Macrofab Engineering Podcast

The MacroFab Engineering Podcast Design Contest sponsored by Mouser Electronics currently going on! The topic is Useless Machines! We have cash prizes up to $1000 for the winners. The deadline is August 10th and it is closing fast! More information can be found on here! Parker Trophy Software? WiFi connectivity - Comitup Python GUI - guizero PinoTaur LED boards using the APA-102C-NEW-260 Make them low cost and easy to assemble Build up 2 more REV1 for testing purposes Next project Sponsored by Mouser IoT Compressor revitalization Started on MEP EP#68 Uses a Particle Photon PX3AN2BS250PAAAX HoneyWell Pressure Transducer 6225AXXSZS-DC3 Need a new enclosure that is industrial and ruggedized Stephen Linear power supply design Roz transformer and the appropriate taps How do you estimate the dc output voltage given a transformer spec? Vdc = 2*Vmax/pi Power supplies for valve amplifiers Page 38 Very cool chart for determining DC output voltage from r

MEP EP#183: Feel the HumZapp Was on previous podcast episodes: Incognito Mode which was episode number 69 Arduino, The Gateway Drug To #BadgeLife which was episode number 109 Badges? AND!XOR Badge is going to be free to people at the conference thanks to sponsors and philanthropists Design elements - dithered silk, exposed copper, light pipes Major hardware elements IQS333, BMD340, FT2232 FT2232 Hardware Hacking Swiss Army Knife Release Trailer Really cool Hackaday article covering the Badge and SAOs CrabFoam DOOM SAO is out in the wild We managed to implement all the features! Github is public. Open Sourced! PinoTaur is flipping a pinball machine Only one Hardware bug Blitz MacroAmp is complete Bad datasheets - Dont trust footprints Design Contest Enclosure for Trophy Overly beefy Made from a piece of 10” x 36” x 0.25” R.F.O. Honey, I Shrunk the Raspberry Pi! ArduCam shrunk the Raspberry Pi to a small System-on-Module b

MEP EP#182: The Wireless Research CenterGerard Hayes Has nearly three decades of experience in government and commercial electromagnetic research and design Prior to establishing the Wireless Research Center in 2010, Dr. Hayes worked for Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications and Lockheed Martin At Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications (USA) Inc., Dr.Hayes provided global technical leadership in the Technology and Research organization with contributions to handset antenna design, technology, and radiated performance optimization At Lockheed Martin (formerly Lockheed Missiles and Space Co.), Dr. Hayes supported research and development efforts for space-based, phased array application Experience encompasses electromagnetic theory, bioelectromagnetics, antenna design, RF circuit analysis, and material engineering Participated in the development of international standards for OTA, HAC, and SAR evaluation which includes IEEE, IEC, CTIA, and C63 standards Shruthi Soora Senior staff engineering consult

MEP EP#181: Greg Paulsen: Pizza is the Way to an Engineer's HeartGreg Paulsen The leader of the Application Engineering team at Xometry Xometry is an online instant quoting platform for custom manufacturing projects, which utilize a professional network of thousands of manufacturers Greg’s team handles special case projects that require attention to material selection, design-for-manufacturing, and technical engineering resources Plays a vital role in vetting new technologies and materials to add to Xometry's manufacturing portfolio Background is in product development using rapid prototyping, focusing on the various applications of industrial 3D printing and advanced manufacturing Digital Manufacturing Uploading and interpreting customer’s files Can uploading to the cloud replace drawings? Drawings contain so much information that is necessary Is it too easy to just dump in a 3d model and not worry about the rest? Experienced vs Newbie customers - What kind of resources exist for bot

MEP EP#180: Chrissy Meyer and Personal Errata DatasheetsChrissy Meyer Has spent the past decade taking hardware products from early concept through high-volume production Received a MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford Led several projects at Apple and Square Founding team member at Pearl Automation, a vehicle technology startup Developed products that have shipped tens of millions of units Spent over a year on the ground in Asia working closely with manufacturers and suppliers Recently joined Root Ventures, a seed-stage hard tech venture capital firm, as a partner At Root, Chrissy invests in deeply technical teams that are solving problems in robotics, hardware, industrial automation, AI, and machine learning Background/Career Engineering - scripting for military applications Project Management Large Scale Manufacturing Very High volume manufacturing What do you need to consider? Documentation? The path from nothing to something Reviews? Test runs? Scal

MEP EP#179: Mach 3 CheeseburgersThe MacroFab Engineering Podcast Useless Machine Contest Sponsored by Mouser Electronics is in full swing! We have cash prizes up for grabs. Contest Ends August 10, 2019. Check out the Macrofab Blog and Podcast Episode 175 for more contest details. Parker PinoTaur Updates Simulated Mosfet Driving Limiting the 74hc595 driver to 10mA Solenoid Mosfet Current Sensing ACS711KEXLT-15AB-T DOOM SAO Hardware Repo is assembled Software Next Detailed instructions on building the environment How the main code functions Stephen Fredman clip Parker brought up the SM57 microphone holder he 3D printed to compare to the clip that was bought online Text Based Adventure Update Majority of the story, characters, and environment are designed R.F.O. Cheeseburger Wind Tunnel Tests Could this be McDonald's wind tunnel tests so you can eat burgers faster? Millennium Falcon wind tunnel tests at Mach 3! Wire Bender Aims To Tak

MEP EP#178: Little Shop of Transformer HorrorJosh Rozier Transformer Shop Story What is different between a power transformer and an output transformer? Parker DOOM SAO EEPROM interface working for single read and write bytes Functionality of the base firmware for the Screen functionality Shows the normal Face. GPIO 1 on the SAO connector toggles where the Face looks EEPROM address locations for “damage” and “anger” Github still needs to be cleaned up before public Stephen MacroAmp Enclosure and other parts arrive tomorrow Thank you to Mouser Electronics for sponsoring this project! Kraig Brewing Controller Creating a new controller for controlling my beer fridge 6 temperature probes DS18B20 Averaging is useful Wifi Connectivity Silicon Labs solution External Antenna Processor Silicon Labs Screen and a few buttons Takachi Enclosure R.F.O. Confirmed: NASA Has Been Hacked An audit document from the U.S. Office of the Inspector Gen

MEP EP#177: Leeroy Jenkins TransistorCheck out our new MacroFab Design Contest: Useless Machine Sponsored by Mouser Electronics! Parker APA-102C-NEW-260 Tested DOOM SAO in production ST7789 LCD Works correctly Type-C works well Got the ATSAMD21 I2C EEPROM interface working SOON to be public Github repo Preorder on the AND!XOR website Atmel SWD to Tag Connect adapter works! ICE ICE BABY SOICBITE Stephen MacroAmp Rev 2: Sponsored by Mouser Electronics Schematic is complete Only grounds left to run and to do a review Completely rethought design Simulated power supplies uTracer data gathering for everything Gain calcs - one or two nutube? Coarse and fine volume controls PCB mounted Tube sockets Terminal blocks for easy assembly Wants to do something not audio related for next project R.F.O. Non-destructive banana ripeness determination using a neural network-based electronic nose Follow up from last weeks discussion with Nick Chelyapov Accurac

Some Impedance or Whatever - Nick Chelyapov with BittyNick Chelyapov A freelance Interactive Art Director and Graphic Designer Born in Moscow, Russia and raised in Los Angeles, California Nick has worked on a wide variety of art direction and graphic design projects Nick started Bitty, a pocket drum machine, 3 and a half years ago "I think the edge that I have to bring to a hardware product is graphic design" What is the bitty? Kickstarter project A pocket drum machine Specs on Bitty Sine / square / saw / triangle waves (it's all there, noise too.) Sample playback - 16khz samples Polyphony - 4 voices is easy, depending on the complexity of the patch, 8-16 voices is possible Filters - Low Pass, High Pass, Band Pass, Notch Patterns / Arpeggiation How did you get into hardware design from graphic design? Product look and feel Process of iterations? What do you look for in the design? Links and Callouts The mozzi library Fab Academy Teenage Engineering Gavin Lund

Are Projects Really Useless?MacroFab Design Contest: Useless Machine Sponsored by Mouser Electronics Four cash prizes! First Place: $1000 Second Place: $500 Third Place: $250 MacroFab Podcast Favorite: $1000 and a Useless Trophy Contest runs 8 AM CST June 1st, 2019 through 8 AM CST August 10, 2019 How to Enter your Useless Project Build an electronic project that is useless Document it as a new project on Hackaday.io Tag it with “MacroFab Design Contest: Useless Machine” More rules and information on the blog R.F.O. Arm gives up control of IP to China Softbank, sold the 51% share of Arm China to the Chinese Major Google Services Outage Nest was down. No A/C and Doors couldn’t be unlocked Services rendered YouTube, Gmail, and Snapchat Google Cloud on the backend Squirrels and Security — It’s a Thing! They’re cute, they’re fuzzy, and they pose a major threat to our cyber-infrastructure. “Frankly, the No. 1 threat experienced to date by the U.S. elec

MEP EP#174: Apply Inspiration HereJosh Rozier Research and Development of Transformers More than meets the eye Josh was a guest on EP #152: Third Annual MacroFab Star Wars Christmas Special – Vader’s Fake Fingers Parker DOOM SAO Screens arrive this week. Going to Test them with the breakout board. Atmel ICE to Tag connect adapter board ordered. Wagon Grill complete Sodium Hydroxide to remove Anodizing Stephen Removing Cosmoline from M1 Garand Rifle Genericized trademark for a common class of brown wax-like petroleum-based corrosion inhibitors, typically conforming to United States Military Standard MIL-C-11796C Class 3 Material Safety Datasheet R.F.O. Engineer tripped on LSD after touching 1960s synthesizer coated in it Does LSD even have a shelf life that long? ARM memo tells staff to stop working with China’s tech giant The SD Association dropped Huawei from the trade group SD card branding Visit our Public Slack Channel and join the conversat

MEP EP#173: Sidecreeping GyrationsParker DOOM SAO ATSAMD21G18 Will be Arduino compatible Break out the majority of the I/O ST7789 LCD 1.3” 240x240 resolution SPI USB Type-C EEPROM AND!XOR for SAO reference designs Designed some arduino shields boards for the “smart LEDs” for testing PinoTaur update Software for the ATSAMD21G18 going well Lots of SPI and DMA going on to control the shift registers Stephen Macro Amp Differences Surface mount tech with high voltage Wilkinson Audio Fredman Clip Test recording Gyrator - Simulated Inductor R.F.O. Glass Enterprise Edition 2: faster and more helpful Industrial Augmented Reality Safety Glasses Styled Kit converts Raspberry Pi into Alexa-type home automation system They can be understood by anyone, says the Geek Shop, regardless of education or training. Direct link A One-Page Guide to Fixing Radiated Emissions FCC/CE testing for PCBs. Find the Aggressor! Nash Reilly Visit o

Triode Mode TariffsParker ATSAMD21G18A Breakout works! Next steps is power design and testing for PinoTaur Wagoneer Tach Installed. Will get this documented on the Longhorn Engineer blog Stephen Wilkinson Audio Fredman Clip Cool technique for removing hiss and fizz from your recordings Manufacturing? STL that Parker will print Fired up one channel of the Macroamp in Triode Mode Working great Considering a new PCB to clean up the design DML speakers Don't sound that great Working on a "prize" for a future event R.F.O. Tariff Increase on May 10th, 2019 Section 301 Tariff: List 3 8417 Heading: Automatic data processing machines and units Google Discontinues ‘Works With Nest’ Program, Tightens Smart Home Privacy Rules To increase privacy for users it has removed the Works With Nest program Breaks IFTTT: a service that allows people to “glue” different IoT echo systems and function Sony MSX-2+ crazy PCB construction More pictures Why

Mayonnaise Drone (And Other War Crimes)Danny Rankin An instructor in the Technology, Arts and Media (TAM) program at the University of Colorado Boulder The courses Danny teaches and his individual research reflect a diverse array of expertise, including graphic design, material fabrication, game design, hardware hacking, sustainable agriculture and large-scale installation art Co-directs the ATLAS Whaaat!? Lab, a space for experimental game and interaction design Cooperative card game Ravine, which began in a TAM game design class, later became one of the most popular card game Kickstarters of 2017 Mentors in the ATLAS BTU Lab (blow things up) Holds a Master of Science from the ATLAS CTD program, and a Bachelor of Arts in environmental studies from CU Boulder Atlas Institute What is it? ATLAS is an interdisciplinary institute for radical creativity, design and invention. What is Danny's role? How is the engineering department involved? Whaaat!? And BTU lab What are they? Projects?

MEP EP #170: Start Getting CrustyParker PinoTaur MCP23S08 I/O Expanders Verse Shift Registers? Wagon Tach Project 3D printed the housing Need to run the wire from the distributor to inside the cab To knock down the distributor signal In series diode to prevent negative flyback? voltage from affecting circuit Resistor divider Zener diode to clamp to 4.7V H11L1M - Schmitt Trigger Opto Stephen MacroAmp Testing Used a variac to bring the amp up to voltage Found some of the resistances were too high It can be difficult to determine what a transformer tap will produce - I chose to guesstimate and fix it later...it works Higher gain when powered from the transformer. About 100x gain Tested into a Power amp - Works HUGE ISSUE: MICROPHONIC TUBES Next steps - Get everything in the enclosure. Wire the output transformers R.F.O. Chip component gets heat out of tight spots without leaking electrons TT Electronics has introduced a surface-mount component desi

Is "I'm an Engineer" a valid defense?Parker PinoTaur Update 12V master voltage input Switching psus for the voltage rails ATSAMD21G18A Breakout Board 32.768KHZ is the external crystal? Lead free Smart LEDS?! Direct from APA Electronic APA-102C-5050 256 APA-104-260-5050 Stephen Macroamp Update Tested preamp board ~42x gain which is much too high Power supply resistance is way too high at 2k Did not account for extra current draw from buffer Jfets J111 Jfet was bad out of the box - Have replaced with a BJT So far very low noise Riaa input filter still to be tested however it all works Tested Shielded cable footprint from MEP EP 155: Void Copper Donuts Was a Success! R.F.O. Hack my House: UL Certification and Turning the lights on with an ESP8266 What is the legality of IOT and connecting them to Mains? Component Shelf Life: How To Use All That Old Junk How to know when your parts are bad? How old is too old? Surplus Stores EU

Kevin Beller of Seymour DuncanKevin Beller Heads up the Engineering and New Product Development Departments at Seymour Duncan Does the electronic and mechanical design, pickup design, tooling and fixture design He has worn a lot of hats in his 40 years at Seymour Duncan by starting out as production supervisor and manufacturing engineer in 1979 How does an engineer sell a creative idea? Idea generation Turning sound into a design. What drives the product? Specifications Validation Audience? Use Case? Rigid design vs Playful experimentation Design iteration Who says go/no go to new designs? When or how do you say that you are complete? What happens if you just don’t like it? How much input is too much on a creative design? Trust – engineers/marketing/sales? Announcements!KiCon 2019 is a user conference for the popular open source CAD program KiCad. Happening April 26th and 27th 2019 in Chicago IL, this is the first and largest gathering of hardware developers using KiCad. Talks at the conference wil

BenHeck and the PinoTaurBenjamin Heckendorn A console modder and famous computer engineer Better known as Ben Heck on the Internet Independent filmmaker and he was the star of element14’s The Ben Heck Show, a popular online series, until leaving the show in late 2018 Previous guest on episodes EP#23: Interview with Ben Heck of The Ben Heck Show EP#75: Does the Simulation Match the Reality? EP#153: Discrete Atomic Luffa Control PinoTaur Pinball Platform Plans for PinoTaur EP#85: Space Engineers VS Caffeinated Chipmunks Reducing the cost of the PinHeck Enabling easier programming High Def Graphics ATSAMD21G18A Reducing wiring complexity Serial Switches Serial Lights Connectors USB Text Adventure Game Scope of the project Story Ideas? Zork messes with you Epic Game StoreIs this bad for gamers and the industry?Announcements!KiCon 2019 is a user conference for the popular open source CAD program KiCad. Happening April 26th and 27th 2019 in Chicago IL, this is the first and largest gathering of hardwa

Ken and Chip Gracey of Parallax IncKen Gracey Leader and CEO of Parallax UC Davis alumni who lives and breathes Parallax products and has done so around the world All about family, working smart, having fun, mountaineering, and riding his unicycle Chip Gracey Parallax founder. He had his first major introduction to programming and electronics when he was 13 years old with the Timex Sinclair computer After graduating high school, he and his techy friend from the 7th grade started Parallax at their homes in 1987 Chip designed the first low-cost tools for the PIC microcontrollers Led to the development of the first BASIC Stamp module released in 1993 The Parallax Story Starting Products Apple IIgs memory cards EEPROM emulators for microcontroller development PIC Tools Basic Stamp SX chip Propeller Parallax Prop 2 What makes it special compared to other microcontrollers? P2 VS P1? Feature Set Programming Languages? What does it take to design semiconductors? Software packages Simulation What document package

Simplified Home AutomationDillon Nichols Electrical engineer specializing in embedded systems Spends his free time designing circuits, writing code, and building physical objects by 3D printing, woodworking, and metal working Enjoys trying out new processors and services to build up his engineering knowledge base Dillon was one of the Winners of the MacroFab Design Contest: Blink an LED Pragmatic Blinky Category Disintegrated LM3909 - 1.5V LED Flasher Home Automation What do you enjoy about home automation? How did you get started automating your life?First project? Security? Favorite platform to design around Consolidating everything.One system to rule it all? Future ideas/projects? Hardware that didn’t work out? Announcements!KiCon 2019 is a user conference for the popular open source CAD program KiCad. Happening April 26th and 27th 2019 in Chicago IL, this is the first and largest gathering of hardware developers using KiCad. Talks at the conference will span hardware design, revision control, scripting