Sales

Weekdays:
8:30 AM - 5:30 PM CDT

832-564-0638

Support

Weekdays:
8:30 AM - 5:30 PM CDT

832-924-0146

No flex allowed

MacroFab Engineering Podcast #51

No Flex Allowed

Related Topics
Breadboarding for Success

This week we are talking about Breadboards. Is breadboarding a circuit or design still applicable in today's SMT component dominated world?

Datasheet Lore

What lore have you discovered in component datasheets? On this episode, Parker talks about how he picks electrical components and risk management.

The Name Will Arrive

The quest for the right connector for a project! The right of passage for any hardware electrical engineer starts with a connector catalog.

Other Resources

MacroFab Engineering Podcast
Blog
eBooks & Guides
Webinars
Videos
Case Studies
MacroFab Platform Help

January 20, 2017, Episode #51

On this Episode, Stephen and Parker talk about binned LEDs and what to look out for with mounting holes on PCBs.
  • 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 world is on order – Double Sided for resistors and caps.
  • Will Super Caps ever replace regular batteries?
  • AutoDesk moves Eagle to Subscription only.
    • Free version, Standard is $100/yr or $15/month, Premium is $500/yr or $65/month.
    • Has a chart comparing the price of Eagle per day and Coffee? Error in chart. See Figure 2.
  • LEDs categorized by product bin?
  • Stephen made an actual silicon die ICs in college! See Figure 3.
  • New to the MEP! Discussions about PCB assembly and design practices! Mounting holes on PCBs. What to look out for?
    • iPhone inner layer repair video.
    • Be careful with ceramic capacitors near mounting holes.
    • Kemet article about flex testing of ceramic capacitors.
    • Let Parker and Stephen know what future topics you want to listen to.
Figure 1: The Open Source PLC running on the Arduino platform.

Figure 1: The Open Source PLC running on the Arduino platform.

Figure 2: AutoDesk price chart error.

Figure 2: AutoDesk price chart error.

Figure 3: Stephen’s silicon die he made in college.

Figure 3: Stephen’s silicon die he made in college.

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 began his electronics career by building musical oriented circuits in 2003. Stephen is an avid guitar player and, in his down time, manufactures audio electronics including guitar amplifiers, pedals, and pro audio gear. Stephen graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University.

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

Related Podcasts

The pcb plague

The PCB Plague

Ever have PCBs that solder just will not wet and solder to? You probably thought it was improper soldering technique but that was probably not it!

Datasheet lore

Datasheet Lore

What lore have you discovered in component datasheets? On this episode, Parker talks about how he picks electrical components and risk management.

Avrdude all the way down

AVRDUDE All The Way Down

The Jeep Prop Fan project rides again! Well some iteration of it at least. Lets design an open source PCM (Power Control Module) for automotive apps!

The name will arrive

The Name Will Arrive

The quest for the right connector for a project! The right of passage for any hardware electrical engineer starts with a connector catalog.

Connector catalogs

Connector Catalogs

This is the last installment of Stephen's 'Adventures in Injection Molding'. We are going to recap the entire two year sage and close the book on it.

Breadboarding for success

Breadboarding for Success

This week we are talking about Breadboards. Is breadboarding a circuit or design still applicable in today's SMT component dominated world?