Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast

By MacroFab, Inc.

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 p... more

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FAQs about Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast:

How many episodes does Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 448 episodes available.

Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast episodes:

March 04, 2020MEP EP#214: It is Probably Safe
MEP EP#214: It is Probably Safe
Parker
Just got back from vacation
Have not worked on any projects since last episode

Watched lots of old er James Bond movies
Should we do a Spy gadget episode if we can get the right guest?
Stephen
Simulation of the Week: Behringer Model D Oscillator Core
Lots of cool stuff going on

Exponential converter

Constant current capacitor

Discrete opamp with discrete comparator

CNC Update
Base built and topped with a torsion box
¾” MDF construction

Gantry is on but needs some love

New Spindle has 80mm mount
This does not fit on my current z axis

Make a mounting bracket with leftover aluminum from previous project

New transformer for rackmount guitar preamp
Old configuration was to do a 115:12.6 transformer then feed that into a 12:230 to get back up to high voltage

Simple math says 230/12 = 19.16 so, 12.6*19.16 = 241.41VRMS = 341.36VDC

In reality I am getting 250V….

Hopefully with the new transformer ratio I will get closer to 300V which would be a 20% increase
Rapid Fire Opinion
Webinar Updates
Wednesday at 2PM Central

Link in the show notes to register

Parker does runs a webinar on March 11th

Sweat sensor finds stress quickly
Future of smart watches?

AutoDesk Eagle sales tactics
...more
54min
February 26, 2020MEP EP#213: My CNC Will Melt In Your Mouth
MEP EP#213: My CNC Will Melt In Your Mouth
Parker
Going to be doing Webinars for MacroFab.
How MFs tools make you a better electrical engineer and supply chain manager

Learning AutoDesk Fusion360
Getting pretty good
Learning from Youtube and Stephen

Can be almost as fast and proficient as Parker was in Sketchup

Braze it 420
Learning to braze brass radiators and steel gas tanks

Make sure there is no gas fumes!
Stephen
CNC
Trying to buck the standard

Jointer/Planer -> table -> electrical work -> table saw -> torsion box -> gantry restoration -> new spindle

New 220V for the following
Welding

Brewing

CNC machine

Fermentation controller
Audibles on some design characteristics

Switches/encoders

Probably going to go with wiring instead of all PCB mount

Footprints for Solid State Relays
Rapid Fire Opinion
Raspberry pi 4 release fixes the USB problem
This is being treated as a “design for manufacturability” change

Lumped along with some silkscreen changes to avoid solder bridging and the SD card voltage switch moving

Why not fully announce this?

Chinese Tariff Exemption for 2- and 4-layer PCBs
Valid until Aug. 7, 2020

Fisher & Paykel PCB Silkscreen Design
The sad faces are where the hand insert components go

If any sad faces are showing, the operator hasn't finished their job.
...more
59min
February 20, 2020MEP EP#212: The End of Electronics Manufacturing?!
MEP EP#212: The End of Electronics Manufacturing?!
Chris Church
Founder and current Chief Product Officer of MacroFab Inc

The former founder of Dynamic Perception

The former Co-Founder and Chief Architect of Alert Logic

Was on the previous MacroFab Engineering Podcast episodes
#127: Tariff Impacts

#142: Supply Chain Conspiracy Securities
COVID-19 Outbreak in China
Topic today is the Coronavirus or COVID-19 outbreak in China and its impact on the global Electronic Manufacturing Supply Chain
If you want to know more about the virus itself I suggest going to the CDC website

~80% of factories in general are back to work in China, but only about 21% are fully staffed

PCB Vendors
Extended holiday, workers at a lot of Chinese plants who went home weren’t allowed to come back for two weeks

We have lots of production in Taiwan
Taiwan blocked all entrance to mainland Chinese on the 5th of February, many limits still in place

This is causing significant delays in engineering time for new PCB orders, as most of our vendors’ engineers went back to mainland China for the holiday, and haven’t been allowed to return

PCBs going to Taiwan/Vietnam/Malaysia, etc.
As soon as delays started happening, a lot of companies sent orders over to other Asian companies, of course, this caused a fast building backlog at those companies

Prices going up in Taiwan, Vietnam, etc

FR4 is now the real problem
Even if production wanted to speed up in Taiwan, Vietnam, ect.. they can’t get the raw materials fast enough

Mechanical / Custom Mfg Materials
This is the biggest challenge for a lot of our customers

Plastics and metals made in China are getting delayed by a month or more against the original lead times

Factories are under-staffed and backed up with big orders

Components
Right now, most component suppliers are back up and running, even if under-staffed

Small to mid-size orders won’t be impacted much, but high-volume orders sent direct to the manufacturers are getting longer lead times and higher prices

Yageo is one of the vendors we’re hearing about, as of late last week pushing lead times out past a year on some bulk orders with price increases as high as 50%

Vishay also has several plants closed as of Monday
...more
49min
February 12, 2020MEP EP#211: Credit Card Vigilantes - Skim Reaper
MEP EP#211: Credit Card Vigilantes - Skim Reaper
Patrick Traynor
CEO of Skim Reaper

The Dasburg Family Preeminent Chair in Engineering in the Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida
Christian Peeters
CTO of Skim Reaper

Ph.D Student in the Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida
Skim Reaper
What is Skim Reaper
How does it work?

Behind the name
Did you know that when your PCB's first hit our production line we thought you were manufacturing a skimming device!

Swipe vs Chip

How did you start? What was the beginning of the project?

The hardware itself
Form Factor challenges

Engineering Roadblocks you had to overcome?

Growing your business
What is your method for getting media coverage to spread the news about the Skim Reaper device

Plans for future growth and market expansion

So if someone detects a skimmer..what do they do?
...more
53min
February 06, 2020MEP EP#210: Valentina Toll Villagra and Kyle Dumont with Allspice.io
MEP EP#210: Valentina Toll Villagra and Kyle Dumont with Allspice.io
Kyle Dumont
Experienced electronics designer having launched consumer products at large companies and startups for over 7 years

Has developed low volume products for government and military applications and high volume commercial products
Valentina Toll Villagra
Project Manager exploring the intersection of physical and digital systems at Allspice

Worked at Amazon expanding its national customer fulfillment network and rolling out internal productivity, collaboration and project management software applications to support the company's growth
Allspice.io
Rundown of the platform

Where did the name come from

How did it begin?
The word “Agile” gets thrown around a lot.

Mechanical engineers have 3D printing and Software developers have great design and test tools.

What are your roles?
Kyle – Development, strategy

Valentina – Operations, customer success, marketing, product

How big is the team?

How does Allspice affect the engineer? The manager?

Diff control? How is this implemented?

Launch and the future?
When does it launch?

Are there plans to expand the offerings to other EDA tools?

What is next?
...more
45min
January 29, 2020MEP EP#209: A Bad User Experience
MEP EP#209: A Bad User Experience
Parker
Pinotaur REV2 is flipping a machine now
Light strips using APA-102C-260-NEW

Brew Cart welded up!
Gotta design a hoist to lift the grain in and out of the mash tun
Stephen
Simulation of the week
Bandpass with monte Carlo and gaussian tolerance

Fermentation controller
More Parts!
40A Solid State Relay
BEM-14840DA

Tactile switch
700SP7M1QEAP2BLKBLK

4x4 tactile keypad
ADC reading?

RobotDyn Button Keypad 4x4 Module

4x4 membrane style - kind of industrial
Yootop 2 pcs 16 Keys Matrix Membrane Switch Keypad Keyboard for Arduino
Rapid Fire Opinion
MagicWolfi from the slack channel asks
"How is it done in the factory and maybe some ideas what to do at home? This is painful if it is more than a few boards."

The 5 best arduino projects
...more
1h 4min
January 22, 2020MEP EP#208: Brian Kaczynski with Second Sound
MEP EP#208: Brian Kaczynski with Second Sound
Brian Kaczhnski
Brian earned his Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2001

Has worked since 1999 as a mixed-signal/RF ASIC designer focusing mainly on LAN applications such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, etc

His passion for music and desire to bridge the gap between acoustic/electric instruments and music synthesizers (both analog and digital) inspire his current work
Second Sound
Why the name Second Sound?
It sounds cool and refers to a quantum mechanical phenomenon

How many employees?

ACO100 and ACO160 ICs
What is an audio controlled oscillator?
Frequency detection

ACO160 vs ACO100

Moving from custom Ic to Firmware solution?
What drove this decision?

How does this differ from the hardware solution?

Will you be offering the ACO100 IC?

Development Boards

Integrated Circuit creation
How did you go about designing these chips?
Software?

Required Files?

What was your process of getting them manufactured?

Tips and tricks for people wanting to manufacture Ics?

Challenges and what to avoid?

What changed to enable going from a chip design to a MCU firmware based design?
...more
1h 5min
January 15, 2020MEP EP#207: Beating Dragons with Quarters
MEP EP#207: Beating Dragons with Quarters
Parker
PinoTaur Revision 2
Passes smoke and programming test

Onward to shipping it off to testers and programmers

Have a friend that has a couple empty pinball cabinets

List for Revision 3
Change fuse holders to Keystone 3588

Fix a couple none chamfered traces

Update Logos

Full backside artwork

What is next for the PinoTaur project?
LED Boards using the APA-102C-NEW-260 that I have been testing

Wiring Harness Designs

Audio Amp for the RPI
PCM5122 + Class D Amp
Stephen
Simulation of the Week
AC analysis

2nd order low pass filter

Sallen-Key topology

Two examples with different cutoffs and Q

Next week - Monty Carlo and Gaussian distributions of tolerances

Fermentation Controller
Resurrecting the walking dead

Schematic is getting updated

Modifying system design for buttons instead of membrane switches
This is for robustness

Will be milling enclosures
Most of the layout is complete

Need to position screen
...more
40min
January 08, 2020MEP EP#206: The Analog State of Amazon Brand Names
MEP EP#206: The Analog State of Amazon Brand Names
Parker
PinoTaur
PCBA should be done tomorrow when this podcast comes out

PTH parts ordered from Mouser

Brewery Setup
Brewery Pots complete

Tube straightening

Need to weld the cart

Go to a tiered setup just to reduce footprint? Dunno yet.
Stephen
Dave Jones to the rescue
With spit...

New resistor kit
3350 1% 1/4W resistors

134 Different Values

Breadboard techniques

LT spice Simulation
Full Wave Rectifier

Three different opamp choices
LM741

TL072

OPA1678

Looking at the differences between the opamps and the diode choice

Comparators
Analog and Logic

Input offset and bias currents

Propagation Delay

Overdrive
Rapid Fire Opinion
AllSpice

SecondSound
Frequency to Voltage converter

ACO160
...more
1h 7min
January 01, 2020MEP EP#205: Disgusting Surge
MEP EP#205: Disgusting Surge
Parker
MacroFab PCB Specification Update
PCBs now have advanced PCB specifications

Stack Ups

Advanced Via management

UL Logo control

Surface Finish

PinoTaur REV 2 PCBs arrive
Assembled Soon to a pick and place near you
Stephen
Hellhound preamp Episode 199
Doing a partial product design prototype. Split into two.

Back to back transformer design works well but has some unpredictable operation
The primaries are not regulated as well as the secondaries
Gyrator episode 173

Looked at the 4 band equalizer on my scope and compared to the SPICE simulations
Almost 1:1 with simulation

$10 dollar switch
Alternative?

1004P6T1B4M7RE
Rapid Fire Opinion
Our favorite podcast episodes of 2019?
Discrete Atomic Luffa Control
Ben and Chris talking about 3D printers and Luffas

Ken and Chip Gracey of Parallax Inc
Chip and Ken are super passionate about semiconductors!

Honorable Mention: The Fourth Rule of Robotics

Thank you so much to our guests that have joined us on the podcast!
Ben Heckendorn

Chris Kraft

Cliff Schecht

Jason Cerundolo

Al Williams

Christopher Howell

Phil Bresnahan

Dillon Nichols

Ken and Chip Gracey

Kevin Beller

Danny Rankin

Roz

Nickolas Peter Chelyapov

Chrissy Meyer

Greg Paulsen

Shruthi Soora

Gerard Hayes

Zapp, Hyron, and the AND!XOR Team

Joe Grand

Mike Geyer

Jeff Garoon

Daniel Hienzsch

David Guiness
...more
1h 12min

FAQs about Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast:

How many episodes does Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 448 episodes available.

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