Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast

Podcast NotesParker wrote an  article about mounting holes! Stephen and Parker talked about this on the last episode of the MEP.The Open Source PLC that Parker and Stephen bought is working. Was able to get WiFi connectedESPlorer to configure the ESP8266ESP8266 Node MCULUA programming languageHas an example server that lets you toggle inputs and relays via web browserParker is setting up an IoT network at MacroFab to test the PLC and other ideas.The Giant LED Clock segment is ordered. Size of the PCB: 6.3”x2.6”86 0805 LEDs on the boardEach segment will pull 1.72A at 1.8VMounting holes for power inputFX Dev board has 21 days left. New video content to arrive tomorrow. A demonstration of how to build something.Stephen is still waiting on the greatest resistor in the world PCB to arrive. Should have an update next week.The synthesizer that Stephen talked about on EP#35 Surgical Synthesizers has progress! Feature creep: Midi to cvVCO Core Module - 6 wave outputsWave AnimatorVCFVCAADSR EnvelopeLFO507 components on the boardAuto Routers stink.IoT Beer Drinking! IMU data from a wrist strap can you determine how many beers you have consumed.A  global distribution agreement between Mouser and SparkFun Electronics brings access to 500 SparkFun products, including SparkFun’s Arduino Pro, RedBoard and LilyPad tools to Mousers website.Stephen and Parker discuss silkscreen markings for Diodes! Look for an article on this next week.Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

27 Jan 201733min

Podcast NotesParker's Jeep Radio should be finished next week! Will have a write up either on the MacroFab blog or his personal blog.Crazy awesome PLC for the SAIM we found. See Figure 1.ATMEGA2540ESP8266 with expanded memoryProtected I/ORelaysBuilt in Speaker and Screen$90!Stephen's FX Dev Board is 29% funded! Thanks everyone! New Content soon!FXdevboard.com is up and templates are available. Stephen just finished tubescreamer clone using the templates.The greatest resistor in the world is on order - Double Sided for resistors and caps.Will  Super Caps ever replace regular batteries?AutoDesk moves Eagle to  Subscription only. Free version, Standard is $100/yr or $15/month, Premium is $500/yr or $65/month.Has a chart comparing the price of Eagle per day and Coffee? Error in chart.LEDs categorized by product bin? Part Number: L130-6580002011001Digikey  ArticleStephen did actual silicon die ICs in college! See Figure 2.New to the MEP! Discussions about PCB assembly and design practices! Mounting holes on PCBs. What to look out for? iPhone inner layer repair video. Be careful with ceramic capacitors near mounting holes.IPC standard for board flex in enclosures?Let Parker and Stephen know what future topics you want to listen to.Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

20 Jan 201743min

Podcast NotesContinuing from last weeks discussion of the two conference room names at MacroFab HQ.Emmett Naughton on twitter says: Conference Room A: The Hertz Locker and Confernece Room B: The Thunder Ohm.Parker is making plaques for the conference room doors now out of PCBs.Space Echo Update! Last week Parker and Stephen asked for some clarification on some old school audio measurements so they could calibrate the Space Echo. Steve Kuehn a self proclaimed gray beard from Austin says the following. 0 dBm in the audio business refers to voltage level that will produce 1milliWatt into a 600 ohm load. But over the years, it refers to a voltage level even if you are not aren't using a 600 ohm load so it is a little of a misnomer. If you do the math, 0 dBm is the same as 775mVrms sine wave signal source. -50dBm would be 2.45mVrms.FX DEV BOARD IS LIVE!! Check out the Crowdsupply page and get one! See Figure 1!Dual solderless breadboards2.1 mm dc input jack for use with AC-to-AC wall wart+/- 15 volt @ 200 mA power supplies with over-current protection+1.25 to 9 V @ 150 mA adjustable power supplySplit voltage rail (1/2*9 Volt Rail) @ 15 mA for use as a virtual groundUser selectable power supply or 9 V batteryUser selectable power supply connections to breadboard¼” input and output jacks directly connected to breadboard“True bypass” switching to automatically switch circuit on and offMultiple integrated potentiometersUseful diagrams and tables written directly on silkscreenAmazon Echo Kill Switch by SparkfunALEXA KILLSWITCHBuild a power switch for the Amazon Echo that can be activated from a voice commandThe idea is simple: you say a particular phrase, such as “Alexa, trigger kill switch,” which activates an IFTTT applet that calls a function on the Particle Photon. The Photon controls a transistor that cuts power to the Echo.To turn it back on, you’ll need to press the button on the breadboard or create another IFTTT applet that causes the Photon to reconnect the power. Arduino powered HoneypotA honeypot is a device meant to attract/pre-occupy hackers, by providing something like a red herring to them; in this case, a system which looks and feels like an ancient bank credit card processing gateway from the 1980's... complete with slow-speed 1200 baud, and uppercase-only text.To see it for yourself, just use PuTTY (or actual telnet) to m80.ddns.net, port 23.Peeqo - Robot that responds with gifs  Best IoT “companion” robot of all time.Screen on the front with eyes. Has a complex animatronics inside for movement.  Ask it to do tasks and it will respond with a relevant gif and act accordingly if it feels like it. Build Log!Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

13 Jan 201724min

Podcast NotesLast week Stephen and Parker asked listeners for names for the two conference rooms so far these are the suggestions. Tony the DIYer - MacMinor and MacMajor. Some platforms the c struct that holds the mac address specifies it as a pair of major (32 bit) and minor (16 bit) values.Justin Knight - pagoda for the smaller room since it doesnt have chairs.Hertz and Mega HertzVcc and VddPower and GroundSDA and SCLTX and RXConferance McConferance FaceLook for an online poll soon for the name!Parker was testing a customers LED board earlier this week. Fed up with blinding himself with the bright LEDs he decided to wear a welding mask. See Figure 1. The helmet can be found on amazon.Parker took a welding class at TXRX Hackerspace.Stephen has been working more on "The Greatest Resistor....in the world.". Stats below! See Figure 2. Power: 0.0625w40,000 resistors = 2.5kWV = SQRT(P*R) = 5000V @ 0.5AVoltage: each resistor is 50v so 200 in series = 10kVTemp Coef: 100ppmEagle File Size: 3.888 Mb which is 40,485 linesSpace Echo just needs calibration. Anyone know how to generate these specs? Feed sin wave of -50 dBm into input (See Pg 16-18 of service manual).Space Echo RE-201 Service ManualPossible Thermal Camera to look at the heat up during powering? What kind of resolution would that camera need to be? Razer's Project Valerie is a radical three-screen laptop that unfolds with robot arms. Tri screen laptopMechanical KeyboardTesla turns on the  Gigafactory. More than 2,900 people are already working at the 4.9 million square-foot facility, and more than 4,000 jobs. No info about the batteries yet.The Other Kind of Bypass capacitors. Article not about normal bypass / decoupling caps but about feedback caps in circuits.Other words bypass caps for feedback circuits.Opamps have these internal feedback capacitors to reduce the high-frequency gain of the op-amp, in order to allow the amplifier to have a predictable transfer function that is stable at unity-gain.Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

6 Jan 201738min

Podcast NotesThe dashboard on the MacroFab website is new and improved! Will now show all the stuff you have going on at MacroFab. Check it out here. See Figure 1.Stephen finished up talking about the big resistor or doom project.Cherry Switches and Sensors are to be sold under the  ZF brand name. The switches we love in our keyboards should be unaffected. Extracting data from a mask ROM IC using acid to etch away the epoxy cap and then using UV to flip the read protect bit.Danger Close: Fancy Bear Tracking of  Ukrainian Field Artillery Units. A howitzer that uses an Android app?Why the  United Nations Must Move Forward With a Killer Robots Ban. "If we don’t get a ban in place, there will be an arms race. And the end point of this race will look much like the dystopian future painted by Hollywood movies like The Terminator”Flip-Pins. Add DIP Chip like pins to PCBs for use in breadboards.Police Want  Alexa Data; People Begin to Realize It’s Listening.  Murder investigation leads to a warrant against Amazon to release recordings made from a Alexa IoT device.Name our two conference rooms! Hopefully it will be better then Conference McConference Face.Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

30 Des 201641min

Podcast NotesContinuing on the Jeep Bluetooth radio hack, Parker designed the audio voltage bias switcher board. It will adjust the Pk-Pk voltage and DC offset of the Bluetooth adapter to what the radio expects. Ordered it through MacroFab. See Figure 1 and 2.Parker also started designing an amplifier for Spooky Pinball. Based on the  TDA7387 which is a 4 x 41 W quad bridge car radio amplifier. Designing it to be as inexpensive but as LOUD as possible. Currently down to $15.91 an assembled board in QTY 500. Need a beefy heatsink and powersupply to handle it.Stephen has been working on his Resistor of Death (name to be decided). By combining resistors in series and parallel, Stephen will be able to make a large high tolerance resistor. The best tolerance resistor on mouser is 0.005%. Can we get better than that with 1% resistors? N = 1/0.005 = 200 resistors FOR EACH PARALLEL/SERIES COMBO Total resistors = 40,000.Sorry RFO section got cut off due to a problem in the software recording. :(Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

23 Des 201615min

Podcast NotesPart D RFO What is your favorite Star Wars Character? Organic?Robot?Favorite sound effect?The prequels? Do they exist?Why do some Jedi disappear after dying and others don’t?What are we excited or concerned about most in the new Rogue One movie?

16 Des 201627min

Podcast NotesPart C Light Speed Travel Faster then light travel in Star Wars is accomplished by transporting the vessel to near light speed and then jumping to a “Hyper Space” dimension where faster then light travel is possible.In our universe an almost infinite amount of energy is required to go light speed. Possible if this “Hyper Space” is worm hole tunneling.Prosthetics Mechanics exist to make them work.General Grievous.Really great prosthetics but crappy looking trashcan robots exist in the same universe.The “Force” The force is actually the main character of SW. That’s why prequels suck.It’s expressed in the Skywalker family as the balance of the force. The Skywalkers will be the unbalance AND balance in the force.Fundamental problem with midichlorians – turns a mystic ‘non-scientific’ phenomenon into high school organic chemistry, but makes the force worthy of science or tech discussion.Force as consciousness.Is the “Force” possibility the control over dark matter/energy? 70% of the universe is supposedly dark matter/energy. Possible that The First Order from EP7 that they can control Dark Energy via the Star Killer Base and being able to stop light sabers.

16 Des 201635min