Podcast Notes We would love to hear from our listeners. Tell us what you think, your current projects, any topics you would like us to cover, or just say “hello”. To reach us follow us on Twitter @MacroFab or send us an email at podcast@macrofab.com . Parker Jeep Radio Working! Article out soon. Uploaded a video last week about it . Modified my Tektronik TDS520 scope to have a USB stick. Replaced the low profile floppy drive with a emulated floppy drive with USB on it. Parker bought it here on e...
Feb 10, 2017•49 min•Ep. 54
Podcast Notes Aditya Bansal Co-founder and CTO of Kinetic Graduated Purdue University with a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering Worked at IBM Research Center before Kinetic Developed a motion tracker to move text on a display so the text stays still while running on a treadmill Mijael Damian Head of Data Analysis and Supply Chain at Kinetic Graduated New York Columbia University as a Mechanical Engineer Used to work with key.me which is a "physical key" in the cloud, key cut is stored in...
Feb 03, 2017•43 min•Ep. 53
Podcast Notes Parker 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 connected ESPlorer to configure the ESP8266 ESP8266 Node MCU LUA programming language Has an example server that lets you toggle inputs and relays via web browser Parker is setting up an IoT network at MacroFab to test the PLC and other ideas. The Giant LED Clock segment is ordered. Si...
Jan 27, 2017•33 min•Ep. 52
Podcast Notes Parker'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. ATMEGA2540 ESP8266 with expanded memory Protected I/O Relays Built 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 ...
Jan 20, 2017•44 min•Ep. 51
Podcast Notes Continuing 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 f...
Jan 13, 2017•25 min•Ep. 50
Podcast Notes Last 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 Hertz Vcc and Vdd Power and Ground SDA and SCL TX and RX Conferance McConferance Face Look for an online poll soon fo...
Jan 06, 2017•38 min•Ep. 49
Podcast Notes The 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: Fan...
Dec 30, 2016•41 min•Ep. 48
Podcast Notes Continuing 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 bo...
Dec 23, 2016•15 min•Ep. 47
Podcast Notes Part 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?
Dec 16, 2016•27 min•Ep. 46
Podcast Notes Part 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...
Dec 16, 2016•35 min•Ep. 46
Podcast Notes Part B Weapons of Star Wars (continued) Light Sabers Elegant weapon for a more civilized age. Lots of mystical lore surrounding this weapon. Force aligned crystals are necessary for their construction. How would the blade be created? Plasma? Use EM fields to constrain it. Blasters They are not laser weapons! This is why the projectiles do not travel at the speed of light. Gas cartridge and a power cell. 400-500 shots per charge. Gas can be mostly anything but typically is Tibanna –...
Dec 16, 2016•26 min•Ep. 46
Podcast Notes Part A Vehicles of Star Wars Tie Fighters: Twin Ion Engine. This tech exists but its super low power but efficient. Hovercraft and levitation. Land speeders, Pod Racers, Repulsor Lift technology. Magnetic levitation? Power: Fission batteries? A AA battery weighs around 23g. Convert it all to energy e=mc^2 and you get 2 quintillion Joules of power. 2,067,136,911,094,680,572 Joules to be precise. 16 Teslas to levitate a frog . This consumed 4MW of energy according to the paper. A “co...
Dec 16, 2016•38 min•Ep. 46
First Annual MacroFab Star Wars Christmas Special This is a reupload of Episode 46 into one continuous podcast. Originally it was broken into 4 parts. Vehicles of Star Wars Tie Fighters Hovercraft and levitation Power: Fission batteries? A AA battery weighs around 23g. Convert it all to energy e=mc^2 and you get 2 quintillion Joules of power. 2,067,136,911,094,680,572 Joules to be precise. 16 Teslas to levitate a frog . This consumed 4MW of energy according to the paper. A “common frog” weighs 2...
Dec 16, 2016•2 hr 5 min•Ep. 46
Podcast Notes Parker has a new update to the Jeep Bluetooth Radio Mod. To level shift the Bluetooth audio to what the TDA7340S expects, Parker is going to build a differential opamp . The Bluetooth audio adapter has a 50mV DC offset and a 1.9V Pk-Pk at max volume where the TDA7429L is expecting a 4.65V DC offset with a 800mV Pk-Pk. See Figure 1. Stephen has a crazy idea to make the "ultimate" inexpensive resistor standard . His plan is to use a big array of resistors that are in parallel/series....
Dec 09, 2016•28 min•Ep. 45
Podcast Notes Popping in last weeks audio was probably due to a cheap USB cable. Stephen and Parker recorded last week on a laptop with a USB powered mic preamp that has less then stellar power filtering and performance. Stephen is continuing work on his automatic brewing rig. Has a motorized ball valve to control the flow rate for proper mashing and cooling rates. Parker found the correct IC that is inside the Jeep radio. Part number TDA7340S . It is a 100% direct match to the pinout of the IC ...
Dec 02, 2016•39 min•Ep. 44
Podcast Notes This podcast was recorded at the MacroFab Engineering location. See Figure 1. MacroFab had its annual Thanksgiving Potluck today. See Figure 2. Parker has been working more on the Jeep Radio. Part numbers for the IC's are the following: TDA8563 : 2-Channel 40W power amp TDA7429L : ST manufactured 3 Band Equalizer Audio Processor TEA0675 : Dual Dolby IC Stephen brewed another beer with his electronic brewing rig. He has updated it to be safer and less likely to kill him. See Figure ...
Nov 24, 2016•42 min•Ep. 43
Podcast Notes Justin Knight and Brandon Knight talk a bit about their background and how they got into technology and startups. They have always worked together on projects and at companies. See Figure 1. Justin is the Vice President of Operations at MacroFab. Brandon is the Director of Customer Success at MacroFab. The Houston Maker Faire was a lot of fun for Brandon and Parker. Lots of MacroFab's customers where there showing off their new products. See Figure 2 for a signing fish. Another Kin...
Nov 18, 2016•56 min•Ep. 42
Podcast Notes MacroFab will be at the Houston Maker Faire this weekend. Stop by and meet us! The FX Dev board's crowd funding campaign is almost ready to launch. The video for it is in post production now. It is awesome and Stephen can't wait to upload it. The fixture Parker designed for the selective solder is working. Allows 16"x16" panels on the machine while supporting the middle with a magnet. Stephen has been adjusting the machine to make it fit. See Figure 1. Parker's LED clock idea will ...
Nov 11, 2016•27 min•Ep. 41
Podcast Notes Stephen has been working hard on getting the crowd funding setup for the FX DEV Board. Video is being recorded now. Should have something to show next week about the video. Parker's bluetooth radio hack for his Jeep is going well. Tested the module and it works. A spare radio to hack on arrived so Parker can get to work. The MacroDuino Rev 2 is working! To make the ATmega328PB work with the Arduino IDE, Parker used the Watterott 's ATmega328PB-Testing repo. See Figure 1 of it contr...
Nov 04, 2016•27 min•Ep. 40
Podcast Notes As mentioned in last weeks episode, MacroFab is moving to a new location currently. See Figure 1. Parker is going to hack his Jeep's radio this weekend with a Bluetooth Audio board. Parker is using this board found on Amazon . See Figure 2. Parker goofed on making the podcast notes and had that NXP was buying out Qualcomm. It is actually the other way around . Set for a $39 billion buy out. Botnet Recall of Things . This is a continuation of the IoT DDOS attacks that have been happ...
Oct 28, 2016•30 min•Ep. 39
Podcast Notes Trey German is back to give an update on completing the epic Icarus Trophy race. See Figure 1,2,3,4. Trey was previously on MEP EP#10: IoT's Cloudy Future . The Icarus Trophy race is a 1000 mile, unsupported, cross-country paramotor race that starts in Montana and finishes in Nevada. Trey is working on a Bluetooth connected device that fits in the wing of the paramotor. Using this he can get more flight information and data about pilot control input. It connects up to his phone whi...
Oct 21, 2016•41 min•Ep. 38
Podcast Notes MacroFab is moving soon. Fun times! See Figure 1 to see all the stuff we need to move. Parker has finished the first version of the Selective Solder Fixture . It uses magnets to support the PCB to prevent sagging. Files here . To calibrate the machines MacroFab is designing, Parker is working on the O.A.T.B. or Optical Alignment Test Board. It is a 16"x16" PCB panel that has markings and footprints of all sizes to calibrate computer vision systems. As a side project, Parker is gath...
Oct 14, 2016•31 min•Ep. 37
Podcast Notes First podcast and the first recording in the "Bomb Shelter" (name pending). See Figure 1. Parker is working on an adjustable fixture to work along with the Jig Of Destiny that is currently being used. It will have an adjustable slide to fit multiple panel sizes. The Macro_Duino has been fixed. Parker tied the FT230X 's VCCIO to the 3.3V output on the FT230X which is the standard way to do it. The I/O on the FT230X is 5V tolerant so this should be good. The 3.3V regulator on the chi...
Oct 07, 2016•30 min•Ep. 36
Podcast Notes Parker got the bootloader on the EFM8 working . The Errata shows that EFM8 chips younger then data code 1601 do not have a working bootloader. Should have an article out next week about using the EFM8 MCUs. EFM8 Factory Bootloader User Guide and the associated software . Has open source Python code for the uploader. DTR - Data Terminal Ready : RTS - Request To Send Stephen - "C is awesome" Parker thinks someone should make an IDE where you can click on register names and it will op...
Sep 30, 2016•36 min•Ep. 35
Podcast Notes Michael Lyons of Centex Paranormal pays us a visit. Centex Paranormal is based out of Austin, Texas. They design ghost hunting equipment. See Figure 1. New product out, EDI+. Has SD card data logging, humidity, air pressure, and all the data can be graphed onto a computer. Michael is using the BME280 sensor humidity and pressure sensor by Bosch . Datasheet can be found here . The EDI+ runs off of a STM32 ARM MCU where as the original EDI ran off a MSP-430. Michael did not know what...
Sep 23, 2016•28 min•Ep. 34
Podcast Notes Co-Podcast time with The Amp Hour's Chris Gammell. Parker finds new ICs through the subreddit /r/nicechips and subscribing to manufactures mailing lists. Chip manufactures should just advertise the specifications of new chips and link direct to the datasheets. Other sources for new parts and information are EEweb and Electronics Weekly . Parker and Stephen do a really bad job explaining what MacroFab does. MacroFab does end-to-end electronics manufacturing and operations for low vo...
Sep 16, 2016•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 33
Podcast Notes Stephen brewed a batch of beer over the last weekend with his new electric brewing setup. It is not complete yet but it does work. Stephen converted his brew kettle to include a 4500W heating element bought from lowes . It runs on 220 volts. At full blast it pulls ~20A. The enclosure for Stephen's brew rig is currently a USPS box. See Figure 1 and 2. Parker is working on an Audio Amp for Spooky Pinball . It is going to be based on the Gainclone . Instead of the LM3875 , Parker is g...
Sep 09, 2016•27 min•Ep. 32
Podcast Notes Parker designed the Macro Duino ! Basically a Arduino clone using Type C USB, a FT230X as the USB UART bridge, and proper power switching with the Ti TPS2113A . See Figure 1. Also supports 3.3V and 5.0V. Earlier this week Parker had an article about adding external Part Libraries and DRC rules to Eagle. Check it out here . Some new work on the PinHeck Pinball System . Parker is working on adding the Octavo OSD3358 to replace the Parallax Propeller as the A/V processor. Stephen has ...
Sep 02, 2016•33 min•Ep. 31
Podcast Notes Parker is working on streamlining the Selective Solder Process at MacroFab. Writing a script that will take XYRS data and generate the G-Code for the machine. Design work on a calibration board for visual systems like the SAIM and calibrating the Selective Solder is being designed. Stephen is getting the analog side of the SSPS working. The -35V rail has a blown transistor. He found that pnp transistors were flipped C to E! After testing the circuit node by node, Stephen found some...
Aug 26, 2016•35 min•Ep. 30
Podcast Notes Stephen is currently working on DipTrace part libraries and templates for DRC and CAM file generation. Should have an article out next week about it. GitHub repository for DipTrace files are located here . The BGA Escape article is complete! Read it on our blog . See Figure 1. Parker finished up the USB Type-C test board. Download the files here . He is using a Molex 105450-0101 USB Type-C that is all SMD. See Figure 2. Progress on the KiCad footprints and part libraries. Check out...
Aug 19, 2016•27 min•Ep. 29
