day is trying to raise money to buy the domain off the current owner and make it a non-profit.
    • If you'd rather waste your money, check out this IndieGoGo campaign for a "phone with no transistors, battery or radio waves". So...a rock?
    • A much more useful and realistic project to back is this refactoring of Arduino boards to make them cheaper for non-profits to buy. Do non-profits hurt open source? Or is it just part of the ecosystem?
    • This lower cost option was a similar question with the Tangibot, but there was much more profit motive there.
    • If you've bought a bunch of Arduinos and want to learn more about them, former guest of the show Jeremy Blum, just published a book on Arduino. John Boxall also has one.
    • One thing you can't get anymore is paper databooks. But you can get catalogs, regardless of whether or not you want them
    • Digikey has been trying their Dynamic Catalog. Chris still prefers Google Image search. Dave cautions against certain search terms.
    • Chris is doing the vendor dance once again, empowered by more realistic knowledge. He can't imagine moving million-piece orders.
    • Have you had special attention due to huge volumes before? We know that some of our audience is in the consumer industry, which would be those volumes.
    • Sometimes to get a product out the door, you need to ask for help from vendors or distributors. It's a delicate balance of asking for help and not having them design in every part you use.
    • You can put your eggs in one basket for vendors, or for CAD programs. The latter seems necessary no matter which you pick.
    • Switching to online tools seems like it would require the biggest leap (because you don't know it'll be there forever like a piece of software). Upverter's sharing features has been tempting Chris lately, especially the fork feature (similar to GitHub). They have also been showcasing products you can fork and start changing.
    • We have been moving to cloud/online stuff as well. We've slowly been uploading our past episodes to our YouTube channel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqlX9Ubpb_g
    • Chip of the Week: The LT3081 1.5 amp linear regulator with a few other fiddly bits. This is an update to the LT3080 that Dave had issues with.
    • Jeff Rowberg of BlueGiga will be on the show next week. Ask him all your Bluetooth and WiFi module questions on the subreddit!
    If you're in NYC, please come hang out!

    Thanks to Ed Yourdon for the tango picture.


    An Interview with Ryan O'Hara - Keyed, Kerfed Kapton Jul 10, 2013
    Show notes

    [display_podcast]

    Welcome, Ryan O’Hara of Ohararp.com!

    • Ryan is a mechanical engineer who has crossed into the electrical domain in various ways.
    • His PhD work was research around robots that fly like bees. It was also featured on NPR in the US. Later he studied wings similar to the Manduca Sexta.
    • Since graduating, Ryan has continued to serve in the US Air Force.
    • He used to live down in Dayton, where Chris recently attended Hamvention.
    • To construct tiny wings, Ryan used the ablation feature available with the LPKF ProtoLaserU3, a UV (355 nm) laser device. These days Ryan uses a CO2 laser, which burns more than ablating.
    • The wing material was partially made from FR1500. See the entire material stack up here (pdf).
    • The robot insect was controlled by custom ASIC (metalized gate array), similar to what Jeri Ellsworth is doing for the CastAR.
    • Ryan achieved his lift targets for the robot by employing biomimicry. Why not let nature do the heavy lifting?
    • Later he did consulting work ,which he got through publishing some open projects. One was glacier monitoring, using a low cost device.
    • This is how he got into learning about the need for stencils and the different materials used to construct them. Limor from adafruit did a tutorial using info from Ryan.
    • His mechanical background came in handy. Ryan recommends the Protomold draft tutorials to learn more about the importance when molding plastic.
    • The thickness of the stencil is a standard 3.5/1000th inch.
    • Kapton has about 100 uses before the smaller features start to fall apart. One thing that lowers the life span is using a metal spatula to spread solder paste. Ryan suggests using a credit card/hotel key card instead.
    • Ryan suggests the Sparkfun tutorial about paste/stencils.
    • Jeff Rowberg from BlueGiga has been working on the KeyGlove recently. He also got it to work with Google Glass (hey, Chris was excited).
    • Glass has the invensense MPU-9150, a 9 axis motion tracking device.
    • LEDs capture Ryan's attention, as well as his kids and some Christmas decoration enthusiasts. He started a new boutique company, RGB-123.
    • Ryan picked up a Quad PnP to do in-house assembly as a value-added solution for consulting clients.
    • He got a refurbished machine and feeders from GoPPM, a dangerous site since Ryan is a self-confessed tool junkie.
    • He also had help from Twitter. @AutoSportLabs and others helped to narrow it down.
    • Dave interacted with the PnP that did his boards in the video where he visited his assembly house: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHNpayYhBvM
    • Everyone favors surface mount for automation reasons, but Chris recently saw a tiny solder pot for tinning wires.
    • Moving to a full time maker business is a big decision, but Dave says it shouldn't be a hard one.
    • Ryan was nice enough to mention Chris's upcoming program, Contextual Electronics.
    Thanks again to Ryan for being on the show! He's offering a coupon to all interested listeners. Use the coupon code "amphour20" - Coupon is for 20% off Kapton stencils and expires 16 Jul 2013.

    Find Ryan on Twitter at @ohararp Image credit: Ohararp.com


    Firmware, Netburner and Semiconductors - Chris's Capitalism Colloquy Jul 03, 2013
    Show notes

    As much as electronics is about the technology, knowing the basics behind businesses can be important to having the capital to keep making fun projects and gadgets that can impact the world.

    • HackaDay is looking for a new home (and a new editor). Jason Calcanis is looking to sell it to move onto something else and Caleb Kraft (former editor-in-chief) is moving on to other projects.
    • Dave has been having a heckuva time getting his MakerBot firmware to work. He can't get ahold of a simple AVRdude EXE file.
    • Sometimes there aren't steady builds because they expect you to build it yourself. This stems from firmware repositories and the idea that you should have access to the source code.
    • What firmware revision control do you use? Dave and Chris have both used SVN but haven't dove into Git (which seems to be the defacto standard these days).
    • The Microsoft architect who was the first paid traveler into space was Charles Simonyi
    • But why go to space when you can just have your picture taken up there? The ARKYD telescope was funded on Kickstarter to the tune of $1.5M!
    • Hardware is hard...who knew?
    • Investing is hard too!
    • Chris has been thinking about low capital businesses. Topping the list are software and brands...which is why VCs love them. Chris also thinks mining, but Dave has seen the large up front capital outlays.
    • There is a rise in one-person million dollar businesses (but not really, since some of it is outsourcing tasks)
    • Thanks to our sponsor this week, NetBurner! Check out their offer for 20% off dev boards for listeners. Go to NetBurner.com/theamphour
    • The Leap Motion is surprisingly mostly software and then IR LEDs. Mike Hord from Sparkfun shows off the hardware and the current consumption.
    • The "Systemization" of chips continues, with vendors pulling in more and more of the design. This is driving the Internet of Things.
    • Chip of the Week: A Bluetooth Chip from Dialog Semiconductor, the DA14580. This rivals TI's CC254x and Nordic Semiconductor's nRF51822.
    • If you don't want to buy an SoC that has everything on board, you can grab a design from TI's precision library.
    • Or you could go learn how to be an IC designer. But how? The question was asked on the EEVblog forum recently. (hint: slowly and with good credentials)
    • Tektronix is headed to the fab for their next generation ADC SoC (which is the heart of real time scopes). They are tapping the 350 GHz SiGe IBM Process (WOWZA!).
    If you're in New York City, Chris is planning a meetup for Friday the 19th in the city (he picks up his Google Glass the following day). Also, if you want to win a t-shirt, submit links or ideas to The Amp Hour Subreddit.

    Thanks to Bryan Champ for the picture of the “Capitalism Works For Me!” sign.


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