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 Zach Hoeken Smith - Creative China Commorant Nov 12, 2012

Show notes

Welcome, Zach “Hoeken” Smith!

Thanks to our sponsor, Club Jameco. Be sure to check out ClubJameco.com/TheAmpHour to check out the featured kit and to support the show.
Zach is currently living in Shenzhen, "the factory of the world".
After a college education in software, he got interested in electronics as part of the RepRap Project.
The RRRF was developed to help purchase components in bulk.
This eventually became MakerBot, along with Bre and Adam.
Zach has since departed with the company. While he cannot discuss detail, he has written about a little about MakerBot since his departure.
These days, he's working with the HAXLR8R program, helping develop connections at the factories in the area and at the SEG market.
Dangerous Prototype's video of the SEG market http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBtRJc-z05k
He's also developing test rigs for stepper motor drivers, brilliantly discussed on the Hoektronics site.
The CNC drilling of PCBs was also very impressive. As is Zach's SMT tutorial.
The first round of HAXLR8R went well, including a very successful kickstarter project for the Nomiku
Zach's choice for Chip Of The Week is the TB6564, similar to this TB6560, but with more step resolution (1/64)
One of Zach's other projects is to network hundreds or thousands of 3D printers together with BotQueue.
In the midst of learning Mandarin, Zach has captured some of the funnier signs he has seen on his Tumblr blog, Engr.sh.
A good tip for sourcing parts (even from the states) is to go on TaoBao with Google Translate.
Are you interested in applying for the HAXLR8R program? There's still time, though not much! Apply here now!

Prototyping, Machining & Accelerators- Mugwumps Mulling Milling Nov 05, 2012

Show notes

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Welcome to our new sponsor, Club Jameco! Be sure to check out http://ClubJameco.com/TheAmpHour to see the kit we discussed on the show today!
Cleveland got a bit of a drubbing from Sandy, but not nearly as bad as NY
The storm puts electronics and electrical system reliability into sharp relief.
What kind of redundancies need to be built into systems? Especially systems that are always online?
In Brooklyn, they're dealing with outages by charging with a fire-fueled charging device.
Congrats to Chris Anderson who has decided to work on DIY Drones full time. We're excited to see what they develop next!
Chris (Gammell) just finished Chris (Anderson's) new book, Makers: The New Industrial Revolution.
From Dangerous Prototypes, someone has deadbugged a BGA part in his prototype! Impressive!
And from their 7400 series competition, the discrete FPGA project is a cool look at how LUTs work!
Does the internet prevent people from deeper knowledge about systems (out of necessity)?
Dr Greg Charvat, guest on episode 115, told us about a new video that helps visualize electromagnetics waves. Awesome! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=calCoF4cmkE
Tony Long, guest on episode 107, is working on building a kit along with Greg to get more people interested in microwave.
Chris now has a Raspberry Pi, but hasn't fired it up yet.
The RPi foundation is one of the first that will be open sourcing the ARM/GPU stack.
ARM is now licensing and building 64-bit ARM-based server processors, including the A-53 and A-57 cores.
Which US Presidential Candidate will be better for engineering?
If you're in deep to the statistics of the election, check out the 512 Paths To The Whitehouse.
Chris is getting overzealous about CNC Machining, based on a great document found at the /r/hwstartups subreddit. This guerrilla guide to CNC Machining is awesome!
The machines Chris is looking at are nothing compared with the 5 axis machines that can rapidly cut crazy stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnIvhlKT7SY
Would you pick a CNC over a 3D printer?
Paul Graham wrote an article about the Hardware Renaissance.
Ben Einstein of Bolt wrote a rubuttal mentioning that the mentorship isn't as strong.
And if you're interested in hardware accelerators, HAXLR8R is looking for their next round of candidates!
The podcast that Chris mentioned is called Innovation Hub from WGBH. Great show!

Thank you to Jameco for sponsoring the show! And to Nottinghack for the CNC picture!

An Interview with Dr. Kent Lundberg - Luculent Linear Legacy Oct 29, 2012

Show notes

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Welcome, Dr Kent Lundberg!

Kent has been a lecturer at MIT and now teaches at Olin College.
He also keeps a great blog called "Reading Jim Williams". Kent personally knew Jim through Jim Roberge
Kent also has a bibliography of all of Jim's publications, which were very numerous.
As fans of JW's will know, some of his app notes were epic. AN47 clocked in at 130 pages.
Kent has had one student in particular he remembers and has seen all over the place, including the cover of Wired: Limor Fried (AKA Ladyada) of Adafruit Industries.
In his control systems classes, he doesn't use network analyzers but uses Dynamic Signal Analyzers like the HP3562A.
Dave says "Bow-duh", Chris and Kent say "Bow-dee", Bode's family (but not him), say "Bow-dah". Dave has been to Bodie, California.
Kent is a fan of the Severed Heads, a long time Aussie band that did a lot of experimentations with synths.
Kent also has a bunch of synths of his own, including Moog and Dave Smith synths.
When he's not teaching, Kent consults for industry for analog. His company is called Keeling Flight Hardware, Ltd. "Flight Hardware" also refers to hardware that is ready off the shelf.
He also works at Lincoln Labs and has worked indirectly with Dr. Greg Charvat, who was a guest on show 115.
When he's not teaching or consulting, he also collects and repairs scopes, thanks to JW's inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ODi7qSpYg
Kent has a 511, a 556 and a 7104. Great hardware! He also has one digital scope from the older era: 7854
Kent was the historian and editor for the IEEE Control Systems magazine and did a feature about analog computing.
Beyond all this, he's also an avid book collector and has hard-to-find books from the Rad Lab and the Manhattan Project (the ones that are allowed to be collected).
He's now developing a new class along with students to teach EE Prototyping. We can't wait to see how that turns out!

Thanks again to Dr Kent Lundberg for being on the show! Find him on Twitter at @DoctorAnalog or at the variety of sites linked above.

Kickstarter, Open Source RC & Modelsource - Facinorous Financial Foulness Oct 22, 2012

Show notes

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For those interested, there is also now a transcript available for episode 118

This week Chris and Dave get talking about the intersection of money and electronics and all the craziness that can ensue.

Yes, Chris still has far too many web sites, many of which are dormant.
- Chip Report TV is going strong, there's a new one available. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uOmNP-J4e8
- ChrisGammell.com just got a refresh, though is the same content.
- Engineer Blogs is dying, much to Dave's disappointment.
- Chris's other podcast, The Engineering Commons, is going strong and has new episodes every 2 weeks.
- And if that weren't bad enough, Chris is talking about starting a kickstarter! What a nutjob.

Would you start your own Kickstarter? Why or why not?
The Open Source RC project is not going to continue development.
A123 has also declared bankruptcy and sold its assets to Johnson Controls. There's an article detailing what went wrong there.
Solyndra also folded, but more likely due to designing for the wrong variable: the price of polysilicon.
The Altium Founder and CEO has gotten the boot from the board of directors.
Boards of directors are in it for the shareholders, no one else. NXP is pondering splitting the company. Hope it doesn't affect our designs!
Design Spark did a website refresh and has a (new?) feature called Modelsource that allows you to download footprints for a variety of CAD software.
There are other paid systems that are out there, like Ultra Librarian from Accelerated Designs, but is it worth it?
James Dyson has invested $8 million in a student incubator. Would you spend your fortune on something like this?
Do you need to remain a CTO to make it as a nerd, even if you start your own company? Is Bob Dobkin (from LT) able to survive because he's kept doing the tech stuff he loves?
adafruit has bootstrapped their own space and it looks huge and awesome! Photos by @bekathwia. Congrats!
Amazon rumored to be looking at buying the OMAP line from TI? Does this make sense?
Cool BGA routability guidelines from Xilinx. Looks like artwork!
Dave had never heard of a Rorschach Test. Chris had really only known about it because of The Watchmen :-)
What kind of Myers Brigg personality are you? Take the test here and then let us know below.

Thanks to espensorvik for the picture of the money, phone and coke.

Alan's Bench — **Interview with Alan Wolke - Undulating Utensil Utility** Oct 15, 2012
Show notes

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Welcome Alan Wolke, W2AEW!

Alan started his career helping out in a TV repair shop, servicing the tubes in old TVs

He's also a ham operator, callsign W2AEW, which is also the username on his awesome YouTube account!

And he's helping some local Boy Scout troops earn their merit badge and helping during the Jamboree on the Air (JOTA).

The training will take place on a former part of Camp Evans/Fort Monmouth, which was the former home of the Marconi Wireless company in NJ. Project Diana was also run there, the first time they bounced radio off the moon.

Alan also worked at Lytel, which was a startup back in the early networking/telecom days.

After some stints at Vitesse Semi and Agere Systems, he finally ended up at Tektronix as an RF application engineer, where he still works today. (And now he blogs for them as well!)

Now Alan has a YouTube channel as well, which has many awesome videos, some of our favorites are below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FYF5uhCzAM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4Zt_LJX1Tc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwo3pEH7hUE

Dave has a list of things that digital scopes that analog can't do, but all 3 suggest an analog scope to start out.

Alan had a great EEWeb interview which we didn't talk about but is worth reading.

Online, Alan can be found on Twitter at @alanattek. Or his personal website, Dorkage.com.

Check out his bench below:

Distribution, Wozniak & Robots - Early Eight-bit Endgame Oct 08, 2012

Show notes

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The phone is hanging out the window! Must be time for another show!

Would you watch someone's 24/7 stream? Not sure how useful it would be.
Dave could have used a design review for his USB PSU! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL0KnXDPbe8
Design reviews are a tough thing to walk into (and out of).
We just found out that the Woz is trying to become an Australian citizen! Dave has re-dubbed him, "Tha Wozzah"
Check out this cool Tesla Coil subduing machine from Electronic Tonic
Freescale will no longer be developing 8 bit micros.
The MBA Playbook is getting more attention, including blogs on the Harvard Business Review!
Are distributors getting more important? Chris argues the opposite (which is partially why he started ChipReport.tv
Perhaps this is also the future of work, having a truly flexible workforce? Chris talked about being a "free agent" on The Engineering Commons.
There's a future in robots...what does our audience think about it? Do you see yourself programming ever?
Cool robot that drops off WiFi extension boxes as it moves! Dave reckons he could build something similar.
Why not look at existing electronics in class? Kent Lundberg is doing exactly that in the classes he's teaching!
Nominate/Vote for The Amp Hour for best "science" podcast!
Vote for Dave for a shot at "The Streamys". Could finally get him back to the US!

If you're so inclined, we'd really appreciate the love on those two contests. Thanks for listening and thanks for caring!

An Interview with Dr Greg Charvat - Watcher of Wraithlike Walls Oct 01, 2012

Show notes

[display_podcast] Welcome, Dr Greg Charvat!

Greg has a ton of great "learn by doing" courses at MIT
One of the courses is on the MIT Open Courseware site
He's worked on research allowing them to "see through walls" with microwaves
His interest also include radio astronomy and he has built one of his own telescopes!
He has built an all-tube (23 in total!) stereo system for his home theater
The coffee can radar is a living project and Greg continues to develop courses around the idea
The courses also include a phased array DIY radar made of pegboard and wi-fi antennas
He also has made a high res radar imaging system made from a garage door opener
In college he got busted trying to record a Buddy Guy show in Chicago with this bootleg tube pre-amp that he built
He's into amateur radio equipment, all of which he has built himself
And for some "down time", he repairs antique radios
Oh right, and when he's not playing at home or playing at work, he's playing at his new startup, ButterflyNet

If you’re an FPGA enthusiast, looking for a new gig, send Greg an email with some examples of your past work.

In the event you’re not looking for a new gig, check out Greg’s site or catch him on Twitter.

Many thanks to Greg for stopping by and chatting. One of our best guests ever!

Kickstarter, Manufacturing, Open Hardware - Judging Jurisdictional Junctures Sep 24, 2012

Show notes

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Welcome back Jeff! Always a good time when Mr Keyzer stops by. YESSIR.

Jeff is preparing for the winter in Washington.
The MakerBot is possibly going closed source.
Kickstarter tells hardware companies, "We're Not A Store"
The LIFX bulb has caught a particularly large amount of flac.
Chris wonders if people care about non-connected devices anymore. The IoT could very well come from Kickstarter.
The Art of Electronics 3rd edition will be out next year! Or will it?
Did you know: Dave is 1.028 smoots, Chris is 1.075 smoots and Jeff is 1.100 smoots? Find out more about crazy measurements here.
Hardware is dead? Well, computer hardware maybe. But who thinks they can make money from computer hardware?
A bunch of experts from Harvard say what we've been saying as well: "Manufacturing is important for the economy". Duh.
Can manufacturing ever be abstracted out, similar to an API? Is that what CMs do now?

That’s all for our time with Jeff. We’ll be sure to have him back again soon. As always, you can find out more about the stories, comment on them and add some of your own story ideas at The Amp Hour subreddit.

An Interview with Scott Miller - Sudden SinoAmerican Synthesis Sep 17, 2012

Show notes

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Welcome Scott Miller of Dragon Innovation!

Scott started his career as a Disney Imagineer, but soon moved to iRobot to begin working on an R2D2 prototype (which was cancelled).
He then moved to Hong Kong to take over production of the Roomba and later the Scooba.
Once he left iRobot, he worked with a few clients in his home town of Boston, such as Zeo.
The area of interest is generally known as the Pearl River Delta.
IP protection is still shaky over there, but it depends on which factories you work with.
Labor costs are rising in China. They were at $1-2/hour but now are closer to $4-6/hour.
Scott agrees that if robotics become commonplace in factories, there is a chance that manufacturing could move back stateside.
Many kickstarter projects are referred to Dragon Innovation for help with high volume manufacturing, including the Pebble watch.
Scott is also an adjunct professor at the Olin College of Engineering.
Dragon Innovation is part of two accelerators: HAXLR8R (discussed previously) and Bolt (currently looking for applicants).

For more information about Scott and Dragon Innovation, check out this great write up on the RPI site.

Many thanks to Scott for taking the time to share his experiences with us. We're sure his work will continue to pop up all over the hardware scene as exciting products are brought to market by startups.

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