The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

You may have noted a few weeks off in September…Chris was busy with a new kiddo! Starship launch was awesome, but Blue Origin might beat them to market? Chris has been troubleshooting some boards he had made recently. It was pre-baby so sleep deprivation can’t explain some of the screw ups! PCB Carolina was a local tradeshow TechTechPotato talks about layoffs at SiFive. Article about the layoffs. RP1 show RetroPie Oversupply in the market is hitting some silicon vendors Dr Michael Burry (highlighted in The Big Short) has been shorting the semiconductor industry At the end of the movie the epilogue talks about how Dr Burry is watching water as well, possibly why he’s shorting semis? Chris wondered if Steve Sanghi mentioned why they’re still in Arizona while he was on the show Nuclear Diamond Battery video SnapEDA “off by one letter” error while ordering parts PCF85063BTL vs PCF85063ATL Scotty does a tour of the WorldSemi (makers of the WS2812B) factory, it’s awesome! Ben Hencke of ElectroMage makes the PixelBlaze, which is a great way to drive LED strips Dave was talking to past guest of the show, Andrea Morello, about future changes to Quantum computers China is turning off exports of Germanium and Gallium, which could impact the upstream supply for the chip industry, including around specialty semis. Breakdown Bunnie writes about why the US shouldn’t put restrictions on RISC V (agree!) KiCon has happened in Europe and China now, check out the talks on the KiCad YouTube channel. Future (distributor) was acquired by WT Microelectronics out of Taiwan Check out this 1975 tour of a UNIVAC manufacturing plant

Welcome Jeff Geerling of the Jeff Geerling YouTube Channel! Jeff sounds so calm one his videos because he records after the kids are in bed He started working with dad at the radio station when there was a transition in radio to digital / online. Jeff had an early job as a technology explainer while making manuals at the station. Jeff still makes videos with his Dad on the Geerling engineering channel  Ham radio vs broadcast 1 Million Watts on the Supertower Calling the FCC CamOX facility Keeping people interested during videos Mars 400 RPi clusters It’s a good exercise because it helps those building it understanding the limitation of spreading across computers Drupal website on cluster “The constraint gives me the story” A good starter project? Maybe the project pi cluster /r/homelab NAS, monitoring, VPN, pidramble Home Assistant ESPhome yaml files: better than xml, JSON is better Devices should only be added to the house if they are: Local, additive, private X10 Smart stuff in the house Interested in the embedded side LLM Jeff became Chris’s de facto Pi5 analyst RP1 episode PCIexpress Jeff discusses RISC V

Andreas Olofsson, Co-founder of ZeroASIC, discusses accessible ASICs and open-source impact on silicon designs. He explains the concept of chiplets and the basis of his company ZeroASIC. They offer a drag and drop interface for customers to create custom ASICs. Andreas also talks about the advantages of their assembly process and the potential of ZeroASIC in aerospace and defense. The podcast covers topics like ball grid arrays, system-on-module, AWS servers, ML chiplets, remote work in hardware development, and circuit design with Lego-like bricks.

Kathy Joseph, a physics enthusiast specializing in the history of the Cathode Ray Tube, joins Dave on an entertaining episode. They delve into the fascinating origins of the CRT, discussing the crucial role of Professor Plucker, the discovery of electron flow, and the artistry of Geisler tubes. They also touch on the discovery of x-rays, the challenges faced in the development of electric television, and debunking free energy scams. The hosts recommend 'The Nintendo Library' and reflect on their decision to quit social media.

James Adams and Liam Fraser from the Raspberry Pi Hardware team discuss the RP1 chip, RP2040 updates, sourcing chips, IP block updates, prototyping on FPGAs, openness in Raspberry Pi's hardware, and hidden signatures on the Raspberry Pi board.

Dave hangs out with experienced guest Fran Blanche. They discuss challenges in NASA's projects compared to SpaceX, building electronic tube testing racks, frustrations with file management systems, storage nightmares, challenges of the YouTube algorithm, and the mystery of model builders behind early rocket designs.

Chris is out of stock on Tindie and will no longer be a seller (though he was barely one to start with). Props to all the sellers out there! Media mail is a low cost post option in the US Colin Mitchell allowed people to pay with stamps instead of money orders back in the day There is always a struggle for hardware engineers to price a product at the value in the marketplace and not just the cost of parts Teardown of DHO800 Heatsink testing (live during the show) CFD Controlled depth routing We discussed Joe Grand’s thin boombox last time, Dave watched a talk where he explained more of the process Scotty from Strange Parts did an awesome tour of the JLC PCB Flex factory Skewed expectations Dave was wondering why during the production assembly of scope that they populated caps but not silicon Intel is investing in ARM, RISC V (say what now?) eBay U1273A meter Old stock 30 year old tek chips

Scott Williams, a guest who previously discussed the business of consulting, now dives into the technical side. Topics include an electronics project for bottle and can management, using Raspberry Pi CM4 for quick prototyping, the challenges of cameras in products, deciding between microcontrollers and microprocessors, selecting the right components, creating a bin sensor, evaluating tech stack components and IoT platforms, and the unpredictability of product design.

Chris joined the 2010s and got a step tracker, the Fitbit Inspire 3 There are commercially available teardown reports you can buy One of the sensors on board is well supported in Zephyr. This influences how Chris chooses parts. The RT500 (discussed by Aeden in episode 638) is supported in Zephyr and targets the smart watch industry Kalman filters are pretty amazing Dave blew out his other knee (!) and went to go see a Podiatry specialist to get his gait analyzed. He has “impressively flexible feet” Dave did a teardown of the classic Boombox from Say Anything Joe Grand made “The World’s Flattest Boombox” to showcase a piezo speaker. It was a really cool PCB! Joe Grand was also on The Amp Hour (twice!) Episode 60, one of our earliest guests Episode 575 in early 2022 when Joe was hacking on Trezor wallets eBay Garbage ninjas Recycling electronics uSupply video Part number stuff Chris has been putting a design through Macrofab. Chris and Parker were on episode 243. Tempo automation has maybe (probably?) shut down. There was a weird email that Chris shared. After the show, Chris found a post about how they’re down to 7 employees, so probably aren’t manufacturing any boards… Making a RISC V processor in 100 lines of Verilog!

Ian Johnston, an expert in calibration and repair, discusses topics such as the PDVS2mini DC Voltage Calibrator Source, production, China, CERN, ebay reselling, test gear, pick and place machines, assembly, automated test systems, and YouTube repair videos.