Macrofab Engineering Podcast

 Podcast Notes Our guests this week are Sasha Maldonado and Paige Brown of the Stanford Student Space Initiative. Sasha Maldonado  Stanford junior majoring in Electrical Engineering. Now retired avionics lead on the ValBal project, and has been with the project since its inception. Co-presidents of the Student Space Initiative, also known as SSI, , and is working on electronics for an SSI-built satellite payload. Paige Brown  Stanford freshman majoring in Chemical Engineering The mechanical engineering lead on the ValBal project, and also helps manage flight control logistics. Outside of SSI, she works in an environmental engineering lab on phosphate pollution remediation in storm water through chemical absorption. ValBal  A novel, low cost high-altitude balloon system that achieves multi-day flight using inexpensive latex balloons by automatically venting lifting gas and dispensing ballast to maintain altitude. Latex balloons typically cost little more than a hundred dollars, but in normal use fly for on

Podcast Notes Our guest this week is Dave Rollinson from Hebi Robotics.  Dave is a robotics engineer with a PhD in Robotics and a B.S. in M.E. from Carnegie Mellon University. His thesis research advanced the control and design of articulated, modular, snake-like robots with a focus towards real-world applications like urban search and rescue and industrial inspection. Hebi designs and manufactures industrial motorized actuator building blocks . Hebi takes the hard part out of designing automated robotics. The actuators are torque/force controlled compared to absolute position control. X-Series Industrial Smart Actuator Assisted Actuator Assembly with X-Series

Podcast Notes If you enjoy listening to MEP, please let others know about us! Tell a coworker, loved one, friend, or share it on "social media".  We might reward your love for us by sending you a free koozie! Tell others how much you love us, then send us an email to podcast@macrofab.com with the codeword that we’ll mention during the show. Each show has a different codeword, so keep an ear out. MacroFab and Mouser Electronics have teamed up to create a free  monthly meetup in Houston (April 26th) for anyone involved with hardware & electronics engineering or manufacturing. Hosted on the last Wednesday of every month, these meetups are designed to build a community of professionals who want to learn from one another, gain new insights on emerging electronics technologies, and expand their network.   Sign up here! What to expect   Networking Fireside chats with Q&A Individual project sharing and discussion Door prizes Refreshments Parker has been working on the next step of the RPI3 LVDS project. P

Podcast Notes We would love to hear from our listeners. Tell us what you think, your current projects, any topics you would like us to cover, or just say “hello”. To reach us follow us on Twitter @MacroFab or send us an email at podcast@macrofab.com. MacroFab and Mouser Electronics have teamed up to create a free monthly meetup in Houston for anyone involved with hardware & electronics engineering or manufacturing. Hosted on the last Wednesday of every month, these meetups are designed to build a community of professionals who want to learn from one another, gain new insights on emerging electronics technologies, and expand their network.  Sign up here! What to expect   Networking Fireside chats with Q&A Individual project sharing and discussion Door prizes Refreshments Free parking Parker Spooky Pinball  LVDS controller for the Raspberry Pi 3 As mentioned it uses DS90C365A LVDS converter Current 5V regulator was a bit weak on power so Parker is upgrading to a LM1085ISX-5.0/NOPB which can hand

Podcast Notes JOSH is our guest this week  Owner of Abbadad Productions Owner of Castle Bravo Studios Founder of V33R Technologies Owner of the Space Echo RE-201 Audio Engineer behind the recording of the MacroFab Engineering Podcast V33R technologies creates virtual reality environments for viewing real estate Created intuitive methods for navigating a 3d virtual space Podcast is recorded in Castle Bravo Studios Located in the old post office bomb shelter Rig Astley - A fully functional recording studio in a portable format RE-201 Space Echo Unit will be done soon (We promise JOSH!) JOSH's favorite mic pre is the Groove Tubes Vipre Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

Podcast Notes MacroFab and Mouser Electronics have teamed up to create a free monthly meetup in Houston for anyone involved with hardware & electronics engineering or manufacturing. Hosted on the last Wednesday of every month, these meetups are designed to build a community of professionals who want to learn from one another, gain new insights on emerging electronics technologies, and expand their network.  Sign up  here! What to expect   Networking Fireside chats with Q&A Individual project sharing and discussion Door prizes Refreshments Free parking Christian Aurich writes: "Could you talk about differences in surface finishes on PCBs? I am especially wondering what difference ENIG makes to other 'flat' finishes... so everything else than HAL."  HASL (Leadfree and Leaded) ENIG Immersion Tin Immersion Silver OSP (Organic Solderability Preservative) Gold - Hard Gold  PDF on pros and cons Parker  Working on a LVDS output board for the RPI 3  Parallel Display Interface on the RPI3 Config.txt p

Podcast Notes Patrick Renner and Kelly O'Brien are our guests this week. Flying Carpet Creative Instagram Facebook Vimeo Public sculpture group dedicated to dynamic place making Excited about the opportunity to make Have installations in downtown Houston, East side of Austin, Montrose, Houston Houston Museum of Natural Science Project for the new Energy Section of the museum Different set of challenges then previous projects Has to last over a decade with no maintenance Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

Podcast Notes Al Williams is our guest this week.  Embedded System Designer Blogger for Hackaday Author of  many books Ham Radio Operator Hackaday is a very diverse set of writers. Each writer each has their own specialty that they write about.  Al never lets the negative comments get to him. "If no one tells you you suck then you are probably not being read." The writers for Hackaday are able to pick out what is relevant and what projects are good. Hackaday Seal of Approval. Al Williams received his Ham Radio License when he was 14  Call sign - WD5GNR Al has always gone through more solder then log books The FPGA evangelist. Al Williams leverages the ability to parallel process on FPGAs. FPGA Computer Covers A to Z. Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

Podcast Notes We would love to hear from our listeners. Tell us what you think, your current projects, any topics you would like us to cover, or just say “hello”. To reach us follow us on Twitter @MacroFab or send us an email at podcast@macrofab.com. Scott Vail wrote in earlier in the week. Gives the podcast two thumbs up. Stephen talks about how he got started in Audio Amplifiers and how it led to him becoming an electrical engineer.  Built his first Tube Amplifier 12 years ago and it still works. See Figure 1. Dilbert - The Knack Parker The greatest resistor in the world doesn't fit inside the My200 Pick and Place. Will be remade with 0201 10K resistors. The Jeep Radio Hack made it to Hack A Day.  Check it out!  RFO  Down and Dirty with Contact Cleaners - on Hack a Day Emmett wrote in and mentioned his volume knob on his NAD Series 20 stereo system is scratchy. Stephen likes  MG Chemicals Nu-Trol Control Cleaner. For penetrating fluid Parker likes Kano Kroil. TI HDC1080 temperature/humidity sensor 

Podcast Notes We would love to hear from our listeners. Tell us what you think, your current projects, any topics you would like us to cover, or just say “hello”. To reach us follow us on Twitter @MacroFab or send us an email at podcast@macrofab.com. Derek long time listenersent us an email! Twitter handle @TCurrentSource Emailed us last week that he picked up a 1200V SCR Thyristor. Parker  Wrote a capacitor article about polarity and silkscreen markings. Started working on a new Pinball Controller with Spooky Pinball.  Stephen  Resistor Resistor arrived. Made a goof on it... but it is fixable.  Motor controller for one of our benches. The Open PLC will be controlling it. It is basically a fancy a fancy pwm filter. - its an optoisolator into a dual transistor config with a r/c filter. See Figure 1, 2, 3 RFO   Solar Roadways...yes again with this topic.  2 year experiment in France, called Wattway. Single lane road stretching 1mile long Cost €5 million, or roughly $5.4 million in U.S. currency.  Cover

Podcast Notes We would love to hear from our listeners. Tell us what you think, your current projects, any topics you would like us to cover, or just say “hello”. To reach us follow us on Twitter @MacroFab or send us an email at podcast@macrofab.com. Parker  Jeep Radio Working! Article out soon. Uploaded a video last week about it. Modified my Tektronik TDS520 scope to have a USB stick. Replaced the low profile floppy drive with a emulated floppy drive with USB on it. Parker bought it here on ebay. Stephen  Synth update. PCBs should arrive next week. To match the transistors for the synth, Stephen is going to use his transistor matcher to test them. See that project here. Stephen needs 6 matched BC547C transistors. He is going to buy 100 transistors ($5.70) so that he can pick the best 6 that match. The Open PLC that Parker and Stephen have been talking about is finally doing something!  Building a hand place bench Controls sensors and barcode scanner Stephen is also going to use it in a museum project

Podcast Notes Aditya Bansal Co-founder and CTO of Kinetic Graduated Purdue University with a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering Worked at IBM Research Center before Kinetic Developed a motion tracker to move text on a display so the text stays still while running on a treadmill  Mijael Damian  Head of Data Analysis and Supply Chain at Kinetic Graduated New York Columbia University as a Mechanical Engineer Used to work with key.me which is a "physical key" in the cloud, key cut is stored into the cloud and can be made at a kiosk so you are never locked out Kinetics is a company developing wearable devices to reduce workplace injuries of industrial workers  Located in New York City Small, lean team The "Device" runs on the Intels Edison platform which is an x86 architecture  Rugged design for industrial and harsh environments OLED display 15 hours of battery life Advance IMU for tracking motion Records and tracks employee motion to help reduce high risk moves and lifts Quantifies how many high r

Podcast Notes Parker wrote an  article about mounting holes! Stephen and Parker talked about this on the last episode of the MEP. The Open Source PLC that Parker and Stephen bought is working.  Was able to get WiFi connected ESPlorer to configure the ESP8266 ESP8266 Node MCU LUA programming language Has an example server that lets you toggle inputs and relays via web browser Parker is setting up an IoT network at MacroFab to test the PLC and other ideas. The Giant LED Clock segment is ordered.  Size of the PCB: 6.3”x2.6” 86 0805 LEDs on the board Each segment will pull 1.72A at 1.8V Mounting holes for power input FX Dev board has 21 days left. New video content to arrive tomorrow. A demonstration of how to build something. Stephen is still waiting on the greatest resistor in the world PCB to arrive. Should have an update next week. The synthesizer that Stephen talked about on EP#35 Surgical Synthesizers has progress! Feature creep:  Midi to cv VCO Core Module - 6 wave outputs Wave Animator VCF VCA ADSR

Podcast Notes Parker's Jeep Radio should be finished next week! Will have a write up either on the MacroFab blog or his personal blog. Crazy awesome PLC for the SAIM we found. See Figure 1. ATMEGA2540 ESP8266 with expanded memory Protected I/O Relays Built in Speaker and Screen $90! Stephen's FX Dev Board is 29% funded! Thanks everyone! New Content soon! FXdevboard.com is up and templates are available. Stephen just finished tubescreamer clone using the templates. The greatest resistor in the world is on order - Double Sided for resistors and caps. Will  Super Caps ever replace regular batteries? AutoDesk moves Eagle to  Subscription only.  Free version, Standard is $100/yr or $15/month, Premium is $500/yr or $65/month. Has a chart comparing the price of Eagle per day and Coffee? Error in chart. LEDs categorized by product bin?  Part Number: L130-6580002011001 Digikey  Article Stephen did actual silicon die ICs in college! See Figure 2. New to the MEP! Discussions about PCB assembly and design pract

Podcast Notes Continuing from last weeks discussion of the two conference room names at MacroFab HQ. Emmett Naughton on twitter says: Conference Room A: The Hertz Locker and Confernece Room B: The Thunder Ohm. Parker is making plaques for the conference room doors now out of PCBs. Space Echo Update! Last week Parker and Stephen asked for some clarification on some old school audio measurements so they could calibrate the Space Echo. Steve Kuehn a self proclaimed gray beard from Austin says the following. 0 dBm in the audio business refers to voltage level that will produce 1milliWatt into a 600 ohm load. But over the years, it refers to a voltage level even if you are not aren't using a 600 ohm load so it is a little of a misnomer. If you do the math, 0 dBm is the same as 775mVrms sine wave signal source. -50dBm would be 2.45mVrms. FX DEV BOARD IS LIVE!! Check out the Crowdsupply page and get one! See Figure 1! Dual solderless breadboards 2.1 mm dc input jack for use with AC-to-AC wall wart +/- 15 volt

Podcast Notes Last week Stephen and Parker asked listeners for names for the two conference rooms so far these are the suggestions.  Tony the DIYer - MacMinor and MacMajor. Some platforms the c struct that holds the mac address specifies it as a pair of major (32 bit) and minor (16 bit) values. Justin Knight - pagoda for the smaller room since it doesnt have chairs. Hertz and Mega Hertz Vcc and Vdd Power and Ground SDA and SCL TX and RX Conferance McConferance Face Look for an online poll soon for the name! Parker was testing a customers LED board earlier this week. Fed up with blinding himself with the bright LEDs he decided to wear a welding mask. See Figure 1. The helmet can be found on amazon. Parker took a welding class at TXRX Hackerspace. Stephen has been working more on "The Greatest Resistor....in the world.". Stats below! See Figure 2.  Power:  0.0625w 40,000 resistors = 2.5kW V = SQRT(P*R) = 5000V @ 0.5A Voltage:  each resistor is 50v so 200 in series = 10kV Temp Coef: 100ppm Eagle File Size:

Podcast Notes The dashboard on the MacroFab website is new and improved! Will now show all the stuff you have going on at MacroFab. Check it out here. See Figure 1. Stephen finished up talking about the big resistor or doom project. Cherry Switches and Sensors are to be sold under the  ZF brand name. The switches we love in our keyboards should be unaffected.  Extracting data from a mask ROM IC using acid to etch away the epoxy cap and then using UV to flip the read protect bit. Danger Close: Fancy Bear Tracking of  Ukrainian Field Artillery Units. A howitzer that uses an Android app? Why the  United Nations Must Move Forward With a Killer Robots Ban. "If we don’t get a ban in place, there will be an arms race. And the end point of this race will look much like the dystopian future painted by Hollywood movies like The Terminator” Flip-Pins. Add DIP Chip like pins to PCBs for use in breadboards. Police Want  Alexa Data; People Begin to Realize It’s Listening.  Murder investigation leads to a warrant against

Podcast Notes Continuing on the Jeep Bluetooth radio hack, Parker designed the audio voltage bias switcher board. It will adjust the Pk-Pk voltage and DC offset of the Bluetooth adapter to what the radio expects. Ordered it through MacroFab. See Figure 1 and 2. Parker also started designing an amplifier for Spooky Pinball. Based on the  TDA7387 which is a 4 x 41 W quad bridge car radio amplifier. Designing it to be as inexpensive but as LOUD as possible. Currently down to $15.91 an assembled board in QTY 500. Need a beefy heatsink and powersupply to handle it. Stephen has been working on his Resistor of Death (name to be decided). By combining resistors in series and parallel, Stephen will be able to make a large high tolerance resistor. The best tolerance resistor on mouser is 0.005%. Can we get better than that with 1% resistors? N = 1/0.005 = 200 resistors FOR EACH PARALLEL/SERIES COMBO Total resistors = 40,000. Sorry RFO section got cut off due to a problem in the software recording. :( Special thanks to

Podcast NotesPart D RFO  What is your favorite Star Wars Character?  Organic? Robot? Favorite sound effect? The prequels? Do they exist? Why do some Jedi disappear after dying and others don’t? What are we excited or concerned about most in the new Rogue One movie?

Podcast NotesPart C  Light Speed Travel  Faster then light travel in Star Wars is accomplished by transporting the vessel to near light speed and then jumping to a “Hyper Space” dimension where faster then light travel is possible. In our universe an almost infinite amount of energy is required to go light speed.  Possible if this “Hyper Space” is worm hole tunneling. Prosthetics  Mechanics exist to make them work. General Grievous. Really great prosthetics but crappy looking trashcan robots exist in the same universe. The “Force”  The force is actually the main character of SW. That’s why prequels suck. It’s expressed in the Skywalker family as the balance of the force. The Skywalkers will be the unbalance AND balance in the force. Fundamental problem with midichlorians – turns a mystic ‘non-scientific’ phenomenon into high school organic chemistry, but makes the force worthy of science or tech discussion. Force as consciousness. Is the “Force” possibility the control over dark matter/energy? 70% of the