On this episode, Parker and Stephen talk about IoT Security Certifications and Arduinos...lots of Arduinos.
Podcast Transcript
Unknown Speaker
Hello, and welcome to the macro fab engineering podcast. We're your hosts, Parker, Dolman.
Host 3
Unknown Speaker
So this is the first recording in the bomb shelter, which is the new recording studio that Josh has. It's actually in the old post office. Right. So you're in Houston. It's downtown. And this is the actual bomb shelter that they used back in the Cold War.
Host 3
Yeah. Above the above the door. It has the radioactive symbol. Yep.
Unknown Speaker
So and so they sprayed in like sound insulation. And because all concrete so reverb like crazy. And it sounds pretty good in here now.
Host 3
Yeah, yeah. But of the acoustic treatment.
Unknown Speaker
Yep. So we have a lot to talk about today. And so we're going to try to go fairly quickly through the topics. Yep. So this week, I was designing another jig, or fixture for panels. I have designing like an adjustable one. So you can hold different sizes, right? Because we have a fixed version. Yeah, we have a fixed version, because our prototypes go through 16 inch by 16 inch panels. Yep, that's the most cost effective, basically per square inch for fiberglass. And so this is adjustable one. So for like larger runs, we just couldn't just move on the edges over and then pop the panel in. Boom, done. No, yeah, that way. You don't have to adjust the line width. Because then you know how to sit there. And you know, crank all the all the other competitors and stuff over the machines auto adjusts, but not the converse. Yeah, but now nothing needs to change. Exactly. Everything will stay at 60 and a half inches. Yep. Bam, done. Easy, easy peasy. And then I fixed the macro. Tolino. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So this was an issue with not basically not piling up piling up the IO on the ft 230.
Host 3
X chip. Right. That weird feedback kind of power feedback. Yeah. So
Unknown Speaker
basically, I What is I powered up the FCC IO the standard way? I just ran it off the 3.3 volt regulator, it's comes off the ft 230. X. So yeah, it actually has their own built in regulator. Okay. And supplies 50 milliamps. So technically, you can like power off some external circuitry
Host 3
if you dare to, but you're just using it to power itself.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, that's how it's normally set up. Right. Well, it's not powering itself. It's powering the I O. External. Yeah, we're
Host 3
turning itself on in a way. Kind of like bootstrapping.
Unknown Speaker
No, no, it it powers up the the IO drivers, right. It doesn't power up the actual ft 30.
Host 3
Yeah, yeah. I apologize. Yeah, yeah. No, it's receiving power from the USB line. Correct. And then it and then it that in turn regulates down and then turns on the
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. Basically, it's it drives the TriState drivers, right on the outputs, right. So like the C bus lines and that good stuff. Yeah. And then I have an AVR Tech Connect article. I talked about this last week. Yep. And so that's out now went out on Tuesday. So give that a read. Well, let me know how much of it's wrong.
Host 3
Somebody will find it out. Yeah. Cool. So, so I've been working a bit on my synth engine. I've been designing some synthesizer stuff.
Unknown Speaker
This is what you designed while your wife was in surgery. Yeah, that's right.
Host 3
Okay, so a little bit further into it. So my synth engine is basically the core of the tone generation. Inside my synthesizer. It's basically just a ramp generator made for making like sawtooth waves. But I, I've never been a fan of the synths that I've made in the past, they have a lot of drift. So when they heat up or they get old or components change, then the frequency changes. And some people find that to be like a desirable feature, in my opinion, you can program in drift. And I would rather just things be rock solid, and I choose drift if I want it. So so I've been playing with an Arduino to try to use that as the main frequency generation. And I ran into some kind of brick walls with with its interrupt cycles, because I was having an overflow interrupt, generate my clock pulses that basically is a, you know, 10th of a hertz to 20 kilohertz kind of thing. And the Arduino is not really that good at that at doing these things, you know, if you want to make a signal to like two kilo hertz 345 Yeah, sure, but getting higher than that. It's not really that fantastic. So I found a workaround or not even a workaround a much better solution, I should say. I was doing some digging and I found the Analog Devices, ad 9833 which is a ridiculous frequency divider basically. It's it's actually in reality it's a it's a function generator chip, but I'm using it in just a pulse generation mode. What you do is you pump in a clock signal, whatever you Once you choose, and then you can write a variable division of that clock into it over SPI. So I'm putting a one megahertz clock into it, and it has 28 bits of resolution. So using SPI I can, I can have point 004 hertz resolution per bit. Yeah. So it's way more than I would ever need. Yeah. And the
Unknown Speaker
crazy thing is that the clock generator, the one megahertz clock generator signal you have Yep. Because it's a that's a big can. Yeah. The crazy thing about it is we actually tried to test it. For drift. We took the hot air gun and hit it with 100 C, right on the can. And in the clock and the clock on the scope. The not drift at all. Yeah, notice 1.000
Host 3
Yes, megahertz, which is perfect. Yeah, the I found this little clock device, it's ECS dash 2100, a x dash 1.0 megahertz. And basically, you pump in five volts, connect to ground and a megahertz comes out from zero to five volts, which is perfect. And then I just pumped that right into my analog devices. And now I have a killer clock reference that I can control with the Arduino. So I don't have to interrupt. Play games with like that. So it's great. I'll have a working prototype, hopefully this weekend.
Unknown Speaker
Awesome. Cool. Yeah. So I guess right into our phone now.
Host 3
Unknown Speaker
Interesting. I think this actually happened today. Because I opened up Eagle today and told me there was an updates. Oh, so yeah, cats off releases 7.7 of Eagle. Didn't they
Host 3
just release 7.1? Not long ago. I was like over a year ago.
Unknown Speaker
Really? Yes. Anyways, this is the first interesting one, because the first release since the Autodesk buyouts Oh, yeah. Yeah. So they changed all the licensing.
Host 3
Oh, great. Um, yeah, that's good. You could see that come on.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Miles, right, basically made it more like the Autodesk model. Okay, so you've got a couple different versions, you have standard premium, ultimate, express and educational. So the main things that really changed was the Express and educational. Okay, those are free. Right. Yeah. So the Express version is basically the trimmed down version of it. Yeah. So it's like two layers. And then like a small board. That's all you can do. The educational basically bumps it up to six layers. Yeah. And increases the size a little bit to like six inches by four inches ish. That's not that big. No. But to get the educational version, you have to have a.edu account.
Host 3
Unknown Speaker
Oh, this is gonna hurt. Yeah. Um, then they added a maker edition. Oh, which is the same as the educational exactly the same. Except you have to pay for it? Yeah. How much? $169?
Host 3
Okay, yeah. I mean, that's it. It's still a bit much for maker.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. But that's kind of and by all these are non commercial. Oh, really, even the maker or even the maker ones non commercial. Hmm. And then when you bump up to standard premium ultimates versions, they have different tiers of those because you can get it with or without the auto, auto, auto router, auto router? Yeah.
Host 3
Don't get the auto. Yeah, save
Unknown Speaker
your 500 bucks. Yeah. Don't buy the auto router. And that's all that stuff's the same. It's so roughly the same price and that stuff. But yeah, the interesting thing is they added basically the maker addition. Yeah, which is basically the edu addition. But you can actually buy it now. Which is cool. Yeah. So that's, that's, that's interesting. And they also did a what was it? Let me look at my cheat sheet real quick. Do so it's absolutely.
Host 3
Unknown Speaker
well, they removed the 30 day trial of the pro version. Really? Yeah. Or they call it the premium version or ultimate
Host 3
version. Okay. So you've been spitting out a lot of the details. You're the eagle guy here. How do you feel about this?
Unknown Speaker
I already own a license, so I don't care.
Host 3
Okay, yeah. Well, I mean, I look at this and what it looks like they did is they left their core product alone, but they kind of messed around with the low end. That's basically get it to get some more cash out of it. Yeah. Hey, you know, it's not surprising.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. It's interesting. It'll be interesting to see if the Express version still has the annoying ad that pops up when you load up the software. Probably. It probably does. Yeah. Let's see what else they add. They added some interesting things to the layout interface now. Yeah. Basically, there's an option to actually see the names of the traces. The netlist name, actually on the traces like Altium that's all TM style. Yeah. So it's just like Altium style. Cool. Okay. That's that Thumbs up. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. And it's turned on by default, according to the patch notes, and they added some ULP stuff that basically. So it's more integrated with Autodesk. There's like a button that basically generates a big text file that you can upload the circuit.io. And so you can get a 3d model of your stuff. Okay. Yeah, that's kind of cool.
Host 3
I'm wondering why they're not having that as a built in feature. It is built in. It's a button. You can press it puts it out, but it takes you somewhere to a third party thing.
Unknown Speaker
Host 3
Unknown Speaker
Oh, he built into. Alright, so yeah, that's a little different thing with Autodesk because they kind of just shoot you around through their different products.
Host 3
Sure. Sure. Okay, that makes Yeah, I got it. It's just Altium AlTi board, dip trace. And actually, I think even KY CAD all have built in 3d viewers. Yeah. So okay, well,
Unknown Speaker
it's not really a 3d Viewer. It actually is mechanical data. Oh, so it's like, it's a STEP file.
Host 3
So then you can dump that into anything else? Yeah. So you can actually design a case around that. Okay. That's, that's different. And that's cool. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
And since we're on the topic of Autodesk, this is a little random. I was I got the update for Autodesk fusion today. Yeah. And they have a
Host 3
import from McMaster. Yeah, you can show me that. That is super
Unknown Speaker
cool. It's really cool. Basically, you go to Insert. And then there's McMaster Yeah. And actually has the McMaster logo. Yeah. And you click it, and it opens up a browser in Autodesk fusion, to the McMaster website, you navigate to the part you want, and hit Save. And bam, it loads it in. Yeah.
Host 3
And McMaster has, like, everything is all your parts, everything has everything has CAD. I, that is so amazing. And you know, I can think of some of the mechanical engineers I work with. And they would probably, I'm thinking right now, they would say like, Oh, that's cool. But for the guys like me who I do mechanical stuff, but kind of cuz I have to, like I love that. I want to go grab a bowl and bring it in. I just click the button. And there's my bowl.
Unknown Speaker
Exactly. Oh, that's awesome. Yep. Super cool, cool stuff. Soon, as we'll see if they come up with some more, I'm really looking forward to when they finally add like push routing in Eagle.
Host 3
Yeah, well, are there aren't there you? Will PISA do that?
Unknown Speaker
No, no, no, I haven't found one yet. Oh, yeah. And also with the name overlay on traces. They also have links to traces to overlay now. Wait, they have one the length of the trace? Oh, oh, that's cool. Yeah, that's cool. So you don't have to right click on all the individual pieces and add them up? Yeah.
Host 3
I think dip trace, you have to go to Properties, and then it'll tell you the length, but it's not as easy as just clicking the trace and seeing it.
Unknown Speaker
Host 3
Well, did you hear all the news about arduino versus Arduino?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. More. You know, more companies basically coming together, right?
Host 3
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How many times have we talked about that? Yeah. This one's a little different. This one is different, because it's two companies both claiming the same trademark. And it's kind of like the heart in a way of makers. I
Unknown Speaker
mean, this is this is Arduino LLC and Arduino. SRL. Okay, that's what it is. Right?
Host 3
Which, which were two separate entities that were both arguing over who has the trademark to that who had the biggest trademark,
Unknown Speaker
Host 3
So, so it's, it's crazy. And and, you know, it would take forever to go into all the details. So we should post some links to some articles about it. Just because it's a crazy read. And it's super confusing. But but basically what happened is, is, you know, the Arduino came out. And you have the same guys who developed the Arduino, basically fighting each other over who has the rights to it. There's all this crew
Unknown Speaker
who spent the most sleepless nights.
Host 3
I'm sure all of them did. Absolutely crazy. And so there was there. It's kind of like weird. There's some dirty tactics going on. One of the guys basically claims Hey, I trademark this in 2008 in Italy, and the other side is just like, No, you didn't they just completely deny that. Like, and they're like, We did it in 2009. So I don't know it's clean America. Yeah. Right. And actually, because of this, we have things like the Gen Duino, which is the Arduino outside of the US. Yep. And it's it just got really messy and
Unknown Speaker
it got it got. It got stupid past two years. Well, yeah,
Host 3
absolutely stupid. And it was one of those things where if you go to Google and type to an Arduino, you'd have arduino.cc. And you'd also have arduino.org. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
And n.cc was the one that you're supposed to support. Yes. Or something like that. Well, yes, source politically correct one support the politically
Host 3
correct one? Yes. But the thing was arduino.cc had their hands more in kind of the IDE side of things, and arduino.org had their side, their hands more on the manufacturing side of things. So it would not be uncommon for you to be programming an arduino.org board with arduino.cc ide. Yeah. And there's also kind of the deviation of who did what, because some of the boards like the Yun, or however you pronounce it, why you in? Oh, yeah, that was made by the srl.org. Guys, but it kind of crossed over. It's just weird. Regardless, all of this boils down to at the most recent New York Maker Faire, they settled their differences, which is fantastic.
Unknown Speaker
Now that now let's move on to world peace.
Host 3
We have to start somewhere. So what Okay, so the takeaway from this, what's cool is now there's going to be two different entities. Okay, there was two before, before, there's two before but there's two specific entities that have specific jobs now, as opposed to fighting over it. So there is the Arduino holding, okay, which they are going to be the distributor of the hardware of the basic product itself. And that is for profit, okay, there will be a nonprofit called the Arduino Foundation. And they're going to be the guys that handle all the code in the IDE and the community. Interesting. So it works out really well. The product, the thing you actually buy goes to somebody who's making money on it. But then everything you do with it is nonprofit, or interfaces with the nonprofit side of things. I wonder where
Unknown Speaker
the was an Arduino at heart, stuff on land? I hear that stuff. No, that was like, How do you like it was like one of those. If I remember this correctly, I might be this might be wrong, but it was how do you say your Arduino based without using the word Arduino? And it was it was this thing called Arduino at Heart program? Yeah, basically, you can use their logo and stuff and you had to pay some money, I think and then be certified and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, well. I think that's, I think that came about because of all this.cc.org split. Yeah, that's why they had to do that Arduino at heart thinks that might die.
Host 3
Well, or just evolve into? Yeah, I mean, because because it sounds like, well, they said, the in the article I was reading, use the word settle. And that can either mean like, hey, we shook hands, we're all happy, or legally, something happened. So I would think the legal thing likely happened. They came to an agreement saying, hey, let's settle our differences. It
Unknown Speaker
sounds like since they're keeping it separate. It's just they're gonna tolerate each other now.
Host 3
Well, but they're putting they're putting specific roles in different buckets, as opposed to each one fighting over the territory of the over one bucket. Yeah, right. Exactly. Well, I mean, Arduino, LLC, which was.cc They were manufacturing through third party channels now, but arduino.org was manufacturing themselves and distributing themselves. So now it's just like, No, you manufacture and we do code.
Unknown Speaker
And this still doesn't stop the $5. We know you can buy on eBay yet.
Host 3
Well, yeah. It's all part of the game at the clones. Yeah, the clones,
Unknown Speaker
tomorrow's. So that's, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm finally the bickering might stop. I hope that will be also. And so this can only be good. I would say I wish they would just come back together and just be one company again. Yeah. Because the communication between the software and hardware would be a lot stronger. Yeah. But what are you gonna do? is better than fighting? I guess.
Host 3
I think it's better if if each one lives in their own world, and does their own thing, you know, of course, there's gonna be communication. But just like, you're the experts at this, you do that. And we're the experts at this, we do this? Well, that kind of mentality.
Unknown Speaker
I'm going to assume basically, when the new hardware comes out, that the software side gets like an early peek at it to make sure that the software will work. You would hope you would hope. But it might not. It might be like two completely separate
Host 3
things. Oh, and then they have to go and update the whole idea was to come up
Unknown Speaker
with this new piece of hardware and then basically it's gonna take the community and then the community and the IDE side, like a month to fix stuff to get the work. Yeah. So you didn't have this like, kind of useless piece of silicon but
Host 3
here's the thing I could see the Arduino community like that happening and they would act like really, really angry, but they'd actually have a lot of fun fixing all the prop like I could see those guys being like, Oh, this is terrible and then being like really into it. You know? He keyboard
Unknown Speaker
warriors. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, crazy. Yeah. And in the similar vein, yeah, I think this was last Friday, so it was fortunately missed out on last week's podcast. Arduino was running the Kickstarter, called the Slav. I don't know he is. Really? Yeah. IoT invention kits. Hmm. And it's basically one of these module systems that you can connect stuff together. They went to inexpensive route with FCC connectors, instead of having a custom connector. Like snap together stuff.
Host 3
Do they have weird pin spacing?
Unknown Speaker
No. They have one one pin that's like slightly further apart.
Host 3
No, it's gonna be like 1.2 millimeter pitch or something like that to seven?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. No, it doesn't look like anything silly like that. But yeah, it's it's what's interesting is how they term the marketing is no technical experience acquired. hackable with the Arduino IDE is like, hackable and so just programmable.
Host 3
That yeah, because that word means a lot.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. But it's like, you're designing something that's being programmable by the Arduino IDE. not hackable means it was never intended to be used with Arduino IDE.
Host 3
Yeah, I agree. We have a whole podcast where we talk about hacking, hacking, and what hacking actually means. Yeah. Because like when somebody sees you do something that they don't understand that like, oh, you hacked that? Yeah. Like, No, you didn't.
Unknown Speaker
Host 3
You hacked their email servers? Yeah. Yeah, well, they say that because people are, you know, the like, no, like that term. Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker
guess I'm a hacker. Um, I wonder which Arduino this is? It's gotta be the hardware side, right?
Host 3
Yes, actually, in fact, it would most likely be them because the before all this jazz started happening with them coming together. arduino.org, which is our SRL started taking the approach of more IoT, everything. So I bet you it's those guys
Unknown Speaker
probably. And then this brings up the question is, why does Arduino need a Kickstarter? They're an established company. Is it I don't like I don't like established companies doing Kickstarters. Maybe they're hacking Kickstarter? Maybe I'm thinking it's free loans?
Host 3
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. I think they're just trying to get funding, probably. And free loans. So the push out this, I think it's also would be like a good test market thing. See how much interest is actually there? I
Host 3
was actually just about to say that you can you can test the waters before, you know, making a huge product.
Unknown Speaker
And that's what Oculus did. Yeah, yeah. Basically ran the Kickstarter, just to see what the market was like. And then like, right after the Kickstarter was done a couple months later, they slam dunk. They're there. They're not crowdfunding, but they're, they're serious round. Right, right.
Host 3
Yeah, well, I guess it's it's a strange but effective way. Yeah. Instead of just putting your product out there and believing in it, you can find out with a much lower cost.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, basically, almost I this Kickstarter actually cost me money to
Host 3
start something, no matter your time and effort and energy and all the stuff that goes Yeah.
Unknown Speaker
And you have to give Kickstarter a cut at the end. Right. But if you are successful, yeah. If you're successful, yeah. And then going from the IoT stuff. Earlier this week, that IoT took over the internet with botnets. They basically, were dossing ov H hosting. Yeah, like one is like the largest ever with one terabytes per second. terabytes. I think it's terabit. Sky
Host 3
Unknown Speaker
one device at a time. And they say IoT. Yeah, but this is something this the things that were being hacked has been around forever, way before IoT was like a term we used. It was IP cameras, right? Most of the devices IP cams, and you wouldn't even say nowadays an IP cameras an IoT device it is. But you wouldn't have to actively become becomes an IoT device. Right? So they're just using the word of people using the word IoT here is a buzzword. It's clickbait. Yeah, clickbait. Yeah. It's not your frigerator attacking.
Host 3
Exactly like we were talking about earlier. It's the same thing as hack. Yo, if you see a guy modifying something or building something that's different than seeing something where it's like this guy hack this, you click on that, you know? So yeah, that's, that's yeah, that's
Unknown Speaker
crazy. So but yeah, 150,000 cameras. Basically, we're bombarding this hosting company. It apparently kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse. What have they had they solve it? So going on? Is it really? Yeah. So going on. What's gonna be interesting about this is, I think this is going to be finally, the point where, like, lawyers are going to decide whether or not like the developers and or makers of this camera, basically have an IoT device. Yeah, is going to be responsible for security holes. Now, this is actually shutting down a ginormous hosting company, for at least a week so far. Yes. A lot of money being lost here.
Host 3
You don't that's, that's, that's a really interesting concept. Because you don't even have to know anything secret about a hosting company, you can just hammer it with a whole bunch of data and take it out.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, so this is one of those, like, if you put out an IoT product now, if basically these guys get sued out of Oblivion, right? Basically, it's going to set up where if you release an IoT product, you have to make sure it's secure. And for the life of the product, you have security updates for it, huh?
Host 3
It's kind of like I can see a new bureaucracy coming up like the FCC of the IoT, you know, where, if you're gonna be putting crap out into the data stream? You're responsible for the crap?
Unknown Speaker
Yep. It's not gonna be it's, it's not gonna be the users. either. It's the designer, it's gonna have to be on the designer to make sure security holes are filled.
Host 3
That's, that's big. It's bigger than just saying yes or no, you argue that long. Yeah. And I mean, that like, like, if I guess it's kind of like radio in a way, where, you know, you're responsible for what goes out on the airwaves, once it's out there. You don't get it back the exact you know, yeah. So and then, but saying that, that is on the designers, results. It's on them, the
Unknown Speaker
manufacturer not manufacture the it's on the Yeah, designers, the engineers, the programmers to make sure that their device cannot be hacked. Hmm. And if they can be they push a security update? It's like, it's like, it's it's really it's kind of like the reason why went like Microsoft. They hammered pushing out windows 10. Yeah, so they don't have to support Windows seven anymore. Yeah, cuz once like, the number of users from Windows seven drops low, nothing's like, Okay, we don't need support that anymore.
Host 3
So what I could actually see is, you know, how like you can have, you can go and get CE testing and FCC testing and all this stuff. You have these test bodies that that you pay them X amount of dollars, and they do everything. I can see there being an SEC security. Yeah, exactly. Where you give them their product, your product, and they try to get in, in every possible way that they know how, yeah, and then you you can put a stamp on your device saying it's secure afterwards. So it's gonna be like at your listing sounds like we need to do that. We need to make that and then charge like, you know, a few $100,000 for a product. There are some
Unknown Speaker
companies that will test your stuff. But it's not like a requirement. Yeah,
Host 3
yeah. But but but here's the thing like me as as, you know, if I was going to go purchase something, I don't look for a security stamp on things. You know, most people don't look for mccc stamps. Well, but I guess what I'm saying is if I'm doing something in a more professional light, where I would need to look for that kind of stuff. I you know, I? I don't know it's a weird, it's a weird thing. To kind of like foresee what's going to happen in the future, because it's guaranteed,
Unknown Speaker
I think, I think if they're, if they're saying how BIG IoT is going to get and how fact that almost every single device eventually will be connected. I think it's going to have to have some kind of body that actually has testing for that stuff.
Host 3
Yeah, well, so we can prevent Skynet.
Unknown Speaker
Yes, friends gonna guess thing, because whatever Skynet taking over these devices.
Host 3
is so so the internet is now self aware. Yeah. But wouldn't wouldn't attack hosting if it was called Cloud net, and cloud net? Oh, my gosh. Apple net. Now.
Unknown Speaker
That's gonna be the title of this episode.
Host 3
CollabNet. was supposed to happen in 1997. But they're a little bit late. Yeah, well, project. Scope Creep. Oh, yeah. Awesome.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm done. Yeah, we're at the end of our list. Yeah. This is the most material we ever had on a podcast terms of type words.
Host 3
Unknown Speaker
normally have one. Yeah, one barely one page. Yeah, just. We're gonna do
Host 3
it's all good. Yep. Well, that was the Mac fab engineering podcast. We were your host, Stephen Craig and Parker Bowman. Take it easy, guys later.
