This week Chris and Dave discuss how to keep electronics dry by properly designing an enclosure. Also solar, weather events, patent trolls, outfitting labs, and more!

#548 – The Last Line of Defense

A weekly podcast about the electronics industry. Occasional guests. Lots of laughs.

Technology

Tech News

Podcasting

Gadgets

Software How-To

Education

Training

Language Courses

Higher Education

K-12

Educational Technology

Science

Physics

How To


Welcome Petr Dvorak of Beny Devices

A to Z book about KiCad
fancygit
lazygit
gitlol
Customer types
Brno – 30% of electron microscopes
What is changing in electron microscopes? Higher voltage, no noise
Electrostatic steering
Transitioning to freelancing
Regulations for freelancer vs employer
Petr is a prolific poster of electronics content on his LinkedIn
Show your work – Austin Kleon
3 years to get first client
1 month buffer of posts on LinkedIn
Building repetitions
Outliers / 10000 hours
Lists of projects
Constraints helping new engineers trying to learn electronics
8×32 pixel displays
Petr in Shenzhen
Gallup – top strength is learning
Personality types
Contact

Get a free eBook about KiCad on beny-devices.eu
Follow Petr on LinkedIn




#669 – Freelance PCB Design with Petr Dvorak




Mistakes in house repair for partners
Architectural Lighting
Power quality
Repairing a $4500 DAC
Invisible computers
Cal Newport on AI
AI shortform
USB C Spec
Tester
“50.0000 ohms”
HDMI Layout guide (ADI)
Bit Error Rate
My voice is my passport
Fake Dave
Hackers
War Games
Captain Crunch no longer welcome at DEF CON
Wifi (WLAN) Location API
Polar Semi gets CHIPS act money



#668 – 50.0000 Ohms


Welcome back, CNLohr!

CNLohr was on the last episode talking about the CH32V003 part and the CH32V003fun library
Charlieplexed errings
Fast iteration
Lohr-a…LoRa…get it?
LoRa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIdHBDSQHyw

Started in January 2024 with discussions with mustardtiger / Frank
Charles had done Wifi long range before
Also FM from ATTINY85
Ethernet + AM
Radio signals without radios
USB
Harmonics
LolRa
Upchirps / downchirps
903.825 – 903.975 mhz
Michael Ossmann talk
LoRa doesn’t do code matching
JP Norair talking about LoRaWAN / DASH7
Tool / emulator for the airwaves
3 lines of the repo
Tool to create tables
There are two 2 lookup tables (up and downchirps)
Table is different for differnet spreading factors and base frequencies
Andreas Spiess LoRa/LoRaWAN distance attempts
Spreading Factor — can’t past SF10 on this setup for unknown reason
AirSpy
Matt Knight
LoRaWAN — protocol vs network
The Things Network / Helium
Activation by personalization
Nesting dolls of encryption
New parts CH32V002 (also, -005, -006. -007)
Charles is excited about the op amp on the CH32V006 that has 64 MHz GBW
CH32V203 – 144 MHz – $0.24, has usb xcvr
CH32X035 is self clocking – best low cost option for USB
All are supported in library now
Community – CNLohr discord
Porting examples for the parts using the technical reference manual
MNIST database – handwriting recognition system
Announcement post on CNX about the new parts
It’s possible to hook up parts directly through the 1 pin SWIO, so you can hot-load firmware
Writing code onto a “scratch pad”
Want to see more CNLohr experiements online?

Youtube.com/cnlohr
discord: cnlohr reach out for invite
Github




#667 – Long Distance with CNLohr-a



Sickness
Starliner scrub
Boeing and the Dark Age of American Manufacturing
Toolkit for flying
Search industry
A380
EUV in semiconductors
EV vs PHEV vs ICE
Tesla sending emails to suppliers after laying off the Supercharger team
powerledger / POWR
Virtual power plant
DEYE inverter
Buying repacked batteries
AC Battery vs DC battery
Hybrid inverter
Colin Furze
TSMC running into problems with work culter after moving to US (Arizona)
Marketplace piece about jobs at semi plans in AZ
996
Photos of the new Samsung Fab going up on Google Maps
Chris asked on Mastodon about the best time to charge an EV
Duck Curve, which Chris first learned about on episode for 630
The costs of different aspects of a chip fab


#666 – Good Energy Citizen



Analog Cochlear Detectors
Voyager I is back online 
Sustaining engineering
Bobiverse books
Chandra telescope
Embedded World
Embedded World US in October
Trade shows in US
Travel budgets
Z80 obsolete notice
Rabbit instruction set
Dave trying out the Jumperless breadboard (lights up)
Uri
Robert Nelson
Bluetooth
Sigrok
Zephyr LLEXT
ZMK


#548 – The Last Line of Defense

Download our free app to listen on your phone