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:

May 19, 2019An Interview with JP Norair
Welcome JP Norair of Haystack Technologies!
Chris knows JP from the Consulting Forum. Want to join us? Apply here
0h 0m 40s
LoRa
0h 1m 49s
Chirp Spread Spectrum
0h 1m 53s
LoRaWAN
0h 3m 16s
The standard initially came from IBM
0h 3m 23s
Formed the LoRa alliance
0h 3m 34s
Comcast strategy shifting
0h 4m 9s
Sigfox was a competitor
0h 4m 55s
Senet
0h 6m 53s
Campus deployments
0h 8m 44s
Moving data on LoRaWAN
0h 9m 25s
Was probably meant for meter reading
0h 10m 17s
Haystack
0h 11m 30s
DASH7
0h 11m 35s
Savi
0h 11m 58s
Asset tracking on a global scale
0h 12m 49s
Exposed to technology standardization
0h 15m 43s
iso18000-7
0h 15m 59s
People who are contacting are using LoRaWAN and it hasn't worked
0h 20m 11s
QOS means there are packets that are received correctly
0h 21m 21s
LPWAN is not that mature
0h 22m 58s
Borrowing from space based telemetry
0h 23m 6s
Claude Shannon - Information theory
0h 24m 15s
There is built in error correction in the LoRa hardware
0h 27m 43s
Matt Knight episode from ToorCamp
0h 27m 55s
Alphabet soup of standards
0h 32m 26s
One of them specifies a convolutional code
0h 32m 35s
Soft decision
0h 33m 39s
Proprietary stuff sweetens the deal
0h 35m 56s
LDPC error correction
0h 36m 9s
Startups are willing to take a risk
0h 40m 25s
Bigger companies are worried about failing
0h 40m 33s
Working with startups
0h 41m 52s
Larger businesses are willing to pay for time and materials
0h 42m 1s
Payment on milestones
0h 42m 34s
Selling hardware allows you to put cost into it
0h 44m 3s
Mobile vs fixed
0h 45m 22s
Link budget
0h 49m 7s
ITU region 2
0h 49m 50s
RSSI
0h 51m 41s
Fresnel zone
0h 55m 33s
SolPad
0h 58m 33s
Have to be ready to bounce between full time and consulting
0h 58m 50s
Not a solar company
0h 59m 36s
Battery backed storage and conversion solutions
0h 59m 40s
John from Cree
1h 1m 24s
Doing GaN inverters
1h 1m 28s
Smaller inductors
1h 2m 9s
Roof mounted inverters and batteries
1h 3m 15s
Shahriar talking RF
1h 7m 13s
Trying to broaden expertise
1h 7m 18s
Dash7 over a wire
1h 9m 6s
RS485
1h 9m 33s
Sometimes wireless feels like it's actually more reliable than something like RS485
1h 12m 8s
JP has a person site called Indigresso
1h 19m 3s
Using MATLAB to simulate antennas
1h 20m 28s
Johanson antennas
1h 23m 1s
Making a different frequency antenna by adding extra wire
1h 24m 11s
Start with a higher freq chip antenna and modify it downward
1h 24m 25s
...more
1h 21min
May 13, 2019An Interview with Travis Goodspeed
Welcome, Travis Goodspeed!
Chris and Travis first met at after ESC Chicago in 2010.
TI Developer conference 2008 got into msp430
Chronos watch, had an "open source" design, much of the info was missing.
The GoodWatch project has an RPN calculator, assembler , disassembler, radio onboard
The chipcon430 was targeted at electric power meters
POCSAG
dapnet
IM ME
P25 PTT
Travis wrote a jammer for P25
Why special agent johnny still can't encrypt
Sandy Clark
IM ME uses the same radio core
P25 is 4FSK
DMR
The MD380 is a digital mode HT radio (larger than a baofeng) for HAMs that costs about $90
MD380 tools on github
"As soon as open tools catch up, I jump ship to them"
The GoodFET project was built upon a similar msp430 Flash Emulation Tool
Mask ROM bootloader in msp430
Mike Ossmann wanted to redesign and paid Travis $5 for the files. This became the GreatFET.
Goodwatch also has python env
Travis got into ham radio at SkydogCon
Old tv newsvan
Facedancer project, now run by Kate Tempkin
Initially was for testing usb vulnerabilities
Time of check to time of use check
Kate attacks the Nintendo switch
Studebaker
Vapor lock
Knoxville
Recon Montreal
Camp++
Follow Travis on Twitter @travisgoodspeed
Do you know anyone at TI? Please have them reach out to Travis about the TI conference and how to bring it back
...more
1h 13min
May 05, 2019Motivational Speaker
KiCon is over! The only thing that really went wrong is Chris lost his wallet briefly.
Former guest Chris Anderson (@Chr1sa on twitter) is no longer going to TED conferences
Matt Foley motivational speaker
Simone Giertz is our only past guest who has given a full TED talk (?)
Derek Kozel
Dave "threw a grenade"
PCB wars
Dave made two predictions
Displace the low end tools
There will be a commercial venture supporting KiCad at some point
We discussed something similar in episode 188
KiCon Developer panel
Chris stood up a site for Reality Instruments, which is for add-ons for the Valve Index
Open source hardware
Names matter, don't lock yourself in
Trademarks and brands
Tim Poole of Subverse
Anki shuts down, lays off staff
They had just done a new Kickstarter project
Boston Dynamics' Spot Mini showcased during a Tech Crunch event
James Bruton
Silicon Valley is a documentary
The Inventor: Out For Blood in Silicon Valley (documenatry about Elizabeth Holmes / Theranos)
Mousr
Brian Benchoff posts about the cost realities of low volume production
A twitter thread about #badgelife and getting started with electronics
Image from the SNL Sketch "Motivational Speaker"
...more
1h 7min
May 04, 2019#440.3 - Interviews with Anool Mahidharia, AJ Keller, Uriel Guy, Ste Kulov, and Craig Bishop at KiCon 2019
Anool Mahidharia - Lumetronics
AJ Keller - Neurosity
Uriel Guy - Light Art
Ste Kulov - HD Retrovision
Craig Bishop - Craigjb.com
Craig was also a guest on the Hackaday Podcast this week
...more
45min
May 01, 2019 #440.2 - Interviews with Greg Davill and Michael Ossmann
We sit down with Greg Davill and Michael Ossmann for two brief chats at KiCon 2019
...more
31min
April 29, 2019#440.1 - An Interview with the core KiCad development team
This is the first of a couple episodes that will be posted from KiCon 2019.
This interview was in two parts with some of the developers from the KiCad project (there are many people involved with making KiCad a reality). We talked with:
Wayne Stambaugh
Maciej "Orson" Suminski
Tomasz Wlostowski
Jon Evans
Seth Hillbrand
Thanks to Piotr Esden-Tempski (our first remote correspondent) and Alvaro Prieto (co-host of the Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast) for help with recording.
(Image above: Seth Hillbrand, Wayne Stambaugh (facing away from the camera), Maciej “Orson” Suminski, Tomasz Wlostowski, Jon Evans, all working together on KiCad development at the end of the conference)
...more
43min
April 22, 2019Grow A Superbrain
Chris will be dealing with everything after KiCon
Cadence Allegro
The downsides of someone showing you how to do things
The Feynman method
Pointer example
Current through a capacitor
Building up intuition first
100 page debate Walter Lewyn lecture on kirchoff
Electroboom built a device to test the theory (which started the debate on the forum)
Big Clive nearly put himself in the hospital!
Dave had a Nobel Laureate -- Barry Marshall -- over to the lab
Testing it on himself
Article discussing the signal integrity decisions of the BeagleBone Black
Eric Bogatin on The Amp Hour
1 in a million problems
Dave's example of a best case board
gnd
signal
gnd
signal
gnd
signal
gnd
signal
gnd
power
Choice of termination might matter more
Blind and buried is better than whole vias
Chris made a video about what blind and buried vias look like
PCB Shopper
Getting coupons for PCB reviews
Dave has been on YouTube for 10 years!
There will be a KiCad course at Microchip Masters
Latchup Conference is happening the first weekend in May in Portland
Former guest Bil Herd is doing a video series testing high speed PCB
Ring of Chronos high speed cameras
Former guest David Kronstein and his company Krontech are coming out with new v2.1, they did a teardown of the camera
Great Scott did a video about battery management
Solar plus storage costs are under $0.10 per kwh
Are the costs actually coming down?
There's nothing better than lithium ion coming soon
South Australia installation Saved $40M already
Chris has been listening to a book/lecture series about energy generation and storage
The KiCad banana!
Thanks to lady traveler for the brain mechanics picture
...more
1h 12min
April 15, 2019An Interview with Bart Dring
Welcome, Bart Dring!
Hobby of motion contollers and CNC
Got started at Williams pinball (who also make games like Joust and Space shuttle)
A lot of wear in pinball cabinets.
Got the itch to move onto a "real engineering" job.
Microwave for deep space networks
Multi kilowatt units with high power dissipation
Waveguide switches
Getting heat out of the potting
Used on things like news trucks and DSN satellites.
Military specs for harsh environment
CNC machines were discussed by past guests:
John Saunders
Nadya Peek
Sending steps to machines was easier with a parallel port. Now need something like a USB to parallel.
Started doing tutorials on Instructables, wanted to win a contest with a human powered Segway to win Epilog laser.
Started to document along the way on Buildlog.net
First comprehensive laser cutter kit out there, the 2.x laser sold 400 kits
Maker Slide was a system for building machines. The Kickstarter raised $25K
Since it was open source, others re-started KS campaigns 5 times around the world
Factory for extrusion is like 300m long
Wrote a yield optimizer to spit out a better way to cut material in his garage.
Laen (OSH Park) also talked about optimizers when he was on the show.
Approached Inventables to fulfill Maker Slide orders.
Worked out a deal for a royalty, they still pay it on orders.
Inventables makes Easel, which is a web based program for working with their routers.
Inventables also took on the Shapeko, designed by Edward Ford. That machine is made out of Maker Slide.
GRBL is the motion controller behind all of Bart's CNC machines.
It started with the creator interested in optimizing the code to put on an Arduino.
RAMPS controllers
Plug in stepper drivers
G-code
Bart ported GRBL onto PSoC5
Why PSoC5? Bart likes the graphical interface and uses it a lot for prototyping.
Motion planner
Started looking at ESP32 for Bluetooth/WiFi
Robots run off the phones
Angus doing Arduino stuff for Espressif helped to move things along.
API has public functions for RTOS, so it was harder in a real time control sense.
Plan was to use primary core for GRBL, other core for communication.
Bart put the project down for a while, but Jeroen Domburg (Sprite_tm) convinced him to try again.
The processor had a lot more RAM than other boards, especially Arduino.
Finished September 2018
Tindie sales
Complete web UI for sender
Web page has jogging controls and configuration
Hoping to put an Easel-like program on there
Nickelbot
Square coasters with traction feed (Coasty the Coaster Toaster)
Exotic kinematics
Polar coaster
Converting polar to Cartesian coordinates
Drawbot badge
Hobby servos
"Adorably wiggly lines"
Workshop at Supercon
Scripting in python
Polar Platform String Art Machine
Open loop vs closed loop
Twang
Follow Bart on twitter as @buildlog
...more
1h 33min
April 08, 2019An Interview with Chrissy Meyer
wp:list
Welcome Chrissy Meyer, partner at Root Ventures!
We previously had talked to Avidan Ross, the founder and partner at Root Ventures.
0h 0m 30s
They try to target talented founders and not the company
0h 3m 21s
Rose Hulman
0h 8m 10s
Lincoln Labs
0h 8m 49s
Went back to school at Stanford for an EE MS/PhD
0h 10m 42s
She started at Apple and the iPhone launched the first week on internship
0h 11m 27s
Started as a PM
0h 12m 55s
Anti-GANTT charts
0h 13m 29s
Baijiu
0h 15m 10s
Chrissy helped ship 3 generations of iPod touch, one nano and the beginning of the Apple Watch.
0h 16m 38s
Apple makes scaling look easy
0h 17m 5s
They have developed the formula over decades
0h 17m 28s
Walking into Foxconn
0h 18m 37s
Dealing with the different layers of manufacturing
0h 21m 5s
Final assembly and PCBA is normally the same location
0h 21m 20s
Vertical integration is more competitive at scale
0h 22m 22s
DJI is a good example
0h 22m 30s
Early stage startups have access to higher levels of integration...but it doesn't always make sense
0h 23m 37s
"Think really long and hard about who you're choosing, make sure [the manufacturer is] a good fit for your size and complexity"
0h 24m 41s
1 in a million problems are actual problems for high volume production.
0h 26m 17s
Tiger team
0h 26m 45s
The problem is getting a line moving
0h 28m 8s
Glue machines
0h 28m 56s
HDDG talk
0h 30m 1s
DfM
0h 33m 25s
Mechanical parts seem to have less consistency
0h 37m 38s
Electrical is a bit more cut and dried
0h 38m 43s
Big companies are talking to suppliers from day one
0h 41m 43s
With companies like Apple, these discussions are shrouded in secrecy
0h 42m 33s
"You have to be high touch if you want to be fast"
0h 43m 47s
Joined Square with 300 people
0h 46m 9s
Cost was everything
0h 46m 46s
Developing hardware for businesses was different
0h 47m 15s
Sales cycles can take a while
0h 48m 24s
It requires the perfect spacing between iterations
0h 49m 24s
Was a founding member of the startup Pearl Automation
0h 50m 41s
They made wifi based backup camera for users
0h 51m 42s
So much of startup success is timing
0h 52m 28s
Learned about how to be a startup, which was useful for her time now at Root.vc
0h 54m 30s
Different for VCs that write lots of checks
0h 56m 41s
Root invests in 6-8 companies per year
0h 57m 25s
Instrumental.ai
0h 59m 18s
They do final inspection that can automatically flag anomalies
1h 1m 0s
What are you Interested in the hardware space now?
1h 3m 24s
Chrissy is interested in tools for manufacturing, like supplier discovery
1h 4m 7s
We're far away from the promised "dark factories" in the world of automation
1h 4m 53s
Reach out about opportunities, either on LinkedIn or via their site.
1h 6m 30s
The next step is to come in to brainstorm!
1h 7m 47s
/wp:list
...more
1h 9min
March 31, 2019Downward Sloping Trace
wp:image {“id”:5728}
/wp:image
wp:list
Dave is judging the Keysight innovation challenge
EEs talk tech
May 1996 issue of Elektor had a very similar project to Dave's later project (which he didn't know about). He has previously reviewed Electronics Australia magazines and their demise.
ISP1016 CPLD
Dave made a video about the logic analyzer
40 MSPS
Timing analysis mode vs state analysis mode
Throwing a scope on it
Custom heat sinks
Volumetric efficiency
The form factor informs the design
Aluminum extrusion video (how to get the heat out)
Heat sink design video
Heat sinks on previous incarnation of uSupply
Plastic melt story
DP832 power supply has thermal shutdown problems
Error stack up inside on a hot sydney day
Precompliance
The Practicing Mind
/wp:list
wp:paragraph
/wp:paragraph
...more
1h 8min

FAQs about The Amp Hour:

How many episodes does The Amp Hour have?

The podcast currently has 745 episodes available.

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