The Amp Hour

By The Amp Hour (Chris Gammell and David L Jones)

The Amp Hour is a weekly conversation about electronics and the people who design them.... more

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FAQs about The Amp Hour:

How many episodes does The Amp Hour have?

The podcast currently has 745 episodes available.

The Amp Hour episodes:

July 19, 2021Finishing Prototypes with Zack Freedman
This is a crossover episode with The Contextual Electronics podcast (also made by Chris). There is a video version of this podcast available as well.
Interested in keeping up with The CE Podcast? Search or subscribe on the iTunes page, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts
0:00 Introduction
2:05 What Zack is building (a computer)
2:40 A water cooled oscilloscope
3:40 How Zack got started
4:40 Hackaday article
5:20 Bluetooth heads up display
5:40 Hoboken Hackerspace
7:15 NYC electronics scene
8:30 Working with artists
10:00 Working on the set of Mr Robot
11:05 Doing a first run prototype for a startup
13:10 Building skills in high pressure environments and on consulting jobs
17:45 Working on deadlines
19:10 How many projects are in a single video?
20:45 Building subassemblies
21:30 Building projects "backwards" (outside in)
23:00 Not thinking your idea is the last good idea you'll ever have
24:15 The prototyping mindset
27:00 Ranking risk in a project
29:15 Usability in wearable projects
31:30 "The role of most prototypes is to try to kill the idea"
33:30 What makes people want to buy a prototype?
35:45 Minimizing features in any one prototype / test
36:30 Consumer products should be shown to thousands before going to market
38:00 YouTubers' battle for attention (check out Voidstar Lab to see all of Zack's videos)
41:00 YouTube theories
44:45 Zack's persona
47:00 Filming b-roll to keep things interesting
51:00 YouTube comment positivity
52:25 Maker Twitter
54:00 Full time YouTube
54:20 Changes in the hardware space since 2012
56:40 Prototyping tools
58:30 "The Maker Movement"
59:25 Working for industrial clients
1:01:40 Focusing on the technology vs the purpose of the technology
1:03:30 Building a project because you want the thing (output)
1:05:30 Technology being used to move the world forward
1:07:15 What will Zack build in the future?
1:09:40 The Cyberdeck
1:12:15 Cyberdeck cafe Discord
1:13:10 Building on a stream vs on a video (streams happen on Zack's Patreon every Monday and Friday)
1:14:40 Previously wanting to go into game design
1:16:30 Providing a representation of what people think the process is
1:17:20 People think IronMan is reality
1:18:20 Bringing people into the field
1:20:25 "Finish more projects"
1:23:30 Going beyond the getting started projects
1:26:20 People genuinely interested in a topic will skip beginner classes
1:27:35 Engineering is intrinsically solitary
1:29:30 Trying to figure out gender discrepancies in making
1:31:05 "What's it like to put yourself out there?"
1:32:30 Putting yourself out there will help you find more positive feedback
1:35:05 Building community
1:37:00 Finding Zack's work and joining his community
Patreon
YouTube
Discord
Twitter
Instagram
1:38:40 Conclusion
...more
1h 40min
July 12, 2021Creative Engineering with Shrouk El-Attar
Welcome, Shrouk El-Attar!
After her own experiences as a refugee, Shrouk did a campaign for equal access to education for asylum seekers in the UK. There are now over 75 participating institutions.
Shrouk asked how The Amp Hour started, it was from a post on reddit!
University days and trying to do hands-on tinkering without much budget
Apprenticeship schemes
Shrouk interned at Intel and Fujitsu
She also worked on a device that helped train eye surgeons
Consumer class 2 Medical Devices
Elvie pump
Reading the docs is critical when doing certification for medical
Design for Test
Doing engineering every day, but not always design
Shrouk refers to the products at Elvie as "FemTech"
Chris has experience with Willow and Spectra breast pumps
The Elvie pump is piezoelectric
The Elvie Trainer is a pelvic floor trainer to help with incontinence, which 80M+ people suffer from.
Shrouk worked in conjunciton with the app team, who communicated with the trainer over bluetooth and developed games
FPGAs for industrial robotics
Shrouk's new series for RS Grassroots will help engineers understand how to outfit their bench and will be called "Trickytronics"
Chris always recommends the Analog Discovery 2 as a starting device. Former president of Digilent Clint Cole was on the show.
Shrouk is also an artist!
She's a belly dancer! She does performances as a drag king and posts about it on Instagram as @dancingqueerofficial
She can neither confirm nor deny she's working on a belly dancing robot.
Engineering in the art world
Shrouk is working on solo show
Shrouk also does podcasts!
An RS Grassroots series called Badass Engineers
A video series called El Kanaba, which focuses on LGBT+ issues and is presented in Arabic
The importance of representation and seeing different people working in engineering. Chris remembers the #BlackInSTEM hashtag highlighting Black scientists and engineers in different industries.
Consulting
The Shrouk El Attar trust (SEAT) helps support the LGBT+ community in Egypt and other surrounding nations.
At Helpful Engineering, Shrouk worked on the OpenVent project, which was done in KiCad and used Gowin FPGAs
They used an FPGA because they needed high throughput for sensors. They were also able to utlize the internal comparators.
Organizing volunteers for large projects
MHRA is the UK equivalent of the FDA (in the US)
Follow Shrouk online!
Website: shro.uk
Instagram: @DancingQueerOfficial
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/shroukel-attar
Twitter: @ShroukELA
...more
1h 12min
July 06, 2021The Last Line of Defense
Today’s episode is sponsored by InspectAR! Check out their latest version of the tool to improve your remote troubleshooting, working with manufacturing partners, or just learning more about the circuit boards on your bench.
Heat events in the world. The Pacific Northwest (PNW) has breaking records.
Solar + battery might make a lot of sense for areas prone to weather events.
Dave made a video on clipping the power due to microinverters and moving up to 8 kW
Chris will be starting from a blank room for his new lab
Dave shared a rare photo of his old workshed.
Lighting in the lab
Call / mute button
8 bit guy studio build
Chris has been working on a water resistant product. He has been targeting an IP rated case with an o-ring and cable glands
Double o-rings and grease help for high pressure environments
Nic Bingham talking about preparing electronics for deep underwater
IP 67 standards
Re-enterable potting
Dave is planning to do a teardown on an early 2000s Kodak digital camera
Sparkfun hooks a patent troll
Silicon Valley's episode about patent trolls
Mota group tried to take down Dave's videos (and others) of a drone that went bust. Dave responded in another video about the takedown notice.
Photo by ciboulette from Pexels
...more
1h 1min
June 29, 2021Open Source Mindset with Michael Gielda
Welcome back, Michael Gielda of Antmicro!
Michael was on episode 519 talking about simulating embedded hardware using Renode
He returned to talk about other projects that Antmicro is working on, especially those that are open source. The open source projects are indexed on the Antmicro Open Source Portal.
Very niche stuff might be closed source, but people are surprised by what others might be interested in (if it were open sourced)
Renode was the topic of our last interview
AI is a new target of open source work. Antmicro recently released the Kenning framework
Why another standard? Relevant XKCD
Testing & benchmarking different AI models/frameworks across platforms from different vendors e.g. Nvidia, Modivius or Google Coral
Black boxes are bad for users
LLVM has hundreds of people looking at the project
CHIPS Alliance
Brian Faith from QuickLogic,first ever FPGA vendor to adapt open source flow
Sammy Cheung from Efinix
Interchange format for FPGA tooling
Virtex Ultrascale PCIe
What happens when a proprietary licensed company goes bankrupt?
Renode is being used for pre-silicon SoC development
Covered Renode-based CI’s in previous episode
Open source toolchain stuff
RISC-V: The ISA is common, but the cores are different.
What is the center of gravity in the RISC V world? Many people are using SiFive.
SiFive uses Chisel
ETH Zurich – another center of gravity - cores written in SystemVerilog
Place for diversity
Chisel (e.g. Antmicro's DMA core)
SystemVerilog - enabling use of SystemVerilog code in open source tools
UVM – Universal Verification Methodology - recent progress with dynamic scheduling in Verilator
Migen
Zephyr bluetooth
Abstraction as a response to chip shortage
What if you wanted to do a fully open source flow? Let’s do a contrived security camera design example:
Xilinx 7 series or Lattice ECP5 or Crosslink-NX
Open source HWhw board using the Nvidia Jetson, manufactured by past guest Chris Osterwood
VexRiscv
Linux + LiteX
LiteDRAM
Ethernet core – everything but the phy
Co simulate with Verilator
Renode
Episodes for open source toolchain
Tim
Claire
Piotr
Cutting down on iteration
Chris mentions a past job that had 6 hour build cycles
Accelerating workflows using compute power and parallelizing dev processes
Working with GCP & building custom self-hosted GitHub runners
Chip design using AI (Google)
Scalenode
ARVSOM
BeagleV
DC-SCM FPGA-based board management controller
Open Compute Project
Row Hammer
Interested in working with Antmicro? Get in touch!
...more
1h 29min
June 22, 2021Thousands Of Dependencies
Dave has more computer woes. He still "shops" from the dumpster room though!
Chris has been working with NodeJS which has so many dependencies it stresses him out
Altium rejected a bid from Autodesk
Jon Evans, one of the lead KiCad devs, is an upcoming guest on Chris's other podcast for Contextual Electronics.
Solidworks is made by Dassault Systems (who also make military gear?)
Solidworks rebadges Altium as "Solidworks PCB"
Past guest (and co-worker of both Chris and Dave!) Matt Berggren is one of the leading product developers at Autodesk PCB.
The LM3914 display driver
Past guest Philip Fredin made a "DIP conversion" package using a PCB and stamped metal
Toyota Production System
Stopping the line in TPS
Continuous integration / continuous deployment
Apparently Tesla is doing some form of this with their cars?
Chris got to catch up with past guest Sam Zeloof, who is nearing the end of undergrad (already!). He mentioned the cost of a lithography machine (EUV) is near $100M
Bosch has a new semiconductor plant for making sensors
TinyML on microcontrollers
Past guest Brian Faith talked about doing something like this using their platform SensiML
Popping a 5000A fuse
Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels
...more
1h 7min
June 07, 2021Fear of Banjos
Dave has been dealing with a hard drive failure
They were set up in a RAID5 configuration, but it's still risky for data loss/corruption
SMR, CMR
Macrofab took investment from Altium recently
The Macrofab Engineering Podcast had the head of ecosystem partnerships on the show talking about manufacturing data.
Dave was surprised to learn that chip manufacturers pay for search rankings on distributor sites
Ex macchina (movie) portrays AI
Chris believes there would be benefis to opting in to some data stuff from distributors
Chris is moving to the Research Triangle (RTP) area of North Carolina from Chicago. He currently lives a few blocks from Big Willie (The Willis Tower)
Eli The Computer guy is down in Asheville (2.5-3 hours away from RTP), as well as past guest and friend of the show Martin Lorton
Wendover Productions on why there are so many shortages
The "Research Triangle" area is near Raleigh (NC State), Durham (Duke), and Chapel Hill (UNC Chapel Hill) and their associated Universities.
You can roughly translate 10 square feet to 1 square meter. Chris found a garage/lab that had a 1200 sq ft lab/garage/shop with an apartment above it
Dave shows off other peoples' labs during mailbag videos
Jeff Keyzer has been rehabbing old HP gear. Chris sent his 8753D to be cared for during the move.
Matterport scans do a 3D capture of real estate for sale. Check out the "dollhouse view" for maximum effect.
Chris has started working with Golioth, a new IoT startup by Jonathan Beri. Jon was on episode 526 talking about what makes IoT difficult, where he hinted at Golioth. Chris joined after some discussions around helping out.
Thanks to Wikipedia for the images of the banjos
...more
1h 4min
June 02, 2021Standardizing Manufacturing with Pete Staples
Today’s episode is sponsored by Mouser Electronics. They are on the show talking about predictive maintenance this week and how the technology will change industries like automotive and industrial processing. To learn more, check out TheAmpHour.com/predictive.
Welcome Pete Staples of Blue Clover Devices!
Blue Clover Devices (BCD) is "The IOT ODM"
ODMs are a flavor of CM where they do more of the design work
Busy EEs use their services to take on more of the design work
Most products are on a 9 month cycle. Some smaller designs (like a recent SiFive dev board) are shorter timelines.
Facilities:
Started in LA
Shenzhen
Now have an SF office (where Pete is located)
They reluctantly started mfg in China, because CMs wouldn't take on the work.
The factory started with "Screwdriver work" (assembly), but have moved on to PCBA and precision cable
Core of workers help to mentor younger workers
Pete took an MBA class in operations but he didn't expect the difficulties with manufacturing
Container party
Taking stuff to china: comes down to economics. Doing it for products making less than $1M per year doesn't make much sense.
Learn manufacturing locally first.
Pete checked out CMs in the bay area and didn't think they could add much value otherwise.
Devices like the LPKF and Nano Dimension Dragon Fly aren't good substitutes for a PCB house
BCD's flagship product is the PLT
PLT200 - targets IoT devices like nRF52 (described in Embedded.fm episode)
PLT300 - targets Linux devices
The PLT acts as a bridge between developers and factory
Programming and testing devices on a line
Internally:
Programmable power supply
Souped up JLink
DMM
Volage
Current
Freq counter
Linux computer
UART interaction as well
CAN bus
Many test stands are Labview based, so they are tied to that location
With the PLT, can have one in the US and one in the factory
Revision control and using CI/CD
Not built for design validation (like NI or test equipment mfg)
How does PLT talk back?
PLT cloud - a portal to manage devices
Needs to be a secure connection
Slack app integration
The PLT hooks to the ICT (In Circuit Tester)
Supports 48 digital and 45 analog test points
The cassette is custom, but can be used again with future designs
Webhooks allow for pulling serial numbers
Box is enrolled to an organization
PLTs used in China
Not blocked, but network isn't always reliable
Needs internet to work
YAML test script
Different steps might be connecting up to the PLT
Test Plan Reference
Scanner / label printer works at a lower level than Jan was talking about on the show
Release can be Zebra label format
How is data being used?
Example: product with 3 circuit boards
Gage R&R
PLT running Zephyr and linux
Trends: things are going up market and have more Linux in them. There will still be a separation due to power, cost.
Blue Clover is working on having less environmental impact after the pandemic
Working with people in the climate neutral community
Food and apparel have talked about sourcing their materials
Check out bcdevices.com for more info
Twitter @petestaples
To get a free USB cable: email [email protected]
...more
1h 20min
May 24, 2021Cassette decks have browsers?
Apple released the AirTag, which is for asset tracking. People on twitter are reverse engineering them, including former guest Colin O'Flynn:
https://twitter.com/colinoflynn/status/1391168784271032320
khttps://twitter.com/0x31337/status/1395064352785399808
https://twitter.com/ghidraninja/status/1392185552502501377
Bluetooth COVID tracing apps
iFixit AirTag teardown
Sidewalk Labs is a group at Google. Sidewalk is a new technology using LoRa available from Amazon.
CNSA just landed on Mars.
Airbags vs powered descent
For F-150 Lightning is coming and will be able to power your home.
Vehicle to Load (V2L)
Hyundai Ioniq 5 is coming soon
Higher charge rate cables have liquid cooling
Buying cars
Car shops servicing EVs...will they end up listening to The Amp Hour instead of Car Talk?? (no)
Dave is in the midst of an audio amp repair. It's a VFD failure. Part 1, Part 2.
Service manual
Right to repair summit in Canberra
Chris has been to Canberra with Dave back in 2016!
Zephyr developer summit
Supplyframe was bought by Siemens for $700M
Itchy and Scratchy Money
Zach 'Hoeken' Smith moved to the beach upon cashing out from Makerbot
KiCad / Altium library setup
"Choice leads to suffering" ~ Yoda, probably
Dogfooding
Audacity telemetry
...more
1h 14min
May 17, 2021Component Management with Jan Rychter
Welcome Jan Rychter of PartsBox!
Jan started PartsBox (PB) because it's critical to know where parts are when doing assembly on a small scale. It also helps users save money on parts over time.
PB is free for hobbyists, and users are split between hobbyist and business. The businesses are mostly small to medium sized businesses
Medical device startups are also common users because they need to track their documentation (traceability) closely from the beginning, including what parts are used on each design.
PB can replace MRP / ERP systems used at larger companies. PB ties in the purchasing element, though on a smaller scale.
Ordering parts affects the finished goods margin, mostly due to the the concept of "cost" of an individual component on an assembly. How do you account for things like attrition parameters?
There is BOM pricing functionality, including handling things like:
Multiple currencies
Minimum order quantities (MOQs)
Managing multiple BOMs
Substitutes
Customer Part Numbers (CPN) are called Meta-Parts on PB.
Part Identity
Jan is a proponent of GS1, which is a standardized unique identifier system used for foods.
Since the electronics industry doesn't standardize on this, manufacturers end up playing tricks
You can follow along with an example workflow (we'll use this for all examples in the show)
The idea of "part location" includes pick and place machines.
PB users have PnP machines taht fit in a garage, not a room
Default part source selection
The traceability is important for companies that need to do medical tracking for
When getting started with PB, don't inventory everything.
Storage doesn't need to be by category
Former guest Dan Hienzsch has been tweeting about consolidating parts
USB barcode scanner
Ordering from PB to a distributor website
A label printer will help you label various boxes and bags, but you'll need to export to CSV and print in a batch because printers don't work with the web platform.
The "multistage build" feature, allows tracking project status as different steps are applied
Custom labels only when needed
Schroedinger-esque parts
Why is it online?
Cross platform
Always available
Works better as a business
Jan's background is in software, but he builds electronics for fun.
He loves interacting with engineers, who give him "very real feedback"
Low stock report
Meta parts in times of shortages
Multiple shipments
Medical tracking
Lot control
Not all parts are "fungible"
Physical diff would allow you to know when one board had one lot of components vs another.
There may be future integrations with InspectAR
Part attrition
Advanced build system
Subassembly parts
Project versioning is TBD. That would require change orders and a much larger set of features like a PLM has, Arena as an example.
Working with CMs
First need to create the part / Meta-part
Linked Part is anything with an MPN that is searchable in Octopart. An example using TPS61161DRV
Find out more and chack out the demo on PartsBox.com
Follow on Twitter @PartsBoxIO
...more
1h 33min
May 10, 2021Chip Shortage Denier
Chris is back from paternity leave
FMLA
The previously mentioned consultant course was put on hold
In Embedded episode 369, someone asked about consulting after only 5 years, Chris thinks it's possible, but with different expectations
Already a consultant? You can apply for the consulting forum
1099s vs W2
Chip availability continues to be terrible
Dave likens it to a FIFO buffer
Chris learned "Yeah Nah" Ozzy Man
Bryman CEO Email
Chris mentioned getting "Swooped" on parts recently (bought out from under him). r00tkillah suggested calling this "Reeling"
Jay Carlson recommends only ordering PCBs when the parts are in hand. Chris will be doing this from now on.
Former guest Matt Venn is running the ZeroToASIC course, teaching people how to design chips. He has been doing interviews with people taking the course and participating in the Skywater shuttle run.
In this recent Zero To Asic interview with Dan Rodriguez, they mention the Ultimate Gameboy Talk at 33c3
This extremely application specific toaster chip has a "bagel pin", possibly mentioned on the show before?
Relay computer
LG dryer sending 1GB data back to servers per day
Printf debugging
...more
1h 14min

FAQs about The Amp Hour:

How many episodes does The Amp Hour have?

The podcast currently has 745 episodes available.

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