Circuit Break Podcast #240

Disturbed Solder Accuracy

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September 2, 2020, Episode #240

Do you get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside you when you find that exact electrical part you are looking for? If so, come listen to this podcast!

Parker

  • Got a fully automatic screen printer!
    • ESE US-2000X
    • Potentially lower our minimal paste size
  • Twitch Live Stream podcasts?
  • Amazon multimeter probes

Stephen

  • High voltage low current measurement
    • Don’t want to break the connection so a traditional ammeter isn’t going to work
    • Sticking with the read both sides of a resistor method
    • Caddock 1776-C681 high voltage high resistance high tolerance divider
      • 1/100 so 0 to 500v becomes 0 to 5v
    • ADC – MCP3551-E/SN
      • 22 bit
      • SPI
      • 2.4 meg ohm input impedance
    • Ideally the voltage divider has a “gain” of 0.01 but if the ADC is directly attached to the divider the gain is around 0.0096
      • Full scale would be 4.8V instead of 5V
    • Solution: add a buffer
    • AD8244BRMZ
      • Quad buffer 
      • Typical offset voltage of 100uV
      • Gain error of 0.03% max on +/-15v rails 
      • 10T ohm and 4pf input resistance/capacitance – 10^12
      • Gain error is now 0.009999999901 – Close enough
ESE US-2000X

ESE US-2000X

About the Hosts

Parker Dillmann
  Parker Dillmann

Parker is an Electrical Engineer with backgrounds in Embedded System Design and Digital Signal Processing. He got his start in 2005 by hacking Nintendo consoles into portable gaming units. The following year he designed and produced an Atari 2600 video mod to allow the Atari to display a crisp, RF fuzz free picture on newer TVs. Over a thousand Atari video mods where produced by Parker from 2006 to 2011 and the mod is still made by other enthusiasts in the Atari community.

In 2006, Parker enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin as a Petroleum Engineer. After realizing electronics was his passion he switched majors in 2007 to Electrical and Computer Engineering. Following his previous background in making the Atari 2600 video mod, Parker decided to take more board layout classes and circuit design classes. Other areas of study include robotics, microcontroller theory and design, FPGA development with VHDL and Verilog, and image and signal processing with DSPs. In 2010, Parker won a Ti sponsored Launchpad programming and design contest that was held by the IEEE CS chapter at the University. Parker graduated with a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Spring of 2012.

In the Summer of 2012, Parker was hired on as an Electrical Engineer at Dynamic Perception to design and prototype new electronic products. Here, Parker learned about full product development cycles and honed his board layout skills. Seeing the difficulties in managing operations and FCC/CE compliance testing, Parker thought there had to be a better way for small electronic companies to get their product out in customer's hands.

Parker also runs the blog, longhornengineer.com, where he posts his personal projects, technical guides, and appnotes about board layout design and components.

Stephen Kraig
  Stephen Kraig

Stephen Kraig is a component engineer working in the aerospace industry. He has applied his electrical engineering knowledge in a variety of contexts previously, including oil and gas, contract manufacturing, audio electronic repair, and synthesizer design. A graduate of Texas A&M, Stephen has lived his adult life in the Houston, TX, and Denver, CO, areas.

Stephen has never said no to a project. From building guitar amps (starting when he was 17) to designing and building his own CNC table to fine-tuning the mineral composition of the water he uses to brew beer, he thrives on testing, experimentation, and problem-solving. Tune into the podcast to learn more about the wacky stuff Stephen gets up to.

Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

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Failing to Electrocute the Chicken

The history banana connectors with Stephen! Then Parker brings up Elon Musk's Neuralink Implant for happy pigs and why projects take forever.

Ice cream solder paste equipotential

Ice Cream Solder Paste Equipotential

High voltage and low current measuring got you down? Stephen looks into how he is going to measure the specifications for his tubes.

Frictionless spherical cow transformers

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