Guests Zapp Chief Bling Officer (CBO) at AND!XOR During his limited free time he writes vulnerable C code, dabbles in Kicad, and trolls Arduino bot accounts on Twitter Never been seen at the same time and place as Batman...But then again, neither has Stephen Hyr0n A button pusher, easily replaced by a thousand monkeys with a thousand laptops, but manages to crank out firmware and hacker puzzles If you’re reading this statement, he already has root access to your computer We have had Zapp and Hyr...
Oct 31, 2018•50 min•Ep. 144
Gene Frantz - Chief Technology Officer for Octavo Systems One of the founders and the visionary behind Octavo Systems Professor in the Practice at Rice University in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Was the Principal Technology Fellow at Texas Instruments where he built a career finding new opportunities and building new businesses to leverage TI’s DSP technology Holds 48 patents and has written over 100 papers/articles and presents at conferences around the globe Has a BSEE fr...
Oct 24, 2018•48 min•Ep. 143
Misha Govshteyn CEO of MacroFab Founder of Alert Logic Christopher Church Founder & CPO of MacroFab Founder of Dynamic Perception Co-Founder/Chief Architect at Alert Logic Chris was on a previous MEP episode about the recent Chinese tariffs Supply chain hardware and software security This topic spurs from recent allegations from bloomberg about the possibility of a hardware supply chain infiltration in Super Micro Computer Inc, which may cause security concerns for servers owned by Amazon, A...
Oct 18, 2018•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 142
James Lewis Our guest this week may or may not be an Engineer or may or may not have Hair! James Lewis’ passion for teaching non-engineers has led to him to create the Bald Engineer Blog and the AddOhms video tutorial series With 15 years of experience in electronics, marketing, sales, and teaching James boils seemingly difficult concepts down to the core, so that anyone can learn what they need to finish that next great project Worked at Agilent as an FAE for oscilloscopes (for about 10 years),...
Oct 10, 2018•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 141
Parker RTL SDR functional setup? RTL-FM Seems to work fine for FM stuff AM works in direct sampling mode but I can’t seem to get that to work with RTL-FM Upconverter needed? Auto switching signals? RTL_FM also does not support stereo sound Might need a new option? R820T P7K5 Software Defined Radio? KiCad User improvements for MacroFab in the future KiCad Python API has awful documentation Particle Spectra Conference Workshops for IoT hardware and software MEP EP#122: Brandon Satrom and the LANoT...
Oct 02, 2018•59 min•Ep. 140
Parker Diagnosing power drops in the Wagon RTL SDR update? RTL-SDR for the Raspberry Pi Maybe a Live twitch session with some seasoned Python / SDR Peeps? Wrote about PCB Stackups for the MacroFab knowledge base Stephen Vox in a Box Power supply and Power amp have schematics Test Box Design for the power supply and power amp R.F.O. S QFMI Leaks new project #Watchy E-ink, ESP32 based, Accelerometer, 25 day battery life, Arduino support, and Open Source Productivity, Unfinished Projects, and Letti...
Sep 26, 2018•48 min•Ep. 139
We would like to thank everyone that entered into the MacroFab Design Contest: Blink an LED Sponsored by Mouser Electronics . The winner for the Pragmatic Blinky was Dillon with the Disintegrated LM3909 – 1.5V LED Flasher . The winner for the Most Complicated Blink was Paul Gallagher with The Bouncy Thief LED Blinking Machine . And The winner for the Wearable blink was Gerben with the Led eyelashes . MacroFab Engineering Podcast Favorite discussion Winner : Bobricius with the Solar-powered flash...
Sep 19, 2018•43 min•Ep. 138
Before we get started I would like to thank everyone that entered into the MacroFab Design Contest: Blink an LED Sponsored by Mouser Electronics. The judges are going through the entries this week and we will announce the winners on the blog and typical social media locations on September 17th, 2018. Stephen and Parker will announce the winners of the MacroFab Engineering Podcast Favorite on the next episode 138. Stephen Both Introduction and Design Posts for the uTracer are live on AnalogEng.co...
Sep 12, 2018•51 min•Ep. 137
Parker Wagon Chime Module Experimented with brake clean and that seemed to not remove the finish Any other suggestions? Wagon Powered Mirror Module Schematic complete and Board laid out Used DRV8872 motor drives SOIC-8 style package instead of SO-36 of the BTM7742G Just another project to work on Raspberry Pi - RTL SDR radio Wood front panel Tube preamp that runs off of 12V Touch VFD? Stephen uTracer blog post by the Designer New blog: Analogeng.com Hickok 5055 power supply RFO How we built a co...
Sep 05, 2018•57 min•Ep. 136
Parker Wagon Chime module Two ICS MC14001B MC14069 Interesting metal can for a speaker module Two transistors in a push pull configuration Replaced electrolytic caps and it kinda functions Powered Mirror Circuit RKJXT1F42001 BTM7752G Stephen uTracer complete! Cleaner signals? Lessons learned Things Stephen would do different if he could RFO Craig Rettew askes: “Cost comparison between 2 layer and 4 layer boards. Are 2 layer much cheaper? Would a 4 layer board allow for a smaller board area vs 2 ...
Aug 29, 2018•52 min•Ep. 135
John Teel Founder of Predictable Designs , a company which helps startups, makers, and small companies develop new electronic products Previously, John was on Episode 106 of the MacroFab Engineering Podcast where John spoke about making the product development process as predictable as possible Injection Molding Enclosure Design What is the general process of injection molding? Challenges of Injection Molding: Why does it have this “mystic” aura around it? Designing enclosures for injection mold...
Aug 22, 2018•49 min•Ep. 134
Parker Building the electronics for the Thermal Detonator Arduino Nano LM386 amplifier PinHeck REV8 update! PCM5122 moving on PCB Fabricating a rear window wiper for the Wagon Forum post on modifying a Dodge Durango rear wiper motor Stephen uTracer PCB arrived STM32 Microcontroller STM32CubeMX System Workbench for STM32 NUCLEO-L476RG RFO MacroFab Design Contest: Blink an LED Sponsored by Mouser Electronics Have entries already! The Bouncy Thief LED Blinking Machine by Paul Gallagher A simple cou...
Aug 15, 2018•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 133
MacroFab Design Contest: Blink an LED Sponsored by Mouser Electronics More information can be found on the MacroFab Blog Get your blink on! Parker MEP SAO was completed and an article was written about it MAX6682 breakout board working Time to finish the Jeep MCU board ? Wagon skid plate complete Stephen uTracer PCB finished Update on uTracer enclosure printing? RFO Learn FPGA Fast with Hackaday’s FPGA Boot Camp FPGA Bootcamp Al Williams is our Speaker at this months Hardware meetup in Houston W...
Aug 08, 2018•30 min•Ep. 132
Scott Swaaley Electrical Engineer from California Polytechnic State University Started his career rewiring 18th century tall ships Designed electrical systems for hospitals and data centers before becoming a specialist in renewable energy economics Had a career in teaching and working with students in makerspaces Founder of MAKESafe Tools YouTube Channels Scott likes Clickspring This Old Tony What is MAKESafe Tools? Bringing industrial-level safety to everyday shop tools with an easy to install ...
Aug 01, 2018•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 131
Chris Gammel over at The Amp Hour gave the MacroFab Engineering Podcast a shout out for our podcast with Chris Church for our Tariff discussion The Amp Hour also hit episode 400! Congrats! Parker MEP SAO Update Software almost complete What kind of LED patterns should I implement? Wagon skid plate welding Stephen uTracer update CNC work on the enclosure Feed rate and speed calculations R.F.O. Return of RadioShack? HobbyTown will start having a RadioShack Express inside Will be electrical compone...
Jul 25, 2018•1 hr•Ep. 130
Parker Connectors for the Jeep PCM where a perfect match! P/Ns Black Connector: 4-1437290-5 White Connector: 4-1437290-6 Grey Connector: 4-1437290-7 Still waiting on the MAX6682 breakout board GitHub Repo Ordered some MEP Shitty Add-Ons Zapp and Hyron ordered a set MEP EP#69: Incognito Mode MEP EP#109: Arduino, The Gateway Drug To #BadgeLife Brandon Satrom ordered one MEP EP#122: Brandon Satrom and the LANoT A/C control module repair for the Wagon A/C compressor was bypassed 2N4403 was all explo...
Jul 18, 2018•54 min•Ep. 129
Parker MEP Shitty Add-On EFM8SB10F2G based like the MacroWatch V2 15 addressable channels of LED blinking 23 Red 0603 LEDs in total Connectors for the Jeep PCM PCM connector locks are starting to break due to age Found an eBay auction with replacement connectors for sale that had part numbers printed on the connectors P/N Black Connector: 4-1437290-5 White Connector: 4-1437290-6 Grey Connector: 4-1437290-7 Update on the Wagon Carburetor rebuild Currently in a power steering pump saga Removing th...
Jul 11, 2018•53 min•Ep. 128
Chris Church The Chief Product Officer of MacroFab Founded MacroFab along with Parker Recent article Decoding Tariff Impacts on US Electronics Manufacturing What kind of items in the Tariff list will impact US Electronics Manufacturing? Passives, actives excluding ICs and diodes, mechanical components like switches, connectors, etc Assembled PCBs from China Shouldn’t see a huge impact from LEDs Short Term Impacts on the Market Pricing on most things won’t increase until existing stock gets deple...
Jul 05, 2018•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 127
Parker MAX6682 breakout board finished and ordered This is for the thermistors GitHub repo for the board files New Jeep, The Grande Wagoneer A/C doesn’t work as expected Found the FSM and Schematic Schematic for the A/C controls Page 31 Page 32 Schematic has four parts that control the A/C Compressor Evaporator thermistor Turns out this is a standard 5K NTC thermistor A/C temperature sensor Compressor Low Pressure Switch Standard part #4773763 Climate Control Box Stephen uTracer update Enclosure...
Jun 27, 2018•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 126
Robert Keim A graduate from the University of California of San Diego with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering Technical Director for All About Circuits Extensive experience in a wide variety of fields, including Analog design Firmware development Digital signal processing Power management Motor control Digital camera design Low-noise PCB layout System integration Designing for harsh environments Neural networks Software-defined radios Role of open source information in the EE communit...
Jun 20, 2018•57 min•Ep. 125
Parker MAX6682 breakout board to read the thermistors Engineer Spotlight on All About Circuits Ford Climate Controlled Seat Module Breakdown Peltier setup Temperature feedback is via thermistor 54K to 240K with the resistance around 170K at room temp Possibly a NTC 200K? Fan uses a LB11988HR from OnSemi 3 Wire Interesting setup to control the speed of the fan What part is Dpak with marking 065886A Stephen The uTracer 3 design update Full on scope creep Adding a STM32 mcu to control the relays to...
Jun 13, 2018•53 min•Ep. 124
Stephen The uTracer 3 A tube curve tracer that is very powerful. Some upgrades that are in the mix New interface for selecting socket connections - going to have 8 and 9 pin sockets with rotary switches for each pin Upgraded ground loop for measuring the grid current on triodes Integrated FTDI Transistor curve tracer (only tests the "positive" transistors PNP,N-Channel stuff) Lab Notebook: http://dos4ever.com/uTracerNotebook/Notebook.html#Plate SSPS - The entropy creator Parker New Article: Key ...
Jun 07, 2018•46 min•Ep. 123
Brandon Satrom Developer evangelist for Particle The founder of Carrot Pants Press Loves to talk about Javascript, open source, microcontrollers, robots, and what ever new shiny tool or technology that is currently distracting him Kitchen Sink of badges designed for Maker Faire San Mateo. Favorite Bagel Blinky of IoT Parker unboxed a Particle Photon Included in the box is a photoresistor, a LED, breadboard, and some resistors Parker built the circuit and programmed the Photon in under 5 minutes ...
May 31, 2018•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 122
Stephen Mute circuit design PDF of the schematic Is it really digital or analog? What is the defining difference between the two Parker Gameboy VGA project Added SN74LVC8T245 level shifters Designing a flat flex cable? Will document it on his blog Left to do on the schematic side of things VGA connector Possible L717HDEH15POL2 part? 3.3V TTL -> Analog VGA signal Going to use a resistor ladder Current dev board uses 4bit VGA with 500Ω, 1kΩ, 2kΩ, and 4kΩ ladder Serial Terminal? Never have done ...
May 23, 2018•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 121
Stephen Moving to Denver, Colorado Podcast will still go on in a remote form, similar to another popular electronics podcast Parker Posted on his blog recently and will be doing more! R.F.O. The Nintendo switch has been hacked – via hardware! First discovered by fail0verflow Switch runs on the Nvidia Tegra X1 platform Put the switch into a USB recovery mode by shorting out some pins on the Joy-Con Controller Then trick the Switch's USB stack by sending a bad "length" argument Allows homebrew and...
May 16, 2018•40 min•Ep. 120
Mashup episode with Embedded.FM Elecia White and Christopher White are the hosts of the Embedded.FM podcast It is a podcast dedicated to the many aspects of engineering Elecia and Christopher talk about the how, why, and what of engineering, usually devices The focus is bringing on guests and experts onto the podcast How to make Software and Hardware Engineers work better together Schematics for the Apollo Guidance Computer and their Kicad replica on github Announcements Twitter Chat Info May 11...
May 10, 2018•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 119
Stephen Fixing Jerry's Amp that picks up radio signals The Johnson Noise E34L Tubes Parker DAC Article Part 3 Complete DAC fixture parts arrived to finish Part 4 of the article series Details on the MacroFab plans for DefCon 26 Gameboy Update Check out the youtube video from the BenHeck Show Tried out the new Eagle V9 PinHeck update on the software side RFO PCB Grounding Star Grounds Plane and Plunge Galactic Grounding Analog devices article on grounding Tiny Arduino + FPGA = Sno Altera MAX10 ba...
May 02, 2018•52 min•Ep. 118
Trey German First guest on the MEP way back on EP#10 Second appearance was EP#38 Icarus Trophy Polymorphic Labs Stewart & Stevenson M1083 Announcements Twitter Chat Info April 27th Friday at 1PM CST MacroFab Monthly Electronics Meetup May 23rd 6PM at MacroFab HQ in Houston Brandon Satrom from Particle. Going to give a talk about IoT fundamentals. Houston Hardware Happy Hour May 3rd at Slowpokes Bring hacks and hang out Tags: electronics podcast, Icarus Trophy, M1085, MacroFab, macrofab engin...
Apr 25, 2018•50 min•Ep. 117
Stephen Using an oscilloscope as a dynamic signal analyzer Analog scopes Parker Gameboy update Code compiles! Quartus II still compiled my Gameboy Project 1.25mm? pitch 21 pin. Connectors are hard to find. Custom flexi cable to solve the problem? Should have board laid out next week Arduino Article Raspberry pi addon boards are called HATs - Hardware attached on top Missed opportunity for calling them pi plates :( RFO Fatberg follow up First mentioned on MEP EP#85 Space Engineers VS Caffeinated ...
Apr 18, 2018•53 min•Ep. 116
Stephen LM13700 Dual Operational Transconductance Amplifiers With Linearizing Diodes and Buffers built by Ti? All passive filter Not just a zero ohm resistor ;) Shift the phase Fixing a Kegerator Kegerator was out of gas R-134A Parker USB Type C article? Updating old USB 2.0 from MicroUSB to Type C? Going to finish my Gameboy VGA adapter Move to HDMI afterwards? BenHeck Show Giant Game boy runs an early version of the code RFO Amazon’s in-home delivery service now supports eight smart locks Help...
Apr 12, 2018•48 min•Ep. 115
