
MacroFab Engineering Podcast #299
Operation Scope Creep
Multi-layer PCB designs. As an engineer, how do you decide when it is time to increase layer count and how do you decide what goes on those layers?
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 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!
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October 20, 2021, Episode #299
Multi Gauge Progress / Prop_Fan
- Screen and navigation
- CFA635-TFK-KL
- Temperature
- LTC2983
- Thermistors
- 5V analog active sensors
- LTC2983
- Level shifter
- TXB0104DR
- Shift between the 3.3V MCU and the 5V LTC2986
- Power filtering
- Air Quality
- HPMA115C0-003
- PM2.5 Particle Sensor
- Sensirion SGP40
- VOC Sensor
- Sensirion SHTC3
- Temp and Humidity
- HPMA115C0-003
- Last thing to finish on the design is to choose how to protect the inputs on the LTC2983
- Demo boards only use in series 100 ohm resistors
Adventures in Plastic Injection Molding
- Stephen got the mold state side
- Second round of payment due
- Remember Duty/tax
- Did the first round of prototyping – looking to validate the mold with more precise control
- Material story
- Polyethylene
- Polypropylene
- Heat/Temperature/Pressure
- Material story
About the Hosts

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 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.
Credits
Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!
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The PCB Plague
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