Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast

The Greek Tragedy of ADCsParker With the success of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module LVDS test board. I started putting together the PinHeck REV8 boardMore Python and OpenCV work (fun!) Have the webcam taking picturesAuto Crops and records all the images of partsLooking into a higher resolution camera, more info on that laterStephen Parts for the filter finally shipped!Started putting together the boardsLike the multi colored jumpersVeroboard - Strip Board Mouser Part Number 854-ST280 x 100 mm with mounting holesUse a 7/32" drill bit and a jeweler's drill to cut traces and brillow pad to clean upGoing to add a tube preamp to the synth output Already have the preamp built. Just need to connect it.  SchematicTritrix speakers and the nutube amp. Kicking up the nutube amp againThe speakers are almost built just need to paint and finish3d printed a plate for soldering the crossover toPick Of the Week (POW) Nuvoton NAU7802 - found on the Nice Chips SubredditPrecision low-power 24-bit ADC , with an onboard low-noise PGA, onboard oscillator, and a precision 24-bit sigma-delta ADC . Capable of up to 23-bit ENOB (Effective Number Of Bits)  performance.SOP-16 or DIP-16I2C$2.22 in singlesGotcha @10SPS, PGA=1Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) At Last, (Almost) A Cellphone With No Batteries! - HackADayUniversity of WashingtonThe first-ever battery free cell phone, able to make calls by scavenging ambient power.Not really a cellphone. Its really a remote handset for a base station.3.5 microwatts and transmits 31 ft away.Evaluation boards for USB type-C power delivery - Electronics WeeklyRohm has announced USB Power Delivery (USBPD) transmitter/receiver evaluation boards.15 to 100W

14 Heinä 201747min

Does the Simulation Match the Reality?Ben HeckendornRuns "The Ben Heck Show"Programs, designs, directs, and imagines at Spooky PinballIs the Castlevania expertChris Kraft Color Destruction Algorithm Program to convert HiRez images to LowRez for pinball displaysBuilt his first 3D printer from scratch in 2009Was a pioneer in the DIY 3D printer space

7 Heinä 20171h 7min

Reverse Biasing OpampsParker Been learning Python and OpenCVOpenCV is an open source computer vision libraryPyImageSearchSetup PyCharmUsing Requests to use and get information from the MacroFab APIBuilt a 3D printed chassis for holding a 5MP USB cameraTaking pictures of PCBs and removing lens distortionRPI3 CM PCB done Will be testing over the weekend6 Pack of beer riding on this board!Board does power up correctly.COMPIOT board Opamp blew up :( Symbol on Schematic unlabeled for the power inputs of the opampStephenStill Making the three synth modules (two envelops and one filter) Waiting on the CA3146 transistor ICThis is an obsolete partStephen wants to use it for legacy reasonsMaking some power supplies for tube mics (the same one that we made for JOSH). Have to figure out how to make a 6.3V or 12.6V high current rail along with a 200V to 300V low current rail.Stephen is going to use transformers that I have at my shop.One drops 120VAC to 10VAC and the other raises the 10VAC up to 230VACThe 10VAC rectified can potentially give 12.6VDC. If not I can drop it to 6.3VDC.The 230VAC rectified can become 325VDC.Pick Of the Week (POW) 130-in-1 Electronic Playground from SparkFunWith the closure of Radio Shack where would you buy one of these intro kits?$50 Is cheaper then Radio Shack even!Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) Fail of the Week: Museum Buttons - Hack A Day Industrial buttons are not really kid proofWood Lichtenberg - Instructables 12kV 35mA - Neon Sign Transformer PSUBaking soda in water as the conductor for electricityMarinate wood in baking soda water mix342,857.1428 ohms to pull the entire PSU loadQualcomm fingerprint sensor enables virtual home button - Electronics WeeklyQualcomm has developed an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor which can operate under the glass of a mobile device avoiding the need for a mechanical home button. It also detects heartbeat and blood flow.800 µm of cover glass and up to 650 µm of aluminum

30 Kesä 201732min

Joe Grand: The Origin StoryJoe GrandAlso known as KingpinComputer engineer, hardware hacker, product designer, teacher, advisor, runner, daddy, honorary doctor, TV host, member of legendary hacker group L0pht Heavy IndustriesProprietor of Grand Idea Studio.Our first guest to have a Wikipedia pageHas been creating, exploring, and manipulating electronic systems since the 1980s.Parker and Joe meet each other at the unofficial propeller expo in Sacramento. This what right around the time MacroFab was starting in 2013. Joe "flew" Ken's brand new quadcopter IRC channel #tymkrs on afternetJoe first discovered the hacker world at 7 years old in 1983.First online name was "black ninja" then went to fbi agent, astro zombie, autovahn, the youth, before settling on Kingpin.Joe's first hardware hack he remembers was the Ring Busy Device - you can still use the phone, but if someone called, it would give a busy signal. Built with circuit board from Radio Shack kit. Came with switch so he could turn it on and off.DEF CON badges - what’s the history? Joe is friends with the Jeff Moss aka Dark Tangent for a long time through bulletin board systems Joe had been giving talks for DEF CON for a long time and was approached by Jeff to make an electronics badgeBefore e-badges they had Laser cut , acrylic one , liquid filled badgeFirst electronic badge ran on a PIC10f202Badge hacking contest - 20 people hacked the first timeDEF CON 15-18 were years that Joe tried to challenge and one up himselfDEF CON 16 BadgeDEF CON 17 BadgeDEF CON 18 BadgeTooth tunes hackThe MacroFab Meetup in Houston is next week!

23 Kesä 201757min

Fire SticksThe next Hardware and Electronics Engineering Meetup page is live and will be on June 28th. Please RSVP if you plan on attending!The Stanford ValBal launched again with avionics components from MacroFab! You can see a live video on our Facebook page from earlier today and as always, track it with this site. Also check out episode 64 of the MEP where we have Sasha Maldonado and Paige Brown of the Standford Student Space Initiative!Parker Tested a new serial LED board for the pinball platform CLP6C-FKB LEDWS2801Draws 60mA LED8mA standby currentLaser the V-scored PCBs apartFinishing up writing the last of the EFM8 articles that Parker started last OctoberStephen Synth works but doesn’t. Not getting ACF, something isn’t biased just rightStephen will rip out some strip board and create an off board filterFinal version will have two envelopesThe current envelope works but Stephen doesn’t like itMutable Instruments Shruthi 1Pick Of the Week (POW) PD Buddy Sink : USB Power Delivery for everyone - Hackaday.io Projects Built by Clayton HobbsSmart power jack that plugs into Power Delivery enabled power sourcesTell it what voltage and current you need and it talks to the to any USB PD power supply to get you the juiceInternet of Fidget Spinners - HackADay Built by MatthiasESP8285 for communitcationAccelerometer to measure wobble and an optical switch to measure the rotation speedPOV - persistence of vision for graphicsProject Page

16 Kesä 201734min

Wrong VariantsDerrick from The Current Source sent in his stomp box as some "reverse" swag. Recommend putting an LED in the Bass' eyeball for power notification.Parker Finished and ordered the Raspberry Pi Compute Module LVDS test board.Started researching more about I2S Audio. Inter-IC SoundStandardized by Philips Semiconductor which is now NXPOne way to represent PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) AudioTAS5731Stephen Synthesizer Update Got the envelope working.Envelope controls the volume and signal amplitude.There was a hardware bug in that the envelope turned on before the frequency changed to the next note. Stephen fixed it in software by adding a small 10ms delay before opening the envelope.Pick Of the Week (POW) Kinda unusual this week but DRAGONLOCK3D printer files for dungeons and stuff.MonoPrice is having a sale on 3D printers.Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) Heads up – WS2812B NeoPixels are about to change! - By Particle.io 1. “RGB port refresh rate increased from 400Hz to 2000Hz, there’s LOW Frame Frequency and No Flicker appear in HD Video Camera, it improves excellent Large-Screen display effect.”2. “RGB port current-output reduced from 17.5mA to 16.5mA, it can’t be recognized by naked eyes and won’t affect the mixed OLDs & NEWs. However, it’s recommended to separate these old & new chips if your demand performance-critical.”3. “Old & New chips go all the way in PINs, application circuits, operating voltage, and PCB drawings, and the software is also fully compatible.”4. “Old & New chips are exactly the same as in Timing, Data transmission and Data structure. However, the Reset Time increased from >50us to >280us. It won’t cause wrong reset while interruption, and what’s more, it supports the lower frequency and inexpensive MCU. When the “Reset Time<280us”, don’t mixed up and kindly please make necessary amends.”Samsung to recycle millions of recalled Galaxy Note 7 phones - Electronics Weekly4 million phones have been recalled.All salvageable components, such as semiconductors and camera modules, shall be detached for test sample production purposes.Samsung also plans to join the EU’s R&D and test efforts to develop new eco-friendly processing methods.IBM unveils world’s first 5nm chip - Ars Technicanotable for being one of the first to use horizontal gate-all-around (GAA) transistors, and the first real use of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography.2D, 3D, and back to 2D

9 Kesä 201743min

Bits Flying InParker Ordered Compressor IoT Board. Will start on the Software side.Wrote an article about PCB board outlines and what to watch out for. It is waiting for Stephen to look over it and make sure it is not missing anything.Defining planes in DipTrace with board outlines vs Eagle.Parker has Vias that haunt him. Bad pinout designs for ICs can cause unnecessary vias in board layout. The LSM9DS1TR is an example of one.Stephen Synthesizer Update MIDI code problems and triumphsAudio clip of before tuning and after tuning.Frequency doubles for every ½ volt you put in for the VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator).Zener diode - Zener diodes leak - caused huge calibration issues with synth.The Zener diode was installed to prevent over voltage of the ADC.Lower frequencies were really sharp, higher frequencies were flat. Plot of IV curve now matches with data sheet.Basically Stephen characterized the Zener Diode leakage current!Article series for the synth - on modules and theory of operation. Block diagrams and explain how these work.Pick Of the Week (POW) Doomed ThermostatHoneywell Prestige ThermostatSTM32F429 processor ARM9 processorThis is starting to be the 1337 version of blinky. Hello Doom?It runs doom!Rapid Fire Opinion (RFO) TI reference design TIDA-01243USB Type-C™ and Power Delivery Minidock With Video and Charging Support Reference Design20V 3A (60W)Procedural generating random medieval cities - HackADayGreat for D&D.Generate a city on the go.Cool color scheme.3D printing D&D figurines? Stephen goes back on his opinion of 3D printers.Raspberry Pi named a finalist for national engineering award - Electronics Weekly Raspberry Pi has been named as one of this finalists for this year’s coveted MacRobert Award, the innovation prize awarded each year by the Royal Academy of Engineering.1% of the Global PC MarketSpecial thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!Tags: Board Outline, Compressor IoT, D&D, Doomed Thermostat, Hello Doom, LSM9DS1, MacroFab, macrofab engineering podcast, MEP, MIDI, Podcast, Raspberry Pi, STM32F429, Synth, Synthesizer, TIDA-01243, VCO

2 Kesä 201747min

Incognito ModeHyR0n Mathematician, Computer Scientist, & Systems Engineer making the world a better place with homebrew booze and electronic bling.Zapp Has been writing software since age 8. Eventually making a career in developing for Java systems. He has since been promoted away from they keyboard and his life is now MS Office and meetings.Didn’t know how to solder before DC23 .Arduino was his gateway drug - all 15 projects of the starter kit in a few days.Defcon Badges Official badge has a deep puzzle - other badges filled with goo and mechanical.Becomes part of the culture.And!xor - is unique - most people are hacking badges. Way more to their badges. Ways to hack between badges. Taco TownDefcon Event Hack everything from cryptography, cars, voting machines, bluetooth, lock picking villages, people will teach you if you’re willing to learn. Social engineering is a big villageVillages - way bigger than booths 2k sf each, have their own badges, demos, hands on events, IoT village20K - 30KDefcon for newbies - don’t bring a phone, no wireless, bluetooth, no photos. Just go, have fun and learn. Cash only.New Defcon Badge HackADay.io PageKickStarter PageSpecs Rigado BMD-300 SoCBased on the Nordic NRF52 BLE SoCARM Cortex M4F512kb flash64kb rom15 x WS2812B LEDs5 buttonsTilt switchLED used for ambient light sensingStandard SWD 10-pin mini headerExposed GPIOMicroSD w/ 2GB card included128x128 16-bit color display (ST7735)SECRET COMPONENTHas a Chip-8 emulatorCan run Tclish scripting codeHas built in games like Ski Free where Man Bear Pig chases youBOM and Gerbers might be open after Defcon.Bender has a 6502 as a brain/cpuHack defcon with beer - bring your own bottled corona, so you don’t have to spend $9 / bottle Hacking aka counterfeiting?

26 Touko 201753min