Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast

Hungry Hungry Op Amps

• Parker 
  • PinHeck Update
    • The Pinotaur? Is that a good name? Draw up what you think a Pinotaur will look like!
    • Raspberry Pi 3 Compute module works well
    • PinHeck EOTL (End Of The Line) REV 8 will be ready for its first prototype in 2 weeks
  • Jeep Electronics Update 
    • Satellite RockBLOCK Module
    • GPS
    • Temperature
    • Various sensor data
• Stephen 
  • Synth is done
  • TriTrix Speakers from Parts Express
  • NuTube Amp 
    • New Production vacuum tube
    • Design is done, just need to order parts and assemble
  • Ultimate hipster wank 
    • Cellphone case, like otterbox
    • NuTube tube in it
    • Tube powered headphone amp with your phone
    • Purest of tone
  • Trü DC powered signal
• SSPS (Super Simple Power Supple) 
  • Get another board spin, and fix it within the next 3-36 months
• LED Clock 
  • One prototype segment compelte
  • Need to design a control board
• Resistor Resistor 
  • PCB arrived
  • Will take 4 hours of continuous run time on our My200 PNP
  • Can the pick and place handle 40,000 line items?
  • Parker wrote custom Eagle Scripts 
    • Check them out here on github!
  • Eagle Bomb.... like a zip bomb
• NEW SLACK CHANNEL

The One Man Entertainment Machine

• We would like to thank everyone that emailed us here at MacroFab with your concerns over our safety as we faced Hurricane Harvey. We are happy and grateful to report that our team members are safe, and MacroFab is safe and dry.
• John Adams 
  • Security researcher, investor, and technologist from San Francisco, CA, USA
  • Previous early employee at Twitter
  • One man entertainment machine
• IoT Security
  • Software Updates. Force users to update?
  • Change default passwords!
  • A device will only be as secure as the default settings
• Bad IoT Devices 
  • Internet of Shit
  • You should not be running Linux on your faucet
  • Garden Hose
• The Ides of DEFCON 
  • John learned a lot of his first large hardware project
  • Microcontrollers can be precariou
  • WS2812B can't handle lead free reflow process
• Stephens Game - IoT device that you would actually like 
  • John: Fix automation. Make a device that can interconnect all the other protocols. IoT Glue.
  • Stephen: Beer can with sensors. Can notify waitress or bartender you are running out of beer!
  • Parker: IoT power tools for battery data.

Make electrons flow right?

• August Hardware & Electronics Engineering Meetup by MacroFab & Mouser Electronics event is live! 
  • Wednesday August 30th in Houston, Texas
  • This month's topic is Lean Manufacturing and Product Design
  • Stephen will be giving a talk on "How to Design Electronics with Lean Manufacturing in Mind"
  • Guests Scott Hansen and Eric Benzenhoefer of The Idea Tank will be there as well
  • We did a podcast with them a couple weeks ago on MEP EP#77
  •  Come grab some food, beer, and socializing if you’re in the Houston area
• Parker
  • New EFM8 Article 
    • Covers Simplicity Studio and how to get a blinking LED to work!
    • Will be out on August 30th
• Stephen 
  • Synth 
    • Red Letter Day! First MEP project complete
    • Parker made the enclosure out of curly maple
    • Mullet Synth: Business in front, Party in the back
    • Ramp pulse, linear wave, needs to be super fast, super accurate
      • Stephen just dead bugged it
    • Other MEP episodes that feature the Synth 
      • #68 - Sonic Massage 
      • #70 - Bits Flying In
      • #71 - Wrong Variants
      • #72 - Fire Sticks
  • Been with MacroFab for two years now!
  • Resources for Synth design 
    • Yunsynth
    • Shruthi
    • Music From Outer Space
• POW 
  • Project 54/74
    • Seeks to document 54xx/74xx-series logic chips and subfamilies by imaging and annotating their dies and tracing out their schematics
• RFO 
  • Hurricane Harvey coming to Texas
    • How does an electronic engineer or maker survive the apocalypse of no power?

Eddie Samuels and Comma.ai

• August Hardware & Electronics Engineering Meetup by MacroFab & Mouser Electronics event is live! Come grab some food, beer, and socializing if you’re in the Houston area.
• Eddie Samuels 
  • Been soldering and dremeling since the 7th grad
  • The first thing he built was a simple 7805 mp3 battery charger, guided by one of the original hackaday.com projects
  • Went on to get his EE degree at the University of Rochester and work for a year in the defense industry before moving to San Francisco to work at comma.ai
  • Underwater Rover Project
    • Project while in college
    • Sealing the unit was the hardest part
    • Moisture sensor built with strips of aluminum tape
  • EV Jetta 
    • Built while in high school
    • Need a custom coupler between engine and transmission
    • Who Killed the Electric Car?
    • Revenge of the Electric Car
• Comma.ai
  • Open source self driving cars
  • Panda 
    • The nicest universal car interface ever
    • ARM M4 - STM32F413
    • ESP8266 WiFi
    • Transceivers for CAN BUS, LIN BUS, and GM LAN
    • Can listen without the car modules knowing
    • Can interface with OpenPilot to develop a self driving car
    • Github Link
  • Car bounties
    • Earn $5 to $10k by porting the code to other vehicles
  • Cabana - Demo
  • Order a panda  here! Use it with cabana  here!
• Stephens Game - How would you get a ball out of a tube? Leave your answer in the comments below!
  • Eddie - use a laser cutter
  • Stephen - potato cannon, making his own gun powder
  • Parker - squeezes the tube like toothpaste

Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

Tags: 3d printing enclosures, autonomous vehicles, CAD, Comma.ai, Eddie Samuels, ESP8266, MacroFab, macrofab engineering podcast, MEP, PCB Design, Podcast, Self Driving Cars, STM32F413, Transceivers

The Brick That Shall Not Be Named: A Joe Broms Story

• August Hardware & Electronics Engineering Meetup by MacroFab & Mouser Electronics event is live! Come grab some food, beer, and socializing if you’re in the Houston area.
• Joseph Broms 
  • Joe received his B.S. at the University of Illinois in Computer Science
  • He has worked in numerous industries including, medical device, security, professional audio, broadcast, and education
  • One central theme to Joe’s career is successfully turning ideas into sellable products
  • Has worked on many projects ranging from a FDA approved cardiac simulator to a critically acclaimed instrument tuner, APTuner
• Joseph is about to release a product called ProtoBricks on Indiegogo 
  • Protobricks are LEGO compatible building blocks to lower the entry level of how electronics work 
    • Purpose is to remove how much ancillary gunk is needed to understand how it works
    • It has been Joesph's hobby for the past seven years with many different revisions
  • Mold design and plastics 
    • LEGO stud pitch is 7.986mm, 2.54mm on solderless breadboard = exact factor of pi difference
    • Used modified LEGO bricks as initial tests
    • 3D printing has gotten good enough to prototype injection molding
  • Electrical Contacts 
    • Copper tape and sheets pressed into the plastic did not work
    • Spring loaded pogo pins everywhere!
    • QUANTITY DICTATES EVERYTHING
• Stephens Game - Room for of balloons. How do you get rid of them. 
  • Joseph - Blowtorch
  • Stephen - Pull a vacuum on the room
  • Parker - Throw cats into the room
  • Combination - Flamethrower vacuum cat

Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

Tags: 3D Printing, educational electronics, EFM32 Gecko, EFM32 Gecko Silicon Labs, Indiegogo, injection molding, LED, LED driver chip, lego compatible, MacroFab, macrofab engineering podcast, MEP, multiplexors, pi, Podcast, protobrick, shapeways, Silicon Labs, sketchup, solderless breadboard

Dueling OpAmp Inputs

• Parker 
  • Article is lagging behind. Will be done on Friday, promise!
  • Rewiring the Jeep Turn signals. The old wiring was interesting. 
    • The side marker bulb socket is isolated from ground. One bulb lead goes to the front marker parking lamp positive circuit. The other lead of the side marker is tied into the front marker turn signal positive circuit.
    • When the parking lights are on and the turn signal off, the side marker grounds through the front marker turn signal filament and illuminates the marker lamp.
    • When the turn signal flashes, it interrupts the ground and the marker will flash by dimming. The front marker gets brighter. So they alternate.
    • When the parking lights are off, the filament which the side marker grounds through is reversed. Thus they blink at the same time.
    • This works cause the wattage difference in the side marker and front marker. 4W for the side marker and 24W for the front. High wattage filament looks like a low resistance path to ground and the side marker doesn’t send enough current to turn them on.
    • Problem when you convert to LED. The system works great with LEDs as is. But because LEDs great have a voltage drop they create a little voltage on the turn signal line. This voltage isnt enough to turn on the turn signal markers up front but it does turn on the indicators on the dash. ANNOYING!
    • Daniel Stern Lightning
    • Parker also experiences diode problem with voltage offset from ground. Punk-a$$ Diodes!
• Stephen 
  • Peristaltic pump design - looking into potentially adding this to my brew rig 
    • Homebrew pump controlled in loop with proportional valves and flow meter
    • Control flow rate and through put
    • Skateboard ball bearings. An actual useful fancy fidget spinner
  • Craft Beer Pi
    • Going to get a Raspberry Pi programmed up this weekend
    • Use the pump with their interface
  • DS18B20 temp sensor - 
    • Have 5 coming in tomorrow
    • Power, ground, and 1 wire signal
    • 9-12 bits
    • -10 +85 Celsius
    • Plugs directly into raspberry pi without anything in between. Craft Beer Pi already has support!
    • Amazon Link
• Pick Of the Week (POW) 
  • Measuring Op Amp Input Impedance
    • How to measure various op amps input impedance from DC to a couple of kHz input frequency
    • What about making sure both inputs are equal regardless of the actual value?
    • Opa-129 unbelievable op-amp. Max of 100 phemtoamps - how do you measure that??
  • IoT of happiness? Raspberry Pi Tracks Office Happiness - HackADay
• Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) 
  • Should Stephen and Parker build an IoT of happiness for MacroFab?
  • StarWars Xmas Special Part II? Link to the first Special.

No Guru Here

• Parker 
  • Gave a presentation at the MacroFab Engineering meetup about how to turn on your Electronics Project.
    • Removal of power source
    • Physical Power Switch
    • Soft Power Switch
    • Details about MCU sleep modes
    • Will be an article soon.
• Stephen 
  • Science Museum project part 2 - Logger project will be *done* tonight and delivered tomorrow.
  • Sure Step stepper motor driver STP-DRV-80100. RJ11 port for programming the driver. The RS-232 to USB converter Stephen bought from Fry's was counterfeit.
  • The matched transistor IC ladder filter chips FINALLY arrived. Shipped from Germany.
• Pick Of the Week (POW) 
  • ElectroCard
    • Designed by Michael Teeuw
    • OLED business card
    • Used a ATTiny84 but used a SOIC-8 footprint instead of a SOIC-8 Wide
• Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) 
  • Roomba’s Next Big Thing - Selling your house layout to the highest bidder - Gizmodo 
    • Data mining your house.
    • Cute robot is now a sinister spy machine
    • Furniture positioning/Home automation
  • The End of Arduino 101: Intel Leaves Maker Market - Hack A Day 
    • Whats an Arduino 101?
    • Supposedly had bad documentation.
    • Did Intel have any availability guarantee?
  • Intel is now number 2 - electronics weekly 
    • In silicon chip manufacturing
    • After 24 years as the No.1 chip company, Intel slipped below Samsung in Q2 with revenues of $14.8 billion.
    • Inflated memory prices push Samsung
    • Ti currently holds the longest hold as No 1 semiconductor manufacture (1959-1984)

The IdeaFab Podcast

• July Hardware & Electronics Engineering Meetup by MacroFab & Mouser Electronics event is live! Come grab some food, beer, and socializing if you’re in the Houston area.
• Everyone gets Zimas!
• Idea Tank Idea's 
  • Scooterfy 
    • Last mile transportation is the hardest problem to solve for mass transit
    • Scooterfy is a way to convert electric skateboards to a scooter so it takes less skill to ride
    • Casey Neistat makes riding electric skateboards look easy
    • What about a scooter cooler but with a brief case? It would be the business trim package
    • Patent of the inflatable motorcycle helmet
• MEP Idea's 
  • Stephen wants to be the first actual Space Pirate....Radio Show
    • Went as far as testing out solid rocket fuel
    • Hardest part is getting a satellite in orbit without anyone knowing
    • Sealand: Bates seized it from a group of pirate radio broadcasters in 1967 with the intention of setting up his own station at the site 
      • Maybe they are interested in becoming space pirate radio operators?
  • Space Elevator? What about a Space Escalator!
  • Parker has a series of silly ideas 
    • Urn This: Payment plan to cremate your loved ones - Costs and Arm and a Leg
    • everKittens: GMO cats that never grow past being kittens
    • Belt Buckle Badges for conferences and DEFCON
    • Rapid package delivery using cruise missles
    • Uber for cables
    • Rapid pizza cooler
• R.F.O. (Rapid Fire Opinions)
  • Security guard robot ends it all by throwing itself into a watery grave - Arstechnica 
    • Knightscope K5 security bot shows your job is probably safe from automation. For now.
    • Robot can't make arrests, taser a criminal, or wade into a burning building, but it can phone the cops or fire off a loud siren.
    • Idea behind it is if you’re shopping center or office complex had five patrolling security guards, you can replace four of them with robots and leave the fifth in a central office that can respond to any issues.
  • Google Glass 2.0 Is a Startling Second Act - Wired
    • Augmented Reality for industry
• Kickstarter Court 
  • Fight Stress & End Teeth Grinding Disorder w/ Smart Wearable

The Greek Tragedy of ADCs

• Parker 
  • With the success of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module LVDS test board. I started putting together the PinHeck REV8 board
  • More Python and OpenCV work (fun!) 
    • Have the webcam taking pictures
    • Auto Crops and records all the images of parts
    • Looking into a higher resolution camera, more info on that later
• Stephen 
  • Parts for the filter finally shipped!
  • Started putting together the boards
    • Like the multi colored jumpers
    • Veroboard - Strip Board Mouser Part Number 854-ST2
    • 80 x 100 mm with mounting holes
    • Use a 7/32" drill bit and a jeweler's drill to cut traces and brillow pad to clean up
  • Going to add a tube preamp to the synth output 
    • Already have the preamp built. Just need to connect it.  
    • Schematic
  • Tritrix speakers and the nutube amp. 
    • Kicking up the nutube amp again
    • The speakers are almost built just need to paint and finish
    • 3d printed a plate for soldering the crossover to
• Pick Of the Week (POW) 
  • Nuvoton NAU7802 - found on the Nice Chips Subreddit
    • Precision low-power 24-bit ADC , with an onboard low-noise PGA, onboard oscillator, and a precision 24-bit sigma-delta ADC . Capable of up to 23-bit ENOB (Effective Number Of Bits)  performance.
    • SOP-16 or DIP-16
    • I2C
    • $2.22 in singles
    • Gotcha @10SPS, PGA=1
• Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) 
  • At Last, (Almost) A Cellphone With No Batteries! - HackADay
    • University of Washington
    • The first-ever battery free cell phone, able to make calls by scavenging ambient power.
    • Not really a cellphone. Its really a remote handset for a base station.
    • 3.5 microwatts and transmits 31 ft away.
  • Evaluation boards for USB type-C power delivery - Electronics Weekly
    • Rohm has announced USB Power Delivery (USBPD) transmitter/receiver evaluation boards.
    • 15 to 100W

Does the Simulation Match the Reality?

• Ben Heckendorn
  • Runs "The Ben Heck Show"
  • Programs, designs, directs, and imagines at Spooky Pinball
  • Is the Castlevania expert
• Chris Kraft 
  • Color Destruction Algorithm 
    • Program to convert HiRez images to LowRez for pinball displays
  • Built his first 3D printer from scratch in 2009
  • Was a pioneer in the DIY 3D printer space