MEP EP#102: 8 Bit Rupee Wallets

Podcast Transcript

Host 3     00:10

Hello, and welcome to the macro fab engineering podcast. We are your hosts, Steven Craig

Host 2     00:15

And Parker Dohmen. This is episode 102. So Steven, using assembly layers, we're gonna get right into the topic, just jump

Host 3     00:24

Right into it. Earlier today I was I was on my computer and I was like, Oh my gosh, we got podcast today, and I don't have anything to think about. And it's funny, like I'm thinking about the entire time, I'm laying out like three PCBs, I got like a whole bunch of PCBs all over the place, and I'm laying them out. And then I was, I was messing around with my assembly layers and PCBs. And I thought about I was like, hey, that would be a fun topic to talk about, because assembly layers are kind of weird, but not at the same time. They're weird in the fact that like, what are they like, what are they good for? Kind of thing? And so I thought it'd be fun to just talk about that. Okay. Yeah. So, real quick Parker. For a two layer board. There are 10 files effectively, you need to send to a manufacturer to get a PCB to get a PCB. What are those 10 files?

Host 2     01:12

Border outline? Yep, top silkscreen, top solder mask, top copper, bottom silkscreen, bottom paste, bottom copper drill file.

Host 3     01:27

And then you miss top paste. And basically, basically, it's you and there's a drill file. So you got four layers on top four layers on bottom, you have a border outline and ml file. And with those 10 files, most manufacturers can make any kind of PCB. But if you look at EDA tools, there's a ton of other layers that are available, especially Eagle. Eagle has like 255 Yeah, possible

Host 2     01:56

Layers. Originally, were dead for an eight bit. Computer.

Host 3     02:00

I bet you it had to that numbers too convenient. Like, like Zelda is wallet in the for Zelda. Yeah, he can only hold 255 rupees. Yep. Yeah. So the, the assembly layers, excuse me, they're not something that you normally use. But they can be incredibly useful. So what I kind of an example of what I've been using them for, I've been building PCB stacks, like assembly layers, effectively, that are multiple PCBs, that all linked together in order to make one unit. So you have a panel, and then you have a PCB underneath that panel that has all the controls on it. And then underneath that you have most of your processing circuitry and things like that power. And so they all kind of have to 3d stack together. Mm hmm. So what I've been using assembly layers for is I'll make basically outlines of components that are on the PCB above whichever one I'm working on. And I'll plop those on my PCB. And then if I ever need to, like have a header go through the PCBs, I can see sort of like pseudo 3d, where the

Host 2     03:05

Yeah above it. Yeah. So that way, you don't punch your header, right into a capacitor,

Host 3     03:09

Or Yeah, or something like that, right. And so instead of like having to design two PCBs at the same time, I can design one knowing that there's stuff up above. So assembly layers are kind of just like, you can use them as catch all there's, you don't need to have anything in them. But if you want to have information in them, you can. And so I've sort of been using them, like I said, it's kind of like a, like a crunch layer in a way where I can crunch all my PCBs into one view effectively, but I can work on one PCB, and just by toggling my assembly layers on and off, I can turn off all the other PCBs and just focus on what I'm doing right there. Yeah. So it also works really well. Like, if you're doing like, PCB, and let's say your enclosure has, like, I don't know, some kind of piece that has to lay across the PCB.

Host 2     03:56

Well, they've got um, enclosures that like your PCB slides into Yeah, and so you would have to come in, like, you can't have a part that's like, right on that edge for it's gonna slide into the enclosure,

Host 3     04:08

Right? So you can you can use you the assembly layer to indicate where the PCB is actually going to make contact. Yeah, the board. It's also good for just throwing a bunch of text that you don't want to end up on the PCB. But you want to still be able to read.

Host 2     04:23

Yeah, and Eagle I use, it's called a document layer. I use that for that purpose. Well, and

Host 3     04:28

They come in a bunch of different names. Yeah. There's there's assembly, there's document layers, and there's mechanical layers. Yep. So mechanical layers, actually. They're actually all the extra layers above and beyond the 10 that Parker said earlier, are kind of just like anything goes layers even though they have a name. There's nothing specific you have to put in them like in a copper layer. You have to put copper. Yeah. But in any of the other layers. I guess the other 245 and Eagle Yeah. You can just put whatever you want, sort of shorter. But, but like for mechanical layer, let's say you had like a, like a screw that was going through your board, you have the hole for the screw, but the head of the screw is actually going to be larger than the hole, you could draw that screw head on your mechanical layer and visualize the screw in. Yep. So it makes it really convenient for doing anything above and beyond like, metal on fr for

Host 2     05:25

Yeah, I use the, the assembly layer for doing like micro SD cards, because micro SD cards that connector are usually spring loaded. And so there's a way you press the the card into goes in X amount, and then it pops out Y amount. And so you want to be able to have that connector at the right, you know, away a distance away from the edge of the board. And you got to plan for your enclosure. So you have to because you know your fingers got to be able to press into the enclosure into the gap with the microSD card. Is that right and get past the D dent? A detent. Yeah, and then snap the board up the

Host 3     06:05

Ritz you put the farthest extent and the minimum extent of the SD card.

Host 2     06:08

Yes, it's gauging where that should be. So I draw that on the on the I think I draw that on the mechanical layer. Yeah, cuz it's a mechanical thing.

Host 3     06:18

Yeah. And I've done things similar to that. Like, if I have a potentiometer that sits on a board 90 degrees to the PCB, and it needs to go through a hole in my enclosure, That's 90 degrees would draw a on my assembly layer, I'll draw a dimension that goes from the centerline of the pads of the PCB to where that potentiometer would bottom out on the face of the enclosure. Such that I know if I move my board such that all the potentiometers are, you know flush with that face, I can then put my screw holes in my enclosure in a normal fit. Yep. And it's really nice for that kind of stuff. In fact, in this in these board stack cups that I've had these triple ports TechOps I kind of got goofy and in the bottom board of the stackup. I didn't want to have any components on the backside. So all the components basically face upwards. Yep. But it has trim pots. So in order to access the trim pots, what I decided to do was cut a hole in the PCB above it, such that you could hold it and put a put a screw through it. Yep. But if you look at a trim pot, a lot of the like, through hole trim pots, the actual head that rotates is not dead center to the component, it's offset a little bit. So what I did was when I drew the footprint for the potential ometer i on the assembly layer, I also drew what the dimensions were from its center point to where that is. So when I'm designing the board that goes on top that he's done, you know that that assembly dock and then just apply an offset to a hole in it. And what's cool is once you once you get all that you just upload all the Gerber's for both boards into one Gerber viewer, and you can see right through the hole and see that hey, everything got aligned,

Host 2     07:59

You should do you should invest in some RF tuner screwdrivers if you don't have any of those little pocket protector ones. No, no, the RF two new ones are plastic. Yeah. And so you don't if you if you're reaching into a tiny hole to reach that and you slip with a metal screwdriver, you're going to put that Mel screwdriver into your PCB in short, something. Yeah, so use a plastic one. Yeah. And the reason why they use the plastic one Sue's because it's for RF tuning of inductors. And you're moving the you're actually moving the inductor core up and down in the reactor changing

Host 3     08:32

The tunings. Yeah. Also you don't want to conduct anything down with your hand. Yep, just touching it is enough because

Host 2     08:38

When I was learning electronics and tuning these inductors and stuff, I didn't have a RF tuner screwdrivers. I just use a metal one. And so what you do is just move it you put it in, it would completely mess up the image on the Atari. Yeah, right. And so you would just turn it just a little bit and pull out the screwdriver. See what and see what and so it takes a long time. Yeah, yeah. But it's super trial and error. Yeah, super trying. They're the same thing is because they had metal shielding over their entire their main board that was inside the Atari. Yeah, they had heavy heavy pot metal RF shielding, and but they had a whole word the tuner was so you didn't have to take the whole thing apart. Ah,

Host 3     09:21

Okay, that makes it easy. Yeah. Cool. Well, the the trim pot turn well the trim pots I got are 25 Turn guys, so they're really accurate. And they have a specific tool to turn them and it's a screwdriver. It's a flathead screwdriver but it has a shroud that fits over that such that it'll grip the top of the Turner and surround the top of the turn at such at your at you once you engage agent slip off yep. So it allows for you to you know, hold your tongue at the right angle and get it just right

Host 2     09:47

You need to post that part number because I've never heard of that before. Yeah, sweet.

Host 3     09:51

You know I used to have a whole bunch of them and then I can't find them anymore but they but they literally have a you can put them in your pocket. They have like a little whatever that little Tang is that's on the side of a pen. Oh, yeah, like the most ultimate super nerdy thing.

Host 2     10:04

Yeah. If you go to a trade show, and someone's got one of those in their in their pocket protector, you know, they're a great beard.

Host 3     10:10

Oh, yeah. Because he is like, you know, trim pots anymore. Yeah. Besides me. And on top of that, who would have it in your front pocket? Yes. Because you use it every day. Yeah, yeah. So it's ridiculous. You know. So I guess there's one other thing that came to mind, when I was thinking about what to talk about assembly layers with, there's one of the thing that actually makes them really super convenient. On top of that, is, if you're working for somebody who requires you to have drawings, or fab drawings, or anything of that sort, you can put your title blocks, you can put your page, you can put everything on an assembly layer, such that with one click of a button, you can pull the entire page up with all the notes and all the other stuff. So you can you can design the board, you know, semi separately from the drawing, press, you press the assembly layer on, and then you have a full drawing.

Host 2     11:02

It's very assembly layers are starting to bridge the gap between electrical engineer and mechanical engineer in drafting

Host 3     11:09

Really, really pseudo AutoCAD, yes. And it's sort of nice, because a lot of tools, you can export DX F. So let's say Take, for example, the inside of an oscilloscope, you ever see they have the big aluminum blocks that are milled, yet that PCB screw to? Well, you know, I'm sure that those blocks are a combination design between some mechanical designers, some industrial designers and some electrical engineers, but I wouldn't be surprised life at the electrical engineer. Yes, he wants the circuit to be right. And then in he can export his assembly layer to the mechanical guy. And that guy just goes an extruded into whatever aluminum or Mills or whatever. And so it's it kind of makes it super easy. He doesn't have to napkin drawing out his aluminum design yield or what? Yeah, so, you know, it's, it's a way for us electrical engineers to pretend to be mechanical. So that's my assembly layer. And yeah, that might be useful. Yeah.

Host 2     12:07

And, and the other use case for assembly layers I've seen is for indicating like pin one and rotation, because you can actually like right on, like, because you don't sometimes you don't want that information on your silkscreen. And but you need to note, okay, this is a really funky led that lays sideways. And so you'll draw that in, right? And yeah,

Host 3     12:30

Well, and you can always write yourself notes. Yep. Like a lot of times, people will write notes on a schematic for the PCB guy, like, maybe some maybe some guys working on a schematic, and he's got a switch mode power supply on there, where he knows that these four resistors need to be in a really tight loop. He can write a note on the schematic, basically transfer that to the assembly layer and give it to whoever's laying out and then that guy just pulls up the assembly. Langes O, R, one, two, and three all need to be really close together. So it's nice for new and things like that. Yeah. Just quick, dirty work that. It's it's the stuff that not everyone needs to see. But some people do. Yep.

Host 2     13:08

Cool. Cool. Yeah. So this Friday, I'm giving a Hackaday IO talk. Oh, really? Yeah, it's there. You know, Hackaday chat thing. Yeah. Yeah. So they asked me to do a chat about macro crap. So I'll be doing that this Friday. January 12. At 12pm Pacific time. Nice. Yeah. What

Host 3     13:28

Are you guys gonna be talking about? Everything macro fab? Like really?

Host 2     13:32

Okay. So it's production, what machines we have. They can ask me questions about electrical design. I said, I told him, You know, I'm not an RF guy or anything. So like, keep it to like, you know, digital world stump him. Yeah. The zeros and ones and and, you know, is it pulled to one? Yeah, yeah. Right, right. That's still my favorite joke. So yeah, this Friday at 12pm. So probably, we're trying to get this podcast out on Thursday. So people can know about that. Okay, cool. Because usually, this podcast would come out after that chat would have happened. Because it comes out this podcast comes out on writes cuz that's Friday at 10 o'clock our time 10 o'clock our time. So it'd be two hours ahead.

Host 3     14:18

Right, right. Well, cool, cool. How long? How long is that gonna be like an hour, so I think

Host 2     14:22

It's two hours long. So and the great thing about it is like, I don't need to shave or like, get cleaned up, or I think it's just chatting reasonable. Yeah, it's just chatting. It's just like the podcast. Oh, is it a video chat? Or no, no, just just type the chat. Oh, good thing about it is like, yeah, it's like the pocket. It's like we don't we don't do a video cast. Because then we'd have to look nice.

Host 3     14:45

And second of all, nobody

Host 2     14:46

Wants to look at us. Yeah. So in the moment they invent smellivision like, this is done.

Host 3     14:51

This podcast is done.

Host 2     14:55

I think every single engineering podcast would be done.

Host 3     14:58

Oh yeah, for sure.

Host 2     15:02

All right, and then I got an update from last week. That d s o 138. Scylla. Scope. Yeah, yeah. So I started looking into like, how do they get so cheap? And zap from the Slack channel said it was because the main reason is because the STM 32 F 103, which is their main microcontroller on it legit ones like the cheapest. There's like, there's like several chips in this family. But the cheapest one was $2.36 in quantity on Mouser. Okay, which is pretty cheap for my controller. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's what you're but you're talking like the clones were $2 to buy the same.

Host 3     15:47

Oh, yeah. The fully assembly simple green. Yeah, everything connectors. And

Host 2     15:51

So you can go you get questionably sourced units of this microcontroller for under a buck.

Host 3     15:57

What is questionably shorts mean? Like Alibaba? Oh, yeah. A couple people to get these chips to So apparently,

Host 2     16:03

It's it's actually widely cloned. Really? Yeah. Huh. So that's, that's why is they this microcontroller is a widely cloned St. St. microcontroller. Haiku

Host 3     16:16

Char, on microcontrollers, really that easy to clone?

Host 1     16:19

I have no idea. I've never tried.

Host 3     16:21

They, I know how chips are made. And usually, it's really difficult to do. So I'm always kind of shocked when when there's a clone that comes out? Because you could you could, you know, acid, etch off everything. And then snapshot all the layers. Yeah, and then reconstruct it that way. Or you just, you know, steal the

Host 2     16:44

Steel the plans from like, whatever Chinese factory these are built in? That's actually probably the easiest

Host 3     16:49

One. Yeah, that would be way easier. Yeah. Then reverse engineering. Because regardless of how accurately you measure and make every wire bond, perfect in yours, you have, it's so hard to know how much they doped with and what their original silicon was like, and maybe it doesn't matter nowadays, maybe maybe like, especially in a digital circuit like this. Maybe if you're, I don't know, if your cocktail of silicone is a little bit off, it's not gonna be a big

Host 2     17:15

Problem. That's the thing is a lot of the clones can't run as fast. Oh, that will? Yeah. So so getting the material science off a little bit?

Host 3     17:22

Probably. Yeah. Because it's so sensitive to how powerful your your like how deep you push boron

Host 2     17:30

Into arsenic or gallium or whatever using? Yeah,

Host 3     17:33

I mean, from from the stuff that I worked with. It wasn't like, if you do it a little bit off, it just won't work as well. Like, if you do it a little bit off, it just won't work at all. Yeah. So I don't know. It's that's cool.

Host 2     17:44

And it could be, you know, the chips would just run, you know, on Saturday.

Host 3     17:49

Or they run really hot. Yeah, yeah. So no, no, no, I'm

Host 1     17:54

Talking about they run the fab on a Saturday. No. Chip only

Host 3     17:58

Just decided to work on Saturday.

Host 2     18:01

That's it. That would be the most frustrating hardware to debug ever. You know, Chip just decides only to run on Saturdays. Yeah,

Host 3     18:09

I had a professor. No, this guy was loopy beyond belief. So I don't know how true this is. But he did. He didn't tell this to me. He told us the entire class. He said that. Chips, but silicone specifically actually changes throughout the year. It has different characteristics as a year goes around, and it's measurable. And nobody knows why right now. But it kind of it doesn't age, it just changes throughout the year. So I you know, I'd love to know more about that. And like I said, this guy was really weird. So I don't know exactly how true that was. But he was willing to tell an entire class that what that's worth Yeah.

Host 2     18:51

Okay, what's next? Okay, so last night, I started working with this piece of software called Octo print. I think we talked about this a little bit last night. Yeah, we're playing video games. But um, yeah, but basically, it's a piece of software that you run on your Raspberry Pi, to control your 3d printer. And allows you to like, see charts and graphs and be able to move the gantry around and all that stuff. And you can load wirelessly up through because it's all through the browser. So you connect to the Raspberry Pi over your network. Oh, so you Okay, unplug the SD card and plug it back in?

Host 3     19:27

So I was about to say like, is it an SSH kind of thing? But no, it's just a browser?

Host 2     19:31

Well, it's probably using an SSH tunnel or Yeah, to do it, or something similar. But

Host 3     19:37

But you're not digging right into the terminal.

Host 2     19:41

To set up a lot some of the stuff like the more advanced configuration, you have to okay, but yeah, it's actually really well done. And it this is like we you know, we kind of sometimes rag on open source projects stuff. This is like the best one I've come across really, Software wise because one They give you the option to just download a Raspberry Pi image that you just slap on an SD card and it works. Oh, that's awesome. And then they also give you really, if you wanted to really detailed instructions to build it from source, if you want it to, if you like that, yeah, but it's like, they don't just give you the source. There you go. Here's how you build it. Oh, that's cool, which is really nice. Yeah. And then so I got it all working. And I got it. So I was talking over my browser, that was all good, but I couldn't get it to connect to my printer. And so I'm like, Okay, it's probably because I have a Monoprice ultimate 3d printer. And I'm like, okay, something's funky there with a USB connection. And so I started Googling this. And the first result was, I have to set my BOD rate, and my baud rate was set to auto. Okay, but apparently, sometimes it will get confused and think it's communicating correctly, and it's not. And so I just basically had to find the baud rate for my printer. And the first link, someone said, I tried this setting, and it works. And so I tried that setting. And it worked. Oh, I thought

Host 3     21:03

You were gonna say you hooked it up to a scope and counted pulses. No, no,

Host 2     21:06

No. Not that advanced. I basically just had to hit one Google link. Sounds pretty sweet. Nice. And so that was

Host 3     21:13

At least it wasn't a guy who was just like, I fixed it. And that's all. That's it?

Host 2     21:16

Yeah. That's actually almost what it was. It was like, there's like three pages. And then like, the last thing was, this baud rate works. Nice. So I was like, that's cool. And then I couldn't get my webcam setup working, because I was using a non official webcam, and I use some special webcam streaming. Although a

Host 3     21:37

Webcam into the PI. Yeah.

Host 2     21:38

So you can actually view it through your browser. Okay. They use some, I can't remember the technical term for the software, but it's a really stripped down driver, that allows the streaming to happen with a lot less overhead. So more of the pi power can be used to talk to the printer and actually run the Printer. Yeah. And so I was like, USB webcam OctoPrint not working. The first link was this is awesome. The GitHub issue. Someone made an issue on their, their, their GitHub. Yeah. And, and how to fix it. Well, that's all the commands run. Basically, all you have to do is tell OctoPrint in its config file, what USB ID to look for, because it doesn't have that USB ID and it's repository to look for. And the webcam keeps spitting that out. Yeah. And so you just type in, I can't remember the right command, but it tells you the USB ID of the webcam, and then you go, you type that in the config and reboot, and bam, it works. That's awesome. So it was it was the combination of really good documentary good software, made a really good experience. Hey, so cool. I'm gonna have to check that out. So tonight, I want to I designed last night, a little holder that will clip on the side of my printer, and then I'll mount my camera on it. And then I'll probably stuff all the Raspberry Pi guts into the bottom of the printer. Is the room down there. Yeah, cool. That base is like half empty. So I'm going to sticky foam tape everything in there. And yeah, that should be pretty sweet.

Host 3     23:13

That's cool. So you can be at work. And if you come up with an idea, you can fire it up.

Host 2     23:17

So that not yet. Oh, really? Not yet. Because that's only on local. Oh, but they have this other guy made this app for your Android phone called Print droid. Hmm. And using that you can look you can basically access OctoPrint through an app on your phone on the local network. But there's a way to make it work over the internet. Well, couldn't you just punch a hole in your router? And that's the whole set? Yeah, yeah, the punch a hole and set a static IP and bunch of stuff. Sure. Okay. Yeah. And yeah, and you can access OctoPrint over the internet. I'm actually really hoping I could find someone that I can just pay five bucks a month and just it would work, but not set all this stuff up. So it would be worth it to me. If all I had to do was download an app and a plugin for OctoPrint and pay five bucks. And it worked.

Host 3     24:09

That would be that would be convenient. Yeah. Instead of running a whole crapload of Linux commands. Yes.

Host 2     24:14

Me. It's probably gonna take me a couple hours tonight to get that working. Yeah. And I'd I'd gladly pay five bucks for a service for that.

Host 3     24:22

That's cool, though. Yeah. So So what's gonna the the goal behind it just be able to Yeah, stuff. So

Host 2     24:28

We're printing this peristaltic pump for Stevens homebrew setup.

Host 3     24:33

Yeah, we actually talked about that pump. Many, many. Yeah, so

Host 2     24:36

We made a like rudimentary version that actually worked. You had a gift video and all that stuff. This is like a hardcore prototype version, though.

Host 3     24:45

Yeah, this is a planetary sun gear, you know, big monster version.

Host 2     24:49

Yeah, that pump and it was a and so I was really wanting to be able to check on it from home with my wife with a webcam. And so I started researching how to do that and OctoPrint seems to be The best way to do it cool, because you can actually like, oh, it's messed up. And so you can just pause it from home. Gotcha. And I'll probably set it up to where it can also cut off the main supply to the printer.

Host 3     25:15

Is there like GPIO? Support? Yeah. So you could you could hook it up to something that'll Yeah, like a relay for

Host 2     25:21

The pike and flip a relay and just power the whole printer off. And that way, if it's on fire, I can at least cut electricity off from it.

Host 3     25:30

And hope that it just burns and nothing else.

Host 2     25:33

Well, I could set up a fire extinguisher with an actuator and so

Host 1     25:37

On. Sweet you should definitely do that.

Host 1     25:40

I should do that. Yeah, that's great. Oh, I

Host 3     25:41

I should use some of those. Some total Doc Brown stuff right there.

Host 2     25:45

I should set up like a they make these. It's not how long? Because you can't buy that anymore. It's like how long was like it's because like, if you use like a regular ABC fire extinguisher, it makes like powder everywhere. Yeah. And it's nasty, corrodes and would like immediately ruin anything it touches basically because so caustic. Those put the fire out, though. Yeah. But the there's a alternative called halogen. And they only use it in military now because it's like, you know, harmful to the ozone or something. Some hoity toity ooze like people use fire extinguishers enough to regardless, it was a really awesome like for cars. They use it a lot in automotive racing and stuff because it wouldn't damage wiring, because it wouldn't, because you spraying ABC fire extinguisher on your engine, it's going to eat every single piece of copper in your hood. And so they would use that instead, which is great. Then the government bandits and now there's like alternatives are almost as good as should just get one of those because the smaller and you know, probably easier to mountain. I'm sure fleabay has a bunch of those. Now you can buy legit ones on Amazon. There's not hallander called like e al on or something like that. Halon or something like that. Yeah. Buy us one of those. Cool. Cool. So we'll go the rapid fire opinion now. So we're done talking about printers and similarly layers and in counterfeit. STM microcontrollers. Alright, so this I saw today, it's the dragonfly 2020. Pro. And actually, this is more about 3d printing.

Host 3     27:33

Yeah, I've seen this before. I've been keeping my eye on these kinds of things for a while, because I've always wanted this to be real. But so this looks is it? Is it getting there? We'll go ahead and explain what it is.

Host 2     27:45

So it's an additive PCB printer. So think about a 3d printer. Yep. But instead of it's, it's Croods extrudes. But it's more resin based, right? And so what so it has to, essentially it has to read from what I can tell from the video I didn't actually go into like, I actually had to, like, give them personal information, like get the brochure, oh, they're gonna call you every day. Now. Well, I didn't do that I just watched a video on YouTube. And it looks like they have a nonconductive resin and a conductive resin. And then they basically lay down those two residents, UV flash it, then do next layer, next layer, build it up until you have a PCB. And so it can do blind buried vias, multi layer all that stuff,

Host 3     28:30

Right, and the blind and buried vias would not cost anything more more correct, because it doesn't really have to do anything extra.

Host 2     28:37

Yeah, it's still same process. So it's really cool. They don't say how long it takes or whatever, but it looks reasonably quick on doing it, but I think there's still gonna be a couple problems with this, because it's mainly tailored towards prototypes, because it's so gonna be way too expensive to do production. Oh, guaranteed too slow and too slow for that. But the problem with it is the conductive resin is it needs to be close enough to copper and conductivity, which is highly conductive. And one of the most conductive elements that we have, as we close up to that so it won't affect your circuit. Because the moment you basically if you build something that works on this conductive resin, let's say a switch or switch power supply. Yeah. Which just a slight variance in you know, we were talking about earlier like resistor 123 and four need to be really close together. Yeah, that's the keep the inductive loop and resistance down for the feedback circuit usually in the switcher, right? Well, if you now have this parasitic resistance in between or capacitance to because who knows what the dielectric constant of the the resin is, if it's so far off of what a regular PCB is, then it's basically useless for most well, not most, but for some types of pro typing.

Host 3     30:00

Yeah, I mean, I doubt you do like high end RF stuff or like, oh, yeah, but

Host 2     30:05

Like a switcher? Like a five volt switcher. Yeah. That I wouldn't even say that's high end anymore.

Host 3     30:13

No, no, no, like 24 to five or something. Yeah, you know, down to five. Yeah, that's, that's, and most of that stuff has become so like Lego block. Like, if you go to Gosh, Linear Technology has a bunch of really great switchers. And they give, they give a circuit example, where it's not like calculate this resistor or do this, they literally just say do the work in and they give you like a layout to

Host 2     30:38

And the TI web bench does the same thing. You just plug in what you want, and what the inputs are. And it goes use this chip, this layout, and this example, no schematic and its layout. Right, right. And they'll actually give you part numbers for like, you need to use these capacitors because they have the right ESR. Yep. And that's what I'm worried about with this is sure, it's really awesome. This would be great. Probably 90% of stuff.

Host 3     31:05

Well, it sounds like it would be great to have an engineering lab where somebody has an idea for a circuit, and they want to spin it up right away. Yeah. Or even like, let's say you have a sub circuit that you want to just test the sub circuit. And instead of, you know, spinning an entire board to test a new sub circuit, just build a little board of that sub circuit and test just that. Yeah, that would be awesome. And I

Host 2     31:26

Could see this being your first proof of concept prototype, you build one of these, because you can get it in like two three days. assembled, right? Yeah. And then you go, okay, that works or doesn't work or whatever. And when it does work, you can say, okay, let's build it at fr four, which takes 10 days now. Right? Then that works and go okay, then because that piece you can take and get FCC certified. I don't think you would be allowed to get this prototype. FCC CE certified because the dielectric the material is made of is so different from what a fr for copper board is made out of?

Host 3     32:07

Oh, I think you actually would, you could get it certified. But you'd have to

Host 1     32:11

Always make it with always making with that. Yeah. Okay. You could Yeah, yeah.

Host 3     32:15

So yeah. But I mean, you'd have to like it would have to be written on a certification that you use. A you would box yourself into this.

Host 2     32:23

Yeah. Well, because what you're allowed to change the design a little bit, as long as you can, with certain I think it's, it's, it's weird how it's worded. It's like with certainty, say that it won't change its emissions. Or its effect,

Host 3     32:37

I sort of think it won't Yeah. You don't actually come to think about it, what this would be really great for is if you had a chamber, an anechoic chamber in your in your place, and you had your circuit, you could spin it up, put it in the chamber and just get an idea for how noisy it is. If it's really noisy, change the circuit a little bit, re spin your board, like same day, put it back in the chamber, see if what you changed made any difference, then you then what you're doing is you're sort of you're taking out the material of out of the equation and seeing the impact of your layout, your layout, and that would be really helpful. I'd be really cool, actually. Yeah, yeah, that would be a lot of fun, but I'm sure this thing is so cost prohibitive. Well to do that,

Host 2     33:23

The first thing I did when I saw it, I was like, Hey, Church, when can we get one of these? So

Host 3     33:30

How much you think a machine like that cost? Um,

Host 2     33:33

It doesn't actually look that complicated the most, I think the most expensive thing is gonna be the resin.

Host 3     33:38

Well, that's a guarantee. Yeah. And that's just because they're gonna Stiffy on that.

Host 2     33:41

Yeah. And so they're probably subsidize a little bit of the of the cost of the the hardware and make it up on the resin. Probably under 20k. Easy. Wow, I

Host 3     33:54

Would actually say more than that, but

Host 2     33:57

You just watched a video. It's not a very super impressive looking machine. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Host 3     34:02

Okay. They didn't they didn't put esthetics into it. No, you know, it's funny. Like, if you look at it looks like it's

Host 1     34:06

Made of extruded aluminum and, yeah.

Host 3     34:09

Oh, okay. Okay, I see. I see. I was, I've seen machines of this caliber, and they're, like, you know, sand printing and laser sintering and things like that. The machines I've seen that do similar to this are of that caliber. Yep. And so I My mind was thinking hundreds of 1000s of dollars, you know,

Host 2     34:28

Even like sand printing. What it's not called sampurna is SLA. SLA. Yeah. Wait, selective laser. Yeah. Yeah. SLS, SLS. They're not even that expensive. nowadays. You can get one of those for, you know, 2030 it's actually really good.

Host 3     34:45

You know, and it's funny because it kind of brings up laser engraving to mind because in a previous life, I helped worked on some laser engraving machinery. And I'm sure people have heard of epilogue the Yep, they make really, really great machines. But when you look at a competitor, a competitor's machine is like $20,000 you look at epilogue, the exact same machine is $60,000. And it's like, what's the difference? And a lot of it, you know, epilogue is fantastic. And they have a bunch of support and have a bunch of other stuff. But a lot of it comes with the fact that their machine just looks really polished. You know, it's got nice colors, and it's like, all smooth and things. And the other guys looks like, it looks like your standard aluminum that's like, glued together. Yeah. And there you go. And that's $40,000 Extra.

Host 2     35:33

Well, and the thing is, I've used a lot of lasers. Yeah, I've, I've, we've taken a block out of the box. And it worked. I've never taken a third price of an epilogue printer of laser print job. And not it just never worked out of the box, you always had to do something to it, there's some setup. And so there's a benefit to it just working out of the box. Oh, especially if

Host 3     35:57

It's going in a manufacturing setting. Yeah, if you can, if you can spin up your laser, you know, one of the things we were replacing we were acid etching 100% of our product line, that was a very significant portion of the company. So we had a line of workers who were putting stencils onto these devices, and then painting acid etch onto them and etching stainless steel. And, you know, within, within probably two or three days, we had an epilogue laser spun up. And that one laser replaced like four people's jobs. And it took like, and like you could you could plug MS Word into it and just click Print and it would print. You could print a thesis document on a on a steel, you know? Yeah, no, it was it was really Yeah, that was cool. So, so rapid, rapid spin up of machines is worth a lot.

Host 2     36:48

Yes. Worth a lot of money. So yeah, I think it's really cool idea. I want to see it. I want to see more. Like how long does how much like per square inch? How long does it take to print? Yeah, what's the actual resistance of the conductive in what's the isolation of the non conductive right? Cuz then once you know that, then okay, we can we can talk about how much this machine right?

Host 3     37:11

Can I do? Can I do six mil trace and six mil space? I think yes. Cuz like that it does do 6 million. It's kind of the standard nowadays down the PCB world. And I wouldn't want to have to change my boards based off. Yeah,

Host 2     37:23

I actually think it does dumb three mil. That's cool. So it can do BGA stuff. Yeah. So the only other thing Oh, another thing talk about is, uh, I don't know how co planar it is, either. Because that's what we talking about. BGA is the main thing about BGS is you want the board and your finish to be planar. Because any variance you're going to get a ball that's not going to solder, right?

Host 3     37:44

Well, yeah. You mean you mean the copper and the mask opening? Basically, they have to

Host 2     37:49

Be No, no, no, the actual board has to be compliant with no warp Oh, and finish needs to be smooth enough me component, which is why most manufacturers like Mega fab. Well say you for BGS you need to have Enoch finished. Because it's very cool planar. That's the big thing about Enoch finishes, right? As opposed to Hasle which is basically they just flow solder over the board and it's all wavy. And

Host 3     38:15

Yes, it's an actual, they use a hot gun hakomi Ignaz along

Host 2     38:21

And it's like, like Ghostbuster style.

Host 3     38:24

Yeah. Across the street.

Host 2     38:29

Okay, next topic is Google shuts down. Its CES booth because it's not waterproof. So this is the first year Google has been at CES. And it had a ginormous two story outdoor booth. And it rained. Oh, no. And they didn't make it waterproof.

Host 3     38:48

Oh, someone's getting fired. Yeah, exactly.

Host 2     38:50

It's apparently like, when people were able to go to it. It was really like one of the best booths Sara is really well laid out. And like they put a lot of thought into it and probably a ton of money and ton of money and it was not waterproof. And so they had to shut down because it's filled with water right now.

Host 3     39:05

Where is he is Las Vegas. Oh, Vegas. Okay, okay. Yikes. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah, it's all soggy now. Yeah.

Host 2     39:14

But the fact that you didn't think possibility maybe might not rain. You're spending

Host 3     39:19

That much money. I bet you somebody not bet you I think guaranteed thought about it. But they probably gambled. They probably just like, let's just hope.

Host 2     39:27

But the thing is, let's say they spent spent a million bucks, which they probably probably did for the booth to put a ginormous tarp over it would've been maybe a couple 1000 bucks. Yeah, so that's a really bad gamble.

Host 3     39:45

I guess it's just a learning lesson. Especially because it's their first one. Yeah,

Host 2     39:50

I'm gonna bet you though. It wasn't that they just come they just never even thought about it.

Host 3     39:54

They were so I bet you're making an awesome is

Host 2     39:58

They probably didn't think it was was an outside booth when they were designing it. Oh, maybe not. And it just happened to go outside. And it was one of those like, oh, the booth space outside is cheaper. Let's put our ginormous booth outside. I feel like that's what marketing people I bet you that's what it was calling you out Google. Yeah, I know. I know. Someone at Google listens to us.

Host 3     40:25

Yeah. So so secretly write us and tell us why. Yeah. Or just publicly treat us. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, another good way to get fired. Okay, okay. So

Host 2     40:36

Next one is vicia. V O, our high performance Solid State Relays. This is a new product that they came out with. Hmm. The big selling point it has a very low turn on current, a point two five milliamps. Oh, wow, with really low. So you This is like like low power stuff. So it would be really good for any kind of low power microcontroller that needs to turn on a big signal basically,

Host 3     41:05

Do you have the I don't see a part number on this. I'm gonna. I'm gonna look this up real quick.

Host 2     41:11

I've got a I got the product highlight from Digi key there.

Host 3     41:15

Well, one thing I'm interested in. So Solid State Relays come in two flavors, AC and DC. They do both. So you can get this in an AC note version?

Host 1     41:25

They do both?

Host 3     41:26

Well, Oh, good. Yeah. Okay. So

Host 1     41:28

The chip does AC nd

Host 3     41:30

So that the AC versions inherently do dc? Yes. Also,

Host 2     41:33

There's no only DC version. That's all. DC. Yeah. Oh, that is killer. So I was looking at something like okay, this sounds really cool. And then I got to what up? I can output? Yeah. 400 volts. That's pretty good. Yeah, but 140 milliamps. Okay, so it's not super beefy? No, these are like SRC eight size. Sure as as ours, but I was thinking cation to maximum, because, like, if you have 140 milliamps, you're not going to be running 400 volts. Usually? Well, okay, so

Host 3     42:09

The question is, is that 140 milliamps? It's like just absolute maximum current. Does that any continuous? But is that for any voltage? Any voltage? Okay,

Host 2     42:19

Okay, yeah. It has like a higher surge, or whatever. But I was thinking what kind of application because like, the application listing, some of them are kind of bullshit, because like motor controlling, I'm like, No, you're not gonna do 140 milliamps. This is a little tiny, like Pedro motor, but then you're just gonna run a cheaper FETs. Yeah, for that, right? Do not worry too much about efficiency on the page, or motor or whatever. But so like, what kind of talking about like, you know, maybe small signals, this would be really good for doing audio signals, because you would have very low loss through it. But it's also not 400 volts. I mean, you could have a 400. Anything up to 400? Yeah, but you could have a 400 foot audio signal?

Host 3     43:02

Well, the first thing that came to mind is this would be killer for turning on and off of a vacuum

Host 2     43:05

Tube amp. So this is what I was thinking, though, is what kind of application would maximize this part. So you would get really close to the 400 volt and really close to 140 milliamps. And I was like, oh, yeah, vacuum tubes will probably be there.

Host 3     43:19

So okay, here's what's funny, if you have a if you have a pretty Joe Schmo between 30 and 50 Watt, amp, usually your your high voltage is in the 350 to 420 range. So you're right there. And the current draw is between like 60 and 100 milliamps. So most so so you could literally what see what would the so a good old fashioned toggle switch makes a pretty good power switch. But what this would be really great for is an auto shutdown. Yeah. So or you could have a time start, such that the tubes could heat up, give him like, you know, 10 seconds, and then this would click on something like that. Or if it ever detected, you know, like an overload or a surge, it could protect everything. So you don't lose your tubes. You don't lose a transformer or something. So that's really cool.

Host 2     44:12

And you can do actually a slow ramp on GQ, too. Yeah, that's right up, dammit. I was actually thinking, what would you get any effect of you PWM your heater circuit. So you only running your heater at 50% power.

Host 3     44:27

Uh, so heaters are really interesting. They work they work off the fact that they're tungsten. And they have, they have a coating on them that has a really low work function. And that work function basically is how much energy it takes to make an electron boil, boil off, off, and and the chemistry of that coating is really pretty precise. Normal tube heats up at 6.3 volts. And if you're at like six volts, you see huge problems in output and in fact, you can damage the two by running it so you have to be within a Pretty close range like, Ah, you had you have maybe 10% tolerance before you really start noticing a quick drop off. So 50% You'd hear nothing. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah.

Host 2     45:12

So that's your Tube Talk of the day. Steven Tube Talk

Host 3     45:17

Brought to you buy high performance Solid State Relays.

Host 2     45:21

Ofour. Yeah. So it's kind of a weird, weird part. It has like 5000 volts of isolation, which is pretty good. Yeah,

Host 3     45:29

It's like, wow, that's insulation between both sides of

Host 2     45:32

The both sides. Yeah, yeah. It's one of those like, that's why you would use this over a MOSFET. Is because you have that five out MOSFET won't get you the 5000 volts, it will get you to like a couple 100 volts most small FETs. Like this would be a couple 100 volts between your isolation on your gate. Yeah. But this is 5000. So you're like, you know, you're almost level of like, ESD protection built in?

Host 3     45:57

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I can't remember what what's the lowest ESD? Like the human body model? It's 500 volts or something like that? No, it's it's 4000 or something like that? Well, the standard human body is it's 1500. But it comes in different categories. Yeah, the lowest is like down to 500. Yeah. That's not like socks on carpet. That's like, you know, rubber soles on concrete. But yeah, you know, the thing is, I think that they chose that 400 volts, to be a really specific number. Because if you rectify 220, then you get 380 volts. So this would allow you know, which on something in a 220 volt circuit, yeah. So you could switch, you could switch a full 380. Turn it completely on with this relay and send that to a switch mode power supply. And if you're talking about 380 volts at 140 milliamps, if you drop that down to 24 volts, you have a ton of extra power there. That's true. So this makes a really good DC switcher for high AC,

Host 2     46:55

A Yo, that that's actually probably what this is, for exactly

Host 3     46:58

What it's for. Because it's that number. So convenient. Yeah, near 380. So

Host 2     47:03

Never anything about that. I just looked at its applications that they were suggesting. I'm like, you never use this part for that event. So this part ever. But that's actually a really good, I bet you a lot of those applications will come up by marketing team. Like how do we do we can't just have one application for this. So

Host 3     47:22

Do you just like a like a standard LED drop? Input? Do you know what the voltage drop was on it? It's probably low.

Host 2     47:30

No, I don't remember. But it only takes point 259 amps to turn that LED on. That's pretty crazy.

Host 3     47:35

Because a lot of fold state relays out there are still in the like 40 milliamp drive.

Host 2     47:40

A lot of them like to drive an SSR with a microcontroller. You need a BJT still?

Host 3     47:46

Oh yeah, you have to you have to with this, if it's if it's a really low voltage, turn on, like, if you could if you could direct from a microcontroller camera. So you can turn on a 380 volt with a five volt signal.

Host 2     47:59

I actually think you can do it with like a 1.8 volts signal.

Host 3     48:02

That's killer, especially if, I mean, of course, you would want protection circuitry in between just a little bit. But still, that's pretty awesome that, you know, a Raspberry Pi could turn on like a motor start or something like that. That's, that's kind of cool. Because you know, in the past, you always have to have some buffer in between there. Just because it takes power. Yep. Cool. Yep.

Host 2     48:23

So that was the macro fab engineering podcast. It seems like a great ending burger. I

Host 3     48:29

Guess we're done.

Host 1     48:32

You have anything else that?

Host 3     48:33

Um, no, I guess we're done. Yeah, we're done. We host Sparky Dolan and Steven, Greg. Let everyone make it easy

Host 2     48:49

Thank you. Yes, you our listener for downloading our show. If you have a cool idea, project or topic, or a better way to transition between topics. Let Stephen and I know Tweet us at Mac fab or email us at podcasts at macro calm. Also check out our Slack channel. If you're not subscribed to the podcast yet, click that subscribe button. That way you get the latest episode right when it releases and please review us on iTunes helps the show stay visible and helps new listeners find us and we're still hiring people. So click that link in the podcast description and I think it's like backer fab.com/jobs or something like that. Later

Transcribed by https://otter.ai