Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast

Previous Episodes

• Misha last heard on MEP EP #142: Supply Chain Conspiracy Securities
• Chris last heard on MEP EP#212: The End of Electronics Manufacturing?!

The State of Digital Manufacturing

• What is digital manufacturing?
• Is there a definition of digital manufacturing?
• Other players in this space.
• Some business models are winning, some models are stuck in neutral.

New Round of Investment

• Why does a manufacturer need investment?
• The nature of investors

Does anyone actually care about this?

• What does this all mean for new technologies and business models in manufacturing? 
• Does anyone care? 
• Or is it just normal sorting of what works from what doesn't?

Reshoring

• Nature of People 
  •  Many “Talks the talk but don’t walk the walk”
• Who currently cares about this? 
  • Procurement?
  • Engineering?
  • Maybe just Parker? 

MacroFab History

• Original MacroFab concept
• Pivots
• Chris Church’s “Rules for Start Up Names”
• What is next? New Head Quarters.

Breadboarding your circuits

• Why even do it? 
  • Time savings
  • Quick check of your ideas
  • Leave breadboard assembled for future pcbs
• Breadboards do not break physics - all the same rules apply
• What you put into it you get out 
  • Cleanliness matters
  • Plan out your circuits 
    • You will likely find that you do not need extra jumpers if you plan the circuit
  • Measure and bend leads - 0.1” pitch
  • Use good components
  • Use the bus strips for power and ground
  • You can get away with high voltage if you plan for isolation
  • Keep connections short. If the components can be the connection that is ideal
  • Feedback and shorts - keep them short
• Know the limitations - breadboard what you need 
  • Breadboards may not be a one stop shop - use them to prove what you need to

First R2R bill passes and it is…

• NY gov Kathy Hochul signed into law one of the first R2R bills
• Hochul agreed to sign the bill with some last minute changes
• Hochul wrote in a memo that the legislation, as it was originally drafted, "included technical issues that could put safety and security at risk, as well as heighten the risk of injury from physical repair projects."
• Changes 
  • Stripping requirement for OEMs to provide to the public any passwords, security codes or materials to override security features
  • bundle "assemblies of parts" instead of just the specific component actually needed for a DIY repair if "the risk of improper installation heightens the risk of injury."
• Applies to devices built or sold in New York after july 1st
• the bill's revised language excludes enterprise electronics, such as those that schools, hospitals, universities and data centers rely on

Designing new Footprints in the year 2023. Why does this still suck?

• As Electrical engineers that dabble in mechanical design
• New footprints are one of the leading causes of a prototype or first article run going wrong
• EDA Tools do absolute coordinates
• Mechanical Tools do “dimensioning”

Adding Cold Welding Function to any Welder

• Cold spot weld function
• Most tig welders interface with a 5 pin foot controller 
  • 3 pins for potentiometer - analog signal telling how much amperage
  • 2 pin switch for initiating the arc
• Made a circuit to spoof the footswitch 
  • 555 timer to set the duty cycle
  • Monostable mode
  • Capacitively coupled to allow for single button presses
• Range: 1ms to 100ms

Framework, Noctua, and other brands add official 3D models to Printables

• Prusa Research’s “Printables” website added a new section called “Brands”
• Manufacturers and OEMs can upload verified models for their products

CNC Update

• All of the fasteners arrive this week along with the aluminum extrusions
• Build weekend
• Developed a 3d printable cable tie for 4040 t-slots 
  • 3d prints with planned bending sections
  • Other than iteration and experience is there a way to design this?
  • Elastic deformation in the area that we want - avoid plastic deformation on stress-strain curve
• Will be printing along with the spray system from episode 354

The Return of the Cat Feeder Unreminder

• MAX9019 Comparator Oscillator
• Low power design considerations 
  • Consider every current path for leakage current
• Super Capacitor Leakage Comparison 
  • DSF505Q6R0JBG 
    • 5F at 6VDC
    • 40uA leakage
  • HSL0814-3R8106-R 
    • 10F at 3.8VDC 
    • 2.0-3.0uA leakage
• Get the timer working  
  • LTC2956-1
  • 0.8uA
  • Use the enable output to switch between what segments are being driven on the TN LCD
• DG419 signal switcher

Picking a part for your design

• What is your process for selecting a part for your design?
• What is your preferred method of learning about electronics?
• How would you make the process of selecting parts for your design easier?

The Return of the Cat Feeder Unreminder

• Experimenting with the AEM10941
• User Interface changes? 
  • Segmented LCD 
    • VI-422DPRCS
  • Driver? 
    • Need 3VAC - 6VAC
    • Made an oscillator with a 4049 hex inverter
    • More power reduction? 
      • CD4047 oscillator, mxshift from slack says it will pull around 20uA
      • Comparator in a oscillator configuration, metacollin says ~1uA

Porsche’s synthetic gasoline factory comes online today in Chile

• Way back on episode 265 (Feb 2021) we talked about this announcement from Porsche.
• Production 
  • 34,000 gallons (130,000 L) a year
  • 14.5 million gallons (55 million L) a year by 2024
  • 145 million gallons (550 million L) a year by 2026
• Wind power to electrolysis water into hydrogen and oxygen 
  • The hydrogen is then combined with carbon captured from the air or industrial sources to synthesize methanol
  • Then be converted into longer hydrocarbons to be used as fuel
  • Recycling CO2 in the air
• Is this the future of current Internal Combustion Engines? 
  • Direct drop in for normal gasoline
  • “Carbon Neutral” way to run your classic car

Chip manufacturing equipment sales record in 2022

• Record fab constructions have driven total semiconductor manufacturing equipment sales to cross the $100 billion mark for a second straight year
• Chips Act is $280 billion.  
  • China, Taiwan and Korea are projected to remain the top three destinations for equipment spending in 2022.
• Most of this money is going towards Wafer Manufacturing Equipment with a focus on wafers for logic / active components like microcontrollers

Why The Computer Company Raspberry Pi’s New Hire Caused A Social Media Firestorm

• Hired an ex–police officer, Toby Roberts, as its maker-in-residence. 
• “I was a Technical Surveillance Officer for 15 years, so I built stuff to hide video, audio, and other covert gear”

Spoilers for recent Star Wars shows like Andor included for free!

This Year's Guests

• Josh Rozier
  • A business intelligence and data analytics professional for a large, east-coast insurance monolith.
  • In his spare time, Roz spends his time building and tweaking guitar amplifiers and pedals.
  • Co-owner of Empire Engineering with Stephen.
• Chris Kraft
  • A tinkerer currently working as a software engineer in the financial services industry.
  • Extensive background in 3d printing and building anything that seems interesting.
• Hyr0n
  • A systems engineer.
  • Hardware hacker of AND!XOR, a group that builds electronic badges for conferences and designs embedded system puzzles.

Topics

• Latest in Star Wars Media
  • What has been released since last year’s Star Wars podcast episode 307? 
    • The Book of Boba Fett
    • Obi-wan Kenobi
    • Andor
  • The High Republic
• Stephen's Topic
  • A hammerhead corvette was able to move an entire star destroyer in Rogue 1. Is this even possible?
  • Given the movie footage, are the acceleration and velocity values reasonable?
  • Does the corvette have the thrust to do this?
  • What does this mean for other battles?
• Hyr0n's, Roz's, and Chris' Topic
  • Andor Widget Productivity analysis.
  • The Andor Post Credit scene… we see what those racks (parabolic facet joints) are for.
  • How many Superlaser Focus Lens facet joints are needed for Death Star?
  • How long would it take Narkina 5 prisoners to produce that many?
• Parker
  • Star Wars Episode: ai
  • Using ChatGPT3 to write a better Star Wars Movie than Disney can
  • Will have an opening crawl and 4 acts
  • Each person will have a roll in the script

PDA - Parkers Death Amp

• Going to do a restoration on it and a recover
• Need to get rid of the death parts
• Some scary stuff after looking at the schematic

Chat GPT-3

• AI computer model for conversations / text generation
• People have been putting assembly into and and asking for notes on what the code does
• The AI sounds very sure of itself when giving completely wrong answers
• Suggested as a replacement for general internet searching 
  • How do you know what data it is pulling from or if it is even correct?
  • Could push us further down the slope on the reduction of critical thinking in our society
  • Reduction of solid researching skills
• “What connector should I use for my power distribution module”

CNC update:

• Anodized parts for the brackets are completed
• Extruded aluminum for the strand is on order
• Going to be a while till another update

End of 2022 Engineering Questions?

• What trends in the past few years have changed PCBAs the most in the last few years? 
  • Weird SMT packages are starting to become more normal
  • PCBs themselves are being used more as a structural part of the overall product
• What do you think will be the next “big” thing that will change the way EEs design PCBs? 
  • Rigid Flex changed the way compact consumer devices where designed
  • Advancements in mosfet technologies and materials increased power densities

PDM

• Listener Questions 
  • During the project do you plan on hosting it so it’s accessible somewhere like GitHub?
  • Why plan for peak currents on constant current rating on the pins?
  • What are the plans for customer connections? 

StarWars Christmas Special will be December 13th

• Returning Cast! Roz, Chris Kraft, and HyR0n!