MacroFab Roundup for November 30th, 2018

Interesting Links and Articles

• Stealing Credit Cards from FUZE via Bluetooth
  • FUZE is “all in one” smart credit card
  • ICE9 reverse engineered the Bluetooth protocol to have the FUZE device spit out the stored credit card numbers
  • The hardware engineering behind the FUZE credit card is impressive
• Kapton: Miracle Material with a Tragic History
  • The rise and fall of kapton as a wire insulation
• A Concise Guide to Ceramic Capacitor Types
  • Covers the different classes of capacitors
  • Explains the 3 character dielectric code
• Choosing and Using Bypass Capacitors
  • Tons of detail presented in a way that takes away a lot of the mystery behind bypass cap choices
  • The intersil document on bypass caps is fascinating – “Mike Williams”
• Apple Plans to use its own chips in Macs
  • Moving from Intel to an in house design
  • ARM perhaps?
• Low Inductance Ceramic Capacitors
  • Changing from 0603 to 0306 style chip parts
  • For reducing the size of current loops which lowers the parasitic inductance
• Using USB Type-C on hobbyist projects
  • Updating the USB micro  connector to the new Type-C for USB 2.0 projects

MacroFab Engineering Podcast

MacroFab Platform Updates

• Continuing work on updating the look an feel of the MacroFab Platform to more closely align to the new PCB interface
• Improved performance on the parts placement screen
• Knowledge Base rework in progress

MacroFab IRL Events

• Twitter Chat Info
  • Join Parker on twitter to talk about PCB design, assembly, and the latest hashtags
  • April 6th Friday at 1PM CST
• Hardware & Electronics Engineering Meetup by MacroFab & Mouser Electronics
  • Parker will discuss Key Parts of an Arduino
  • Trey German will talk about taking off-shelf enclosures and customizing them
    • Trey was on the podcast MEP EP #10 and MEP EP #38
  • Date moving to April 18, 2018
• Houston Hardware Happy Hour
  • First Thursday of each month
  • Bring hacks and hang out
  • 6PM CST on May 3rd at Slowpokes