Iots cloudy future

Circuit Break Podcast #10

IoT’s Cloudy Future

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Tour MacroFab's ITAR-Compliant Facility

April 8, 2016, Episode #10

The MEP's first guest! Trey German joins Stephen and Parker to talk about Trey's latest project.
  • First Guest for the MacroFab Engineering Podcast! Trey German is working on an IoT platform using BLE and a small coin cell.
  • Trey’s device worked on the first revision! How often does that happen?
  • Trey used a really cool side mounted RGB LED. Part number OVSRRGBCC3 by TT electronics.
  • The widget Trey is working on is designed to be very flexible in its use. It is not so much a development platform as a flexible device.
  • Trey used to be an engineer at Texas Instruments and was the Launchpad Application Manager. He will miss training and teaching people electronics but will be doing classes in the future.
  • Stephen has begun working on the analog layout of the Super Simple Power Supply. He has finished designing the power block of the supply. We deem this the Energon Cube. See Figure 2.
  • There is a really cool video about assembling the TR-1 which is the first commercially manufactured transistor radio. They used a ferris wheel of molten lead solder to solder the PCB and parts similar to a wave solder machine except a lot less OSHA compliant. Wiki link for the TR-1.
  • Parker wants to build a vapor phase reflow oven. Sous vide for PCB boards!
  • Trey, Stephen, and Parker talk about what kind of connectors they like and hate. Parker has a really cool pogo pin that works on 50mil spacing 2×5 J-Tag connectors. Part number 100803-011.
  • Revolv is going to turn off the servers for the IoT home automation. This will brick consumer devices. Is the era of IoT bringing an end the concept of owning hardware?
Figure 1: Trey German’s IoT platform PCB

Figure 1: Trey German’s IoT platform PCB

Figure 2: 3D rendering of the Energon Cube for the Super Simple Power Supply

Figure 2: 3D rendering of the Energon Cube for the Super Simple Power Supply

Figure 3: Exploded view of the Energon cube for the Super Simple Power Supply

Figure 3: Exploded view of the Energon cube for the Super Simple Power Supply

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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