Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast

MEP EP#374: Brandon Sander of Inheritance Machining

Brandon Sander:

Classically trained in mechanical engineering, Brandon inherited his grandfather’s personal machine shop in the winter of 2021. He created a Youtube channel to document restoring these machines, continuing his grandfather’s legacy, and getting back to his metalworking roots.

Topics:

• How inheritance machining came about
• Making drawings by hand
• Projects
  • Useful items - knurling tools/ tap follower/ etc
  • Tool upgrades - tool holders/better hold downs
  • Restoration projects
  • Which project did you like the best? The worst?
  • The most difficult?
  • Have there been any projects for YouTube that have been scrapped midway through?
• What you hope to do with the shop
• Most recent episode showed working on “organic” material - will there be more of this?
• What is left to do to call the shop "done" (I know this is probably not achievable!)
• Machine setup
• Filming “tools”
• What are your plans with the channel going forward?
• Do you have any advice for a young guy about to start work in a machine shop?

Joel Westerberg is head of IT at teenage engineering. Joel started at teenage engineering in 2013 by working on the OD-11 loudspeaker project. Joel has been involved in building the teenage engineering factory system and various other projects. Joel does everything from backend services, embedded development, to pcb design.

David Eriksson is the head of hardware and co-founder of teenage engineering. A DJ and synth enthusiast since age 12, David started teenage engineering in 2006. David is responsible for platform and electronics design, software architecture, and designing manufacturing systems.

Topics:

• What is Teenage Engineering?
  • How did the company start?
• Managing the scaling from your first product launch of the OP-1 to the wide selection of products you currently offer
  • How do you handle all these products?
  • Shared components and Designs?. 
  • Button design - OP-1
  • PCB design - OP-1
• The Pocket Operator
  • How did you come up with the pocket operator idea?
  • 9 different operators with some special edition Capcom and rick and morty versions
    • Any more in the works?
  • The LCD screens
• Product design cycles
  • Design for manufacturability rules?
• Biggest Achievements and Wins?
  • What is Teenage Engineering the proudest of?
  • Worst moment? Hardware is hard. What is a problem you had to overcome and beat?

News:

May the Fab Be With You

May 4th, 2023

6:00 PM - 9:00 PM CDT

10305 Round Up Ln Suite 400

Houston, TX

Topics:

Bud Industries - Board-ganizer Enclosure Kit

• Combine breadboards and evaluation boards into an enclosure

Fluke 87V multimeter Vs Centech 61593 (also got a rigol DS2072 oscilloscope)

• $520 vs $39.99
• 6000 count vs 2000 count
  • Fluke can do “High Res” mode and go to 20,000 count
• Autorange vs range select
  • Benefits of both
  • Manual range might be better for keeping your ducks in a row.
• Main difference - the fluke is basically 4x or better on nearly all measurement accuracy
• The all important beep test
• Parker uses a ‘Velleman’ DVM850BL

Debugging things that don’t work

• Wagoneer was not happy recently
• Events that lead up to the problem
• Problem solving techniques
• Resolutions?

Power Distribution Module 

• What is up with this project?
• Building an adjacent community for long term discussion of the podcast and projects

The MacroFab Podcast Contest IS BACK

• Details at a later podcast episode

Riley Hall

Riley is the Director of Product Marketing for Fictiv. He has over ten years of experience working in highly technical manufacturing engineering environments at companies including Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, Hilti North America, and Markforged. Riley holds a B.A. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan as well as an MBA from the University of Colorado Boulder and lives with his wife Hannah in Denver, enjoying hiking, skiing, and the occasional Colorado brewery.

Topics

• Fictiv
  • What is Fictiv?
  • Mike Geyer from Fictiv was on the podcast back on episode 187
    • We talked about Fictiv’s State of Hardware Report for 2019
    • State of Manufacturing Report
• Enclosures for Electronics
  • Types of enclosures
  • Manufacturing Processes
    • 3D printing
    • Injection Molding
    • CNC Machining
  • Material Selection
  • DRC verse DFM

Denes Szabo

Denes was born and raised in Colorado. His parents owned a machine shop where Denes worked from a young age till 50. Denes now runs the tooling department at the US Mint Denver.

Topics

• What is the process of getting US currency made?
  • Making changes and updates?
  • How does this differ from other currencies?
• What goes into creating the tooling?
  • Materials
  • Files for creating the tools
  • How are they approved
• Quality controls on currency manufacturing
• Producing at scale
• Inventory and Logistics

News

• May the Fab be with You
  • Show off the new factory!
  • Star Wars theme of course
  • Contest for best Star Wars Costume
  • Food and Drink
  • Possible Cantina Band?

The State of Electrical Engineering Jobs

• Denver Industries
  • Medical
  • Aviation
  • Space
  • Communications
  • Manufacturing
• Commonalities
  • Design - Hardware
  • Design - Firmware
  • Board stuff
  • Cad/Cam and mechanical
  • Regulations
• Most stuff
  • Secret clearance
  • Repair
  • Manufacturing practices
• Knowledge
  • High speed electronics
  • RF
  • Communication protocols - Some board level stuff but lots of ethernet

Follow up from last week

• What happened last week?
• New Computer? 
• Ordered a case
  • Sliger CX4200i 
• Building a new rack for this

News

• May 4th, Bringing back the MacroFab meetup.
• Stephen Kraig looking for a job. Email [email protected]

Another thought on ground planes

• Finally tried an honest to god ground plane on an amp and the results are what you would expect.
• Realizations
  • Component placement matters as much if not more than trace routing
    • Pool analogy
  • Understanding current is key
• Trade offs
  • Makes ground easier while making signaling harder
  • It is possible to have too much ground

Venting of Sealed (washable) Relays (that have vents provided)

• TE Connectivity application note about sealed relays 
• Unless specifically advised otherwise by TE Engineering, all sealed relays (that have a venting means provided by the manufacturer) must be vented after PCB assembly and cleaning, but before use electrically, in order for published ratings to remain applicable.

Dumb Aviation plug

• Stephen bought GX16 aviation plugs
• Need Gx20
• What does the number mean? The mounting hole size….

News

• May 4th, Bringing back the MacroFab meetup.

Question From slack: Eric Smith

• How do you find new machines for the factory lines?
  • Google
  • Youtube
  • Vendors
  • Resellers
• Do you guys get mailed catalogs?
  • Auctions yes. New machines no
• Do you go to conferences?
  • I have been but never to purchase a machine  
• if you find something which could be potentially good, how do you evaluate it?  Is there something like a trial period with the manufacturer?
  • Research is key. Evaluation is difficult to do.  
• Do you have an examples of machines you purchased but regret? Or examples of machines that helped a lot?
  • Mimaki Printer
  • Stencil printer
  • Datron CNC
• Direct question
  • I'd also be curious if you prefer to keep homogenous lines or do you prefer to optimize some lines to a particular task, i.e. Less precise but more throughput.    I can come up with good arguments either way.   It sounds like you all keep things pretty dynamic and reconfigure fairly often.

MacroFab News

• May 4th, Bringing back the MacroFab meetup.
• MacroFab moved into the new headquarters and we already produced our first products!

Checker Battery Box

• Materials arrived Monday, will need to weld it
• Designing for laser cutting / welding

New Project Car - 2021 Chevy Express 4500

• RV / Camper / Tow Rig build

The CNC is coming together!

• Finally got all of the extrusions
• Been taking my time and savoring it.
• Have to rearrange basement to get everything to fit
• 4 rounds of buying hardware
• What remains
  • Get the drive electronics
  • Get the ball screws
    • SFU2010 - 2000mm and 1950mm for the X and Y axis C7 grade
    • Dual x drive - slave axis
  • Build the electronics cabinet
    • NVEM ethernet stepper controller.
  • Run all of the wire management
• 8020 3d printed cable management
  • First attempt is good but needs some adjustment
  • Probably too tight
  • Add tabs that will allow you to turn it by hand when in the slot
  • Add some features that slowly allow it to engage with the slot instead of all at once

MacroFab News

• May 4th, Bringing back the MacroFab meetup.
• MacroFab is moving headquarters!
• New Website! The podcast and all that content looks sexy now.

Chat GPT NPC

• Instead of the standard tree format of communication - just use ai
• AI dungeon master?
• How easy would it be to break?
• Segway announcement on Good Morning America

Checker Battery Box

• Relocation of the battery
• Tool Storage
• ⅛” 304 Stainless Steel

Cat Feeder Unreminder

• Schematic completed
• Been “bench testing” for the past couple weeks
• Enclosure design roughed in