Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast

By MacroFab, Inc.Science Technology

Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast episodes

December 09, 2020MEP EP#254: Ridiculous Relay Ratings
MEP EP#254: Ridiculous Relay Ratings
Parker
PinoTaur updates REV 4
Automotive relays are not certified to run at the voltages we need
G2RL-1A-E-CV DC12
Max voltage rating is 300VDC

“Rated” current is 24VDC at 16A

G2RG-2A-X DC12
Rated at 500VDC at 10A

Looking at other relays used for this purpose in production machines… Am I missing something in choosing the correct relay?

RGB Light string split into two
Power current is the reason

Foxconn Electronics hit by Ransomware
$34 million ransomware attack

Stole 100 GB of unencrypted files, and deleted 20-30 TB of backups.

Bike rack as an inductor?
Other normal items that could be seen/used as a electrical components
Stephen
The FX Dev board returns
2 versions of the fx dev board now exist
ProtoBoard

Protis 1

Both look like they ditched my ac power supply for a charge pump design
Protoboard uses TC1044SCPA

Charge pump to create a -9V from a +9V

Not sure what Protis uses but it is likely similar

FCC was a very big reason why I opted to do this

Negative Voltage Inverter

Both opted to not do the integrated soldered breadboard
This was the reason the FX dev board existed!

This helped make things very clean

Roz Xmas gift
52 min
December 02, 2020MEP EP#253: Benjamin Jordan of Autodesk
MEP EP#253: Benjamin Jordan of Autodesk
Benjamin Jordan
A Computer Systems and PCB Engineer with over 25 years of experience in embedded systems, FPGA, and PCB design

Is an avid tinkerer and is passionate about the creation of electronic devices of all kinds

Holds a Bachelor of Engineering with First Class Honors from the University of Southern Queensland

Currently Senior Product Manager for ECAD in Autodesk Fusion 360, and 16 years prior with Altium

Recently licensed HAM radio operator
Call Sign?

Lots of Ham radio operators that listen to the podcast

Do you still build and design PCBs?
What EDA Tool do you use?

History in the industry

Eagle and Fusion 360
How they integrate

Is the plan to change the name to Fusion PCB?

Eventually one program?

Layout from inside of fusion?

The Future
Of Eagle?

Any juicy news?

Trends in the EDA tools

Twitter
@jordanyte

YouTube
Schematica
1 hr 7 min
November 26, 2020MEP EP#252: Kicking Troglodytes Off The Stage
MEP EP#252: Kicking Troglodytes Off The Stage
Parker
PCB serial numbering or other unique marking
I have batches of boards and need to put some unique numeric identifier and a MAC address on each board.

Besides stickers, laser etching, scratching or DIY stencil and paint, what are folks doing?

PinoTaur REV 3 boards arrived
REV 4 changes already ;)

Ben Jordan of Autodesk will be a guest on the podcast
Product manager and is responsible for the EAGLE product

Get your Eagle questions in early!
Stephen
Adventures in Rpi 4
Midi overkill

Clock master

Possibly be a usb midi device?

Reset?

Repairs
Roland TR-606 drum matrix
Looks like a possible ram IC issue. The unit functions and does things that only a processor could do like blink leds at a particular rate

None of the buttons have memory - they do not “store” anything

Upd444c obsolete - 6514 SRAM is a drop in replacement

The FX Dev board returns
2 versions of the fx dev board now exist
ProtoBoard

Protis 1

Both look like they ditched my ac power supply for a charge pump design

Both opted to not do the integrated soldered breadboard
49 min
November 18, 2020MEP EP#251: Loopholes or Equivalent
MEP EP#251: Loopholes or Equivalent
Parker
Wiring Harness update
Wire Jacket Temperature rating

Wire strandedness or number of strands

Labeling Requirements?

Treatment to pigtail end

RoHs?

The Untold Story Of The Bug That Almost Sank The Dreamcast's North American Launch
Audio IC hardware layout problem

Floating input pin causing the IC to flip into MIDI mode and crash the software

BL6: The Coolest* Console Ever
Video game console that is supposed to look like a 6 pack of beer

Has two chilled spots that actively cool the beverages

Six built in games like: Tekken7, SOUL CALIBUR VI and R.B.I Baseball 20

Ben Jordan of Autodesk will be a guest on the podcast
Product manager and is responsible for the EAGLE product

Get your Eagle questions in early!
Stephen
Adventures in Rpi 4
Did not get ERPnext running on the pi but I did dump about 10 to 15 hours into playing with the pi

Need to do something with it

ERPnext is pretty cool
Check it out if you have the need to control a whole business

Revisioning….

Repairs
Roland TR-606 drum matrix
Super impressive through hole stackup

Compact Battery powered

Everything triggers together

Some kind of bus issue

Schematic

Korg Poly Six
Just doing some cleanup and recal

Last page - random writing and some phone numbers - love it
48 min
November 11, 2020MEP EP#250: Artisan Sudo Toasters
MEP EP#250: Artisan Sudo Toasters
Parker
EXTRALIFE charity update

How Biden may handle China and the electronics trade
CHIPS Act
Creating Helpful Incentives for Producing Semiconductors

Incentives for the construction of semiconductor manufacturing facilities and equipment

Calls for $300 billion in new funding over four years for R&D and breakthrough technologies like AI and quantum computing.

“aggressive trade enforcement actions against China”

Drawing wiring harness diagrams for contract manufacturing
Stephen
Adventures in Rpi 4
Microcenter trip
15 watts of power - no more no less

Stephen isn't a linux guy…

Trying to install ERPnext - open source enterprise resource planning

ERPnext is an all in one business management software
Accounting

HR & Payroll

Manufacturing

Sales & Purchase

CRM

Projects
45 min
November 04, 2020MEP EP#249: How Soft Are Your Diodes?
MEP EP#249: How Soft Are Your Diodes?
Parker
Signed up for the EXTRA LIFE charity this year to raise money for the Texas Children's Hospital
This Saturday (Nov 7th) Parker will be broadcasting a 24 hour video game stream

Will be playing the Half-Life 2 video game all the way through
This includes the two episode expansions to the base campaign

Difficulty level will be set to 'Hard' and I will be attempting to unlock all the achievements at the same time.

Donations are tax-deductible and 100% of it goes to the hospital

Learning some javascript to build plugins for the stream

PinoTaur REV3 has gone gold
Added more current sensing
Low Current Allegro ACS70331EESATR-005B3

High Current Allegro ACS711KEXLT-15AB-T

Changed Relay to a socketed relay type
ISO micro relays type

On PCB flyback diodes for coils
MRA4004

Relay is driven by both the MCU and the Fault pin on the high current sensing IC

Walmart fires store robots
Saw improvements in inventory control with the robots, but not enough of an improvement in revenues and other measures.

One premise is that stores will sell more goods if the shelves are stocked and wanted items are made available
Stephen
How soft are your diodes?
Softness factor - a definition of the reverse current characteristic

Ta = time when charge from depletion region is removed

Tb = time when charge from semiconductor region is removed

S-factor = tb/ta
S-factor = unity = soft recovery

S-factor unity = fast or snappy-recovery

General purpose/fast recovery (FRED diodes)

The SSPS?
@zane is going back and listening to episode 1

What was the SSPS?
What were the specifications????

Where did we leave off
49 min
October 28, 2020MEP EP#248: Keeping The Spirit Costs Extra
MEP EP#248: Keeping The Spirit Costs Extra
Parker
AMD to buy Xilinx for $35 billion in stock
Wasn’t that long ago that Intel bought Altera

Why such a merger?

Sharing topography, technology, and manufacturing techniques

Tariffs and the Election
Engineers and Manufacturers have been decoupling from China for the last 4 years

The big question is what happens next.

If Biden wins, are the Trump tariffs gone? Or will we keep them? What happens if Trump wins?

Tesla self driving
Imagine learning there is no autonomous driving and it's just a bunch of dudes mechanically turking your car

This could be the end game with Starlink. Work from Home Uber to drive cars!

Johnny Cab
Stephen
Revitalizing old products
What and how to “modernize” electronics

Design decisions
Through Hole vs SMD

Component Placement

Design for machines

Packages

Keeping the spirit of the original

Beware of single sourcing
Semiconductor facility fire
47 min
October 21, 2020MEP EP#247: To Bake an Apple Pie
MEP EP#247: To Bake an Apple Pie
Parker
PCB Stackup
Why is it important to manufacturing?

Who should define it?
CM?

PCB Fabricator?

Designer?

PCB Bodges
Your worst bodge

Most proud bodge?

DIY Glycol chilling?
Chiller Daddy

Pump

Diverter
Stephen
Brexit and the UKCA Mark
New regulatory mark to make things easier…

Goes into affect 1 January 2021
The UKCA marking can be used from 1 January 2021. However, to allow businesses time to adjust to the new requirements, you will still be able to use the CE marking until 1 January 2022 in most cases.

The UKCA marking alone cannot be used for goods placed on the Northern Ireland market, which require the CE marking or UK(NI) marking.
54 min
October 14, 2020MEP EP#246: Doing Something Magical
MEP EP#246: Doing Something Magical
Parker
Physicists build circuit that generates clean, limitless power from graphene
University of Arkansas physicists

Energy harvesting the thermal motion of graphene

Without getting all quantum about it, it seems to work by configuring the graphene as one electrode (or both) of a capacitor. As the graphene flaps in the breeze (actually Brownian motion, I assume), the changing geometry will change the capacitance.

The team's next objective is to determine if the DC current can be stored in a capacitor for later use

Youtube video
Stephen
New test equipment design - picking the right opamp
Current sensing with a bit of a twist

Powered by +/-12V

Need to read current on the +12 and the -12 along with a +9V rail

Opamp needs to be capable of reading a voltage drop in an environment where the common mode voltage is at or near the opamp supply voltage

Current sense amplifiers

INA1x9 series amplifiers from TI
Supply and common mode range are independent of each other

2.7v to 60v

Convert a voltage to a current then change the gain by selecting an appropriate load

Iphone 12 doesn’t come with a charger?
Are chargers necessary?

Don't we have like 300 of them lying around?

Apple states environmental reasons for dropping the charger

Also no earbuds

Examples of other products that lack the equipment necessary to function
Video game consoles?

Appliances?

Internet router?
42 min
October 07, 2020MEP EP#245: K-Factoring a Gumbo
MEP EP#245: K-Factoring a Gumbo
Parker
Security flaw left ‘smart’ chastity sex toy users at risk of permanent lock-in
List to podcast for additional information...
Stephen
Fusion 360 has changed their personal license subscription model
All of these went into effect on Oct 1
Project storage is limited to 10 active and editable documents

Exports are now limited to a small number of file types. Thankfully this still includes STL files but alas, DXF, DWG, PDF exports are all gone

Perhaps most importantly to the makerverse, STEP, SAT, and IGES file types can no longer be exported, the most common files for those who want to edit a design using different software.

2D drawings can now only be single sheet, and can only be printed or plotted

Rendering can now only be done locally, so leveraging cloud-based rendering is no longer possible

CAM support has been drastically cut back: no more multi-axis milling, probing, automatic tool changes, or rapid feeds, but support for 2, 2.5, and 3 axis remains

All support for simulation, generative design, and custom extensions has been removed

Purchased a license and I am not looking back

Autodesk had loads of pushback from the community because of the decision to remove STEP export
“Fixed” this issue claiming the reversal was due to “unintended consequences for the hobbyist community.”

Sheet metal design and fabrication
Be careful with using automated tools

Understand the rules

Dont rely entirely on templates

As always - talk with your manufacturer
45 min

About Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast

From the publisher's feed

Dive into the electrifying world of electrical engineering with Circuit Break, a MacroFab podcast hosted by Parker Dillmann and Stephen Kraig. This dynamic duo, armed with practical experience and a palpable passion for tech, explores the latest innovations, industry news, and practical challenges in the field. From DIY project hurdles to deep dives with industry experts, Parker and Stephen's real-world insights provide an engaging learning experience that bridges theory and practice for engineers at any stage of their career.

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