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:

December 02, 2016An Interview with David Kronstein (Tesla500)
Welcome, David Kronstein (Tesla500)!
David is the creator of the Krontech Chronos 1.4 high speed camera currently funding on Kickstarter.
Dave has already reviewed this camera...on camera.
Check out the tesla500 youtube channel. David also runs the "Will it Mow" channel.
PhantomV4
David is considering a die cast mold for the case, depending on volumes.
The battery is an off the shelf, common camera battery.
OurPCB is doing the assembly in China. $100 per board in low volume, with 1000 placements, 130 line items.
The main FPGA is the Lattice ECP5.
The main processor is the DaVinci TMS320DM8148 running embedded Linux
The main sensor is the Lumxima LUX1310
CMOS vs CCD
The FPGA only has 15% utilization.
The KS offers monochrome and color versions because monochrome maintains higher resolution. This is explained by a Bayer Color filter in hardware.
The FPS1000 was a lower cost high speed camera on KS.
One big risk to the process is David is looking at chaning the toolchain for the TI chip because of processing power. He's looking at ridgerun, a 3rd party embedded development house.
The camera has ADC inputs for displaying data over the images.
It will be compatible with Genlock.
David also desigend a 5 kW LED rig but won't be selling it. He may open source the waterblock design or sell just that piece.
We had some great questions from our audience, hopefully we got them all answered.
Ben Krasnow did a great "bullet time" video using the camera.
Photonic induction doesn't have a camera yet but he did a fun video with a pumpkin at Halloween.
Interested in embedded Linux? Send a resume to [email protected]
You can learn more about David's company at Krontech.ca
Pre purchase your own Chronos 1.4 camera over on Kickstarter. Or check out the Datasheet for the camera.
Community Announcements!
Meetup in Chicago on 12/6
Contest to win a signed copy of The Art of Electronics!
Tweet about this episode! (click to get a prefilled tweet or compose your own and send a screenshot to [email protected])
Post to Facebook (send a screenshot to [email protected])
Send an email to a coworker about this episode (copy [email protected])
Example Email:
"Hey _______,
I listen to a show about electronics called The Amp Hour. They have a contest where I can win a signed copy of The Art of Electronics if I mention their latest show to you, which was an interview with the creator of a high speed camera. It was all about FPGAs and image sensors and getting a product made. Check it out here: https://theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-325-an-interview-with-david-kronstein-tesla500/"
And finally, shredded wheat.
...more
2h 0min
November 25, 2016Mapping Out Nerdery
Back this week for a Thanksgiving-adjacent show!
Dave has a new 80s intro.
Chris used to watch Bill Nye, Dave used to watch the Curiosity show.
Dave did a review of Tesla500's camera. He is our planned guest for next week!
On Hackaday, they wrote about the fact that IoT has no standard, but could have with Twitter (using tweet meta data)
Cringely wrote about saving the IoT
There was a recent critique about Nest's business model, instead saying that all IoT hardware should be sold as a service
The OSI layer model.
Chris met and was talking with Amelia, the head of GE's new Fuse program. It's a B2B contest for hard problems like detecting welds. This is similar to their previous First Build program, before the GE Appliance group was sold to a Chinese company.
Chris just found out about the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. How did he not know about that? There should be some kind of Nerd Map...and now there will be! NerdyMap.com was just bought by Chris!
Dave found an old intro to his proposed travel youtube channel.
Business expenses are important for consultants. Not mentioned on air, but Embedded had a great episode with their accountant.
Hackster bought by Avnet.
Siemens buys Mentor Graphics.
Micrium bought by SiLabs.
The Open V project just launched on Crowd Supply! It is the first fully open source chipset and has a hefty goal ($480K). Consider backing the $99 kit, as this seems like it would allow you to immediately start playing with that chip.
Check out their GitHub repo!
The documentation and scope of this project (for a teenager, let alone anyone) is amazing. Read about how to build an SDR from scratch.
Chris thought that Dave had said "Documentation is a waste of time". It turns out that was his former co-worker.
There is a new LIDAR chip from Osram that is only $5.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of our US listeners. And we are thankful for our Patreon sponsors!
Thanks to Patrick Barry for the map
...more
1h 9min
November 18, 2016An Interview with Tony DiCola
Welcome Tony DiCola of Adafruit!
Tony has been working on MicroPython tutorials since joining Adafruit
Python has been around for a long time, but most people are referring to Cpython. It has a large fan base and lots of library support like NumPy and SciPy.
Micropython was developed in 2013 by Damien George for memory constrained environments. It has roughly 90% compatibility with regular Python.
Python runs on other higher power platforms like the BeagleBone black and Raspberry Pi, which Adafruit also has lots of great tutorials about.
There are limited number of boards running MicroPython
PyBoard - STM32F4
ESP8266 - 84 MHz, 96k
BBC Micro:bit (Uses an NRF51 - 16K)
CC3100 WiPy
SAMD21 - CortexM0, 32K, 48 MHz
MicroPython shows a REPL when you connect via serial port. It looks very much like a command prompt.
You can mix C and MicroPython, which makes it an interesting candidate for low level hardware operations. You can also hook into assembly using a special decorator. Compilation happens in pre processor.
There is a default FAT file system in flash.
You can boot right into a script by having main.py in the file system. Other files can be used in the file system to represent libraries.
PIP is a default way to install libraries on desktop Python, this might get added to MicroPython.
The .mpy file format is a condensed versions of files, which prevents comments take up room in flash / ram.
ESA is considering using MicroPython on satellites because they are relatively easier to reconfigure.
Chris has been using the Huzzah Feather board and the associated LED Featherwing. Great for trying out the setup!
Follow Tony and the Adafruit feed on Twitter!
...more
1h 7min
November 11, 2016World Trade Futurity (WTF)
Donald Trump is the president elect of the US. Dave (and Chris and the rest of the world) is asking "WTF?"
Tesla500 ponders whether NAFTA being repealed would impact sales of a device from a Canadian to the US.
Chris has been hanging out with Tony from adafruit who is working on MicroPython tutorials
Dave got a large format poster of the Spectrum printed in his latest mailbag
Chris got to hang out with Brent and Bryce from FaradayRF at SuperCon last weekend.
More about SuperCon
Akiba was there!
Alan Yates gave a talk abut the Valve LightHouse. He also talked about this on a recent episode of Embedded.fm.
Ken Shirriff from Righto.com
Steve Collins from JPL
Chris skipped Electronica, which is going on now.
Two more acquisitions
Qualcomm acquires NXP
Lattice Semi was acquired by a private capital firm.
Dave wrote old programs for Lattice devices. Chris started out with FPGAs using Altera's Quartus.
Muntzing technique
EMI app note from TI
One way to reduce EMI is to slow down the slew rate. Dave talked about this and more in an older bypassing video.
Chris wants some kind of "Evernote for datasheets" that locally syncs datasheets over time. Does anyone know of a service like this?
The satellite that came back online (back in 2013).
Dave stayed up late for the European Mars landing but hoped for more pomp in the presentation. You can watch some of the archived videos here.
Chris recalls XKCD's depressing comic about Spirit on Mars (695).
...more
1h 9min
October 28, 2016Monster Scale Production
Did you know you can suggest guests for The Amp Hour? Be sure to check out our posts of past guest shows first though.
Chris is starting to do pro-bono engineering. Check out the details and submit an application for help on his blog.
Jesse from Keyboardio did a box o' stuff from the Shenzhen markets. We also featured his tweet a while back comparing the smart watch to starbucks breakfast.
Dave really liked the Wired video special about Shenzhen.
Wired also did a video about the production of a 737 at Boeing.
If you're going into production, Jim from Mindtribe wrote about the tests to consider.
Mouser tracked an order through their warehouse on video. Pick and pack for warehouses is still the domain of humans but solutions like Amazon's Kiva could speed that up.
We enjoyed devttys0's "Faux Intelligent Light Switch". A nice analog circuit!
More attacks from IoT devices. Recode asks, "Should the manufacturers be held responsible?"
XKCD gives guidance on passwords. Chris prefer's the "Ready Player One" method of quoting songs for passwords (to log into VR), his favorite being "No one in the world gets what they want and that is beautiful." (They Might Be Giants)
Shenzhen is copying Kickstarters before they even finish funding. Good or bad?
Dave is flabbergasted at how much money a juicer raised ($120M). We are planning to have a VC on soon to discuss similar issues.
Thanks to Barnaby Walker for the picture of monster feet
...more
1h 17min
October 21, 2016An Interview with Brent of OSHstencils
Welcome Brent of OSHStencils!
Chris and Brent first met at OHS Boston. The company started in July 2013
Previously Brent had been ordering from OharaRP. Ryan has been on TAH before as well.
The beginning stencils were Kapton / Polyimide. Thicknesses were either 3 or 5 mil.
Low quality paste is a huge problem for stencils. The best past "rolls" like an ocean wave. Brent recommends (and sells) Kester products.
Most traditional stencils are mounted to frames, with sizes like 23"x23" or 29"x29"
One OSHStencils user did over 300 boards with a single kapton stencil! The recommended is maximum 25 - 50 uses.
The minimum feature size for Kapton stencils is 5 mil in each direction. These are made with a CO2 laser (like an Epilog), which limits the low end of what can be done.
The company was first formed as a potential OSHpark partner business, but that got sidelined when OSHpark had the opportunity to buy batchPCB. Laen has been on the show in the past as well!
GerbV is the gerber viewing tool built into gEDA
Mentioned previously on the show, OSHStencils now sells stainless steel stencils. These can have features as small as 1 mil.
This requires a fiber laser from LPKF, which needed to be retrofitted to "trick" it into cutting stencils that weren't in frame.
Terminology
Aperature - pad cutout
Kerf - diameter of laser beam
Watching a video of paste application shows the "ocean" effect.
You can find out more and order your own stencils over at OSHStencils.com. Or email them for custom requests (either listen to the show for the address or go through the site contact page)
...more
1h 7min
October 14, 2016Photon Rich, Cash Poor
Dave has been testing U1272A's again after learning about a possible EMC issue. Dave had previously tested Fluke 87s with GSM.
A new open source radio project (FaradayRF) has Chris wondering if there are possible.
Dave is back to working on his Supercomputer idea (with BOINC).
A new board might use a Microchip SPI -> Ethernet part, the ENC28J60
NextThingCo (makers of the CHiP) announced the ChipPro and the GR8 SOM.
They include a non-NDA datasheet for the AllWinner R8.
Chris got to see the Chipsetter up close and personal at MFNY.
The Open Hardware Summit went ok! Interesting discussions about the new license.
The "Got Milk" campaign was used as PR for drinking more milk
Taking 11 hours to get a Wifi kettle working
Chris and Dave may start licensing "DC-Ether™" for products.
Randall from XKCD discusses design decisions
Solar roadways installs are a disaster
You can watch MegaBots discuss their design decisions.
3D Robotics seems to be in trouble. It seems like they are pivoting to a "software only" model. We had Chris Anderson on the show back in 2012. Contrast this with bootstrapping a business like MailChimp.
The reddit thread about SpaceX was actually about "why" we're trying to colonize mars, not the space race between boeing and them, but is interesting nonetheless.
Dave has been watching an LHC documentary. It has not destroyed the world (yet), keep an eye on that here.
Thanks to acidpix for the image of the solar panels
...more
1h 21min
October 07, 2016Impedance Matching with Michael Ossmann and Dmitry Nedospasov
Welcome (back) Dmitry and Mike!
O1-A visa vs an H1B visa
Microscope and Soldering station
Toothless consulting training
Great Scott Intro to SDR
ToorCon
CIISP certification
Saleae
GoodFET .... GreatFET
iMX7 - A7 - NXP Freescale
Power over ethernet
OpenHDL
IceStorm
ReCon
Digilent Arty
libFTDI, libUSB
OHS
IMme
Facedancer
LPC4300
BBB + USBproxy
Sniffing USB traffic with VMware
Daisho - USB3 core
medsec (and a NYtimes article about it)
hardwear.io
Katie Moussouris - responsible disclosure
Muddy Waters
Apple is doing bug bounty for kernel bugs
Automotive VW emissions
CCC talk about car stuff
CCC - Hamburg
...more
1h 58min
September 30, 2016A Decoupled Episode
(Note: changed the title to “Decoupled” instead of “Decoupling” as said in the intro as it sounds less negative)
FPGA intel
Narrative
Kickstarter Pick and place
Wazer
South Australia
Squirrel power!
IoT DDOS
Upverter
HaD badge
/r/nicechips
MacroFab episode
Chinese Part
Revision control tweet
Patreon
Chloroform the amps
Thanks to Windell Oskay (EMSL) for the image of the capacitors!
...more
1h 14min
September 23, 2016An Interview with Robert Feranec
Welcome Robert Feranec of Fedevel Academy!
Robert started designing electronics in 2000 post university. His first project was designing an IP telephone using Linux.
While his paid course is at Fedevel.com, he has free videos on his youtube channel called "matarofe"
We enjoyed his video on how to work as a freelancer. There are two kinds of freelancer:
Lifestyle freelancers
Status seekers
He later realized 3 things about freelance
Limited by hours
Always working for someone else
Only get to sell work once
The iMX6 Rex is one of his large projects, though you can view all 4 projects (and associated courses) here.
Robert just attended PCB west and saw the new active router created by Altium. This was discussed at length on the EEVblog forum.
When Altium changed how the board outline was done, Robert did a video on how it had changed (instead of updating the private course)
Robert has been trying out Circuit Studio. Dave likes the pricing.
The main open design for Fedevel is the OpenRex.
Dave recently proposed changes to the OSHW logo that he believes will unify the ideas.
Chris will be at OHS in early October and Robert may join as well!
...more
1h 30min

FAQs about The Amp Hour:

How many episodes does The Amp Hour have?

The podcast currently has 745 episodes available.

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