Podcast Notes

• First Guest for the MacroFab Engineering Podcast! Trey German is working on a IoT platform using BLE and a small coin cell.
• Trey's device worked on the first revision! How often does that happen?
• Trey used a really cool side mounted RGB LED. Part number OVSRRGBCC3 by TT electronics.
• The widget Trey is working on is designed to be very flexible in its use. It is not so much a development platform as a flexible device.
• Trey used to be an engineer at Texas Instruments and was the Launchpad Application Manager. He will miss training and teaching people electronics but will be doing classes in the future.
• Stephen has begun working on the analog layout of the Super Simple Power Supply. He has finished designing the power block of the supply. We deem this the Energon Cube. See Figure 2.
• There is a really cool video about assembling the TR-1 which is the first commercially manufactured transistor radio. They used a ferris wheel of molten lead solder to solder the PCB and parts similar to a wave solder machine except a lot less OSHA compliant. Wiki link for the TR-1.
• Parker wants to build a vapor phase reflow oven. Sous vide for PCB boards!
• Trey, Stephen, and Parker talk about what kind of connectors they like and hate. Parker has a really cool pogo pin that works on 50mil spacing 2x5 J-Tag connectors. Part number 100803-011.
• Revolv is going to turn off the servers for the IoT home automation. This will brick consumer devices. Is the era of IoT bringing an end the concept of owning hardware?

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