The Amp Hour

An Interview with Ted Yapo


Listen Later

Ted is a fan of soldering AND stock photography
This episode is sponsored by Rohde and Schwarz. Check out AskAnEngineer.us for more info about their value line test equipment.
  • Ted is a lifelong electronics hobbyist
  • He studied engineering physics in college.
  • Full color faxes were a thing in Japan but never took off elsewhere.
  • After working on scanning equipment, he moved on to doing networking work.
  • He also did some consulting after Cisco.
  • Mid-way through his career, he went back to graduate school.
  • Wrote a paper about finding telephone wires using LIDAR for helicopter pilots.
  • Transitioned into AR, sort of like Projection Mapping. It was used for architectural daylighting simulation.
  • Going back to school is tough for what you remember. Ted had to relearn linear algebra. He recommends using Gilbert Strang's lectures, which gave more context.
  • After school, Ted did consulting with a few partners, mostly New England.
  • Ted got started posting to Hackaday with 2016 HaD prize.
  • His first entry was the "Diode clock", which utilizes the fact that diodes act like switches for RF when you pass DC current through them.
  • "Upping serendipity quotient"
  • Using diodes as an AND gate
  • Using pin diodes for a doppler radio project
  • 1n4007 can act as a crude pin diode at certain frequency
  • Built digital clock that uses diodes for the counters
  • Assembly instructions - 46 boards!
  • Power supply is around 6 MHz
  • One of his other popular projects is the Tritiled, which helps figuring out where things are in the dark
  • Based around the idea of tritium lights
  • Modern LEDs are extremely efficient at a certain current
  • Droop happens at higher currents
  • The 8 GHz sampling oscilloscope is a more recent project
  • Research came out of the diode clock
  • Schottky diodes for sampling
  • Tek S4 sampling head 14.5 GHz
  • Diodes can switch in 10-15 pS
  • Stroboscopic effect
  • Equivalent time sampling
  • Tek 11801 from 1989
  • Nyquist still applies
  • Verifying on the bench is difficult
  • Paper from picosecond pulse lab
  • Jim Williams using an avalanche diode or a step response diode
  • Looking at RMS error
  • Another architecture 1975 by SP McCabe
  • Using a fast comparator to sample waveform, similar to a successive approximation ADC
  • ADCMP582
  • That's the time base calibration
  • What will people be able to build with an 8 GHz scope?
  • Using it to measure transmission lines on PCB boards
  • Using Time Domain Reflectometry
  • Ted has a splitter TDR head
  • Tracking generator + Spectrum analyzer = Scalar network analyzer
  • Rigol came out with cheap spectrum analyzer, DSA815, Ted got one of the early units
  • Tracking generator outputs signals that are the same as the frequency on the spectrum analyzer
  • Ted gave a talk about this at last year's Hackaday Superconference
  • There is no phase in an SNA
  • SNAs are harder to calibrate
  • Paper was about how to do two measurements to compensate for errors in the generator
  • Chris has a friend doing Python scripting on test equipment via their ethernet jacks.
  • You can find Ted on Twitter, Hackaday.io and as a writer for Hackaday
    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store

    The Amp HourBy The Amp Hour (Chris Gammell and David L Jones)

    • 4.9
    • 4.9
    • 4.9
    • 4.9
    • 4.9

    4.9

    226 ratings


    More shows like The Amp Hour

    View all
    The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source by Changelog Media

    The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

    289 Listeners

    This Week in Tech (Audio) by TWiT

    This Week in Tech (Audio)

    3,061 Listeners

    Security Now (Audio) by TWiT

    Security Now (Audio)

    2,009 Listeners

    Software Engineering Daily by Software Engineering Daily

    Software Engineering Daily

    626 Listeners

    Talk Python To Me by Michael Kennedy

    Talk Python To Me

    583 Listeners

    SpyCast by SpyCast

    SpyCast

    1,534 Listeners

    SANS Internet Stormcenter Daily Cyber Security Podcast (Stormcast) by Johannes B. Ullrich

    SANS Internet Stormcenter Daily Cyber Security Podcast (Stormcast)

    648 Listeners

    Embedded by Logical Elegance

    Embedded

    190 Listeners

    Smashing Security by Graham Cluley

    Smashing Security

    317 Listeners

    Darknet Diaries by Jack Rhysider

    Darknet Diaries

    8,051 Listeners

    Physics World Weekly Podcast by Physics World

    Physics World Weekly Podcast

    77 Listeners

    Practical AI by Practical AI LLC

    Practical AI

    208 Listeners

    Hackaday Podcast by Hackaday

    Hackaday Podcast

    64 Listeners

    Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by Latent.Space

    Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

    101 Listeners

    Robinson's Podcast by Robinson Erhardt

    Robinson's Podcast

    265 Listeners