On this episode, Parker sifts through marketing gimmicks for component ratings and Stephen discusses dual rail power supply designs.
PCB serial numbering? Parker and Stephen cover their thoughts on applying a unique identifier to PCBs in production for inventory and testing control.
Parker's pinball controller has gone gold! Revision 3 is being fabricated! Stephen then explores the softness factor of diodes and the SSPS returns?
Figure 1: SSPS front panel layout. Traces to come soon.
Figure 2: Inconsistencies in the LTST-C171CKT datasheets.
Figure 3: Inconsistencies in the LTST-C171CKT datasheets continued.
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 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!
Hello, and welcome to the macro fab engineering podcast. We're your host, Stephen Craig and Parker
Dohmen.
Excellent. One more time we got it. Right. Well, so this week, been working a bit more on customer jigs. It's been kind of a
three week slog for you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's just
been really hectic with getting it, but I finished it. It's on order. And I'm done with that portion of the jig. Next comes coding, but that that's, I'm not kicking that up right now.
Yeah. And then in we've been working more on that FX duck board.
Yep. Yeah, so the FX dev board kind of was a little bit on hold for some customer stuff. But now we're kicking that back up, getting the project moving forward, getting in contact with our videographer. I'm gonna get some videos going for coming up here soon.
And there's actually one video that you made on Twitter, of you playing that guitar. And I think we've talked about that before.
Yeah, yeah. That was one we were talking about that little discreet op amp I built.
Yep. The diode clamp or
diode compression is what are called.
Yep. Yeah. And then we're going to be crowd supplying this. This FX dev board, right. Yep.
That's, that's the goal. At the moment, we've been in contact with Crowd Supply, and they seem to be excited about the project. And we've, we've submitted and now it's just a matter of getting all the ducks in a row for moving forward on it. Cool.
Now can't wait till I think we need to get a prototype enclosure done. I think it's like the last prototype thing we need to
do. Yeah, yeah. Cuz we have a full working board. We just need the box. It goes in
box that goes in.
So what you've been doing, Parker,
and I've been, I've been working on that. Kicking the Super Suits that super simple power supply SSPs SSPs been kicking that back up, I'm basically doing all the mechanical layout for the front panel. That's my job. Yeah, making sure all we have enough buttons, knobs, readouts making sure like where the banana posts, the binding posts go. Yeah, sure, we have enough clearance for those. And enough clearance for the power switch all that crazy stuff. zonder now is making sure the mechanical stuff is good. Making sure everything lines up on the same z plane. Yeah. And so it's all nice and flat. And so I'm actually designing spacers. So all the LEDs, and all the modules and stuff that go on to the board end up at 10 millimeters high, which is how thick our aluminum plate is.
Where are you talking about spacers for underneath components
underneath components, and so you will put the spacer down the part on top, then solder.
It's a lot of attention to detail there. Yeah, cuz
a lot of these parts are like, they all vary in heights, like the 16 segment LED displays are 8.6 millimeters in height. And then the individual LEDs are like 6.9 millimeters. So there's a difference in height. So you want to make those at least even by themselves. But then just make them all flush with the front panel is going to be I think you'll make it look nicer.
So then all said and done. You're going to have to have standoff for the front panel that sets the Masters z, I guess. Yes. Okay, cool. Yeah. So did did you did you start by finding out what the tallest component is?
Oh, I started Yeah, basically started with the tallest component, which is right now the the 16 segment displays, okay. And I decided basically to make those flush, okay, with the front of the panel. And so the panel's 10 millimeters thick. Yeah, you have to account for its thickness, its thickness, and so it's gonna be 10 millimeters plus a millimeter. Because of this, I'm going to use a one millimeter fiber washer to isolate the, the PCB from the aluminum front panel. Okay, so it's not resting right on it. Yeah. And then so yeah, 11 millimeters. And so everything's gonna be based off that everything needs to be at the end 11 millimeters off the board. So everything will be nice and lined up. Cool. And that found some is really cool switches from Omron. And the 10 millimeters by 10 millimeters rectangular, and they're they light up, they have a red LED and a green LED in them. And that cap snaps off and so you can put your own, like transparency in it. Yeah. So you can print up basically your own markings for your switches. Yeah. Which is gonna be really cool because we're gonna have a lot of different buttons on this thing. I'm really excited about the fact that you got two colors of RGB LEDs in there, right? And so we can make orange, red and green shades basically.
Right. And we actually got some sand puzzles switches in today. Yeah, yeah, and
the only thing I wish I was better at would have would have like another millimeter travel. Mm hmm. That's like one of those, it feels really good. And then it just stops.
And so when those Ah, yeah, just a little bit more a little
more travel, but it's a good switch. And it's, and
it has a little bit of an audible click, which is slightly just enough,
but what I was gonna do is basically the, the switches are gonna be slightly orange and glow. For normal use, and then when you press the button, and there was a valid button press, the red LED will turn off and so the button will turn green. Okay, so that's what's a valid button press. But if it turns red, it was an invalid button press. And so it lets you know, from just punching stuff in if you're doing something correct or incorrect, cool.
Yeah, it was I was actually telling Parker these. The buttons remind me of the buttons you see in the Apollo Gemini module? Yeah, they were like from Apollo 13. Like they like all the chiclet style. Yeah,
yes. A cast. They're little smaller than than those right. I think the real ones are like an inch and an inch. Yeah, they're big square, because you have to use them through astronaut gloves. Right? These are they're pretty tiny, 10 millimeter, 10 millimeter. And then we want to put two encoders on the front, one for fine control and one for course control. We could just do acceleration but and we have space on the front this put two knobs. I like it that way. Yeah. So these really cool encoders from borns. They're basically RGB encoders. So the two bit encoders. So there's not a lot of crazy resolution for it. But doesn't matter. We just need to know if we clicked one way or the other way. Right. But the RGB it's an RGB LED in a clear shaft. And so you can change whatever color the shaft is. That's cool. I don't know exactly when when used to indicate that but they're also not that expensive. And so I was just like, Ah, this use these.
You have one more level you
change colors on? Yeah, yeah.
Cool. What else is going on the front panel?
And then the control? The company has a lot of LEDs? Yeah. I mean, you got thinkers, we have five digits per display. Okay, I have 16 segments. Okay. times for those. Okay, so that's just to display numbers. Right, right, right. Yeah. And so I was looking at, I was going to just use like seven four, HC five, nine fives to just basically make the all the LEDs as a serial blast out of the prop. Sure. But then I stumbled across these yesterday. From SD microcontrollers, they make these 16 bit constant current LED driver sinks. And they're the slightly more pricey than a cent for hc 595. but not by much, okay. And they're, they're 16 bit so you can drive double the amount with 4595. Can Opener fives eight bits. Yeah. And I think the SD STP 16 see something. P
05. P
05. There it is. Yep. And they can do 100 milliamp hour, Helen milliamps per channel,
per all 16 Or one
per each. Wow. So you can do what? That'd be 1.6 amps total through him?
Well, you can do that constant
through constant through it.
Does this thing have a giant heatsink pad on it?
So it's got a couple different packages? Okay. Um, there's like a cue SOP 24. And a couple other ones. I was going to use the T SOP. 24. Yeah, because it actually has a thermal pad underneath it. Yeah. So I can sync that to the board.
But you're not driving 100 milliamps per le No,
each LED Max is 20 milliamps that I'm
pulling, you're going to do somewhere between 10 and 20? I think so. Yeah. Or set it right at 20. And just go for it.
Well, I'm the 20 milliamps for the those of the 16 segments, we're sure the brightest ones. Yeah. And they pull the most amount power. Those are going to be that's actually right in the middle range for their their power consumption that you can set them to okay, you can set them to 10 to 30 got a range, so it's gonna set to 20 say that's good.
So if all the LEDs were illuminated, this panel would pull one or two amps
more than that, more than that. Yeah. I think just the displays alone will be pulling about just the number displays Yeah, we'll pull two amps. Wow. Yeah. I like
how the super simple power supply keeps getting on simple Yeah, and simple.
And then, and then I've been looking at I haven't figured out what USB mounts I want to put on the front. Okay, so I want a more industrial style connection that's on the front and a will get yanked on and stuff. So I was like well USB b is usually what you use for that. But then I'm like, Well, I really want to keep with them, you know, a modern standard, because B is really old. Yeah, it's still a standard USB 2.0 B is still normal. You still find it on printers still being made today.
I think actually, I Reigle power supply has that.
Yes. On the back. Oh, but this is gonna be on the front. But the so I was looking at type C's, so I can get a Type C that would be panel mount on the front, okay. And it's, it's actually IPC I II 67. Okay, so splashes, yes, splashed it, all that stuff. Yeah, it can handle all that. So it's nothing crazy there. The only thing is I haven't figured out how to go from type C USB to UART yet, which is what the prop talks. Oh, yeah. And one you're like a ft 230 X FTDI. Chip. Right. So I haven't figured that part out yet. Because FTDI doesn't have a UART chip for USB 3.0 Type C yet. All they anyone does yet. Hmm. I did find ti makes a
just spin your own micro? Oh, yeah, sure.
All right, that USB stack great up in a day. They've got one that's the TPS 65982. It looks viable. I haven't done too much deep into it's a datasheet. Yet. That's a by Ti. Yeah. Okay, but it doesn't hit USB 3.0. Type C has UART. That looks like it'll work. Okay, and they have an eval board. That's only 30 bucks. Wow. So I'm like, actually ordered it today. So it should be here on Monday. I can test that out, see if I can make that talk to the prop. And if I can, then I will use type C on the front panel.
Okay, yeah, it sounds like you kind of have to dig through the datasheet. And really read through it.
Does it actually work as a comm port?
What is the chip labeled as it's labeled
as a type C? Port controller and power distribution chip?
Well, that sounds like it. It does from the name.
It's like, does everything for Type C?
USB type C kitchen sink?
Yes. So the interesting thing is, can I make this work with make it work as you aren't without the prop having to talk to it? Because there's a lot of signals that you can configure it from the from the microcontroller side? Yeah. And so I got to figure out is, will this work either out of the box as your controller? Or do I have to configure it through some kind of configuration tool, like ft Prague to make it work like that? Right. But we'll find out on Monday. Okay. Sounds cool. Yeah. And, yeah. learning a lot about type C, because it's interesting about type C's I've been trying to find for that a Type C soldering iron. I want to build Yeah. 100 Watt USB soldering iron? Yeah. There are no reference designs I found yet for 100 watt power supply for Type C, or 100 Watt, like a device.
i It has anyone even come up with an application for that.
And there's no application notes for that yet. So it's like, how do you even I guess you can design it from scratch, but like, how much time and effort are you going to do into like failed boards to make that work? Right? Oh, someone will? Someone will.
So so what I'm curious about I honestly haven't spent a lot of time looking at the pinout of a Type C connector to pass. What was it? 20 volts at five amps? Yeah, you have to have a pin that can handle five it's multiple pins. Oh, it is? Okay. How many power pins?
I don't remember. Okay, but there's quite a bit
so they share the load? Yeah, I thought it might be like the old ones. Were just this one little tiny pin is dumping five amps. Yeah, not that wouldn't work gauge wire. Yeah, right. No, that's not gonna work? Well.
No. I think this TPS chip will work for that to ask I do a lot more research on how to make that work site versus the only company I've seen that had an application note for something that actually pulled quite a bit amount of power. And it was for an 18 Watt device. Okay. And it was actually running at nine volts, two amps. Because you can change the voltage, what was the device? I don't remember. Okay. I think it was just like the front end. So if you need nine if you need 18 Watts, at nine volts, this is how you get it kind of thing. Wow. Yeah, interesting stuff. I mean, it's just really new. And it's taken a while for cus customers and companies to come up with products and use cases and stuff.
Well, yeah, you're gonna have your first adopters and the guys who find it really cool. They're, they're going to start doing things and people will catch on and then before you know it, there'll be reference designs on, on Instructables on how to make 100 watt power supply for a Type C that plugs
into your phone. Yeah, right. Or a Type C Arduino. seeeduino seeeduino. USB 3.0 C Duino. You heard it here. First guys. Okay, all right. Oh, yeah. Our first section. On Monday, we found a really interesting issue with a datasheet. Yeah. datasheet inconsistencies. So if you Google search, so this is a light on? Oh, 805 red LED. Okay, stock basic stuff. Part number is LT s t dash c 171. CKT. Yep. Okay. It's a really common led, we use it a lot. It's actually one of our house parts here. Netfabb. Google that part number. And then you pull a couple of the data sheets that are on the front page. There are two different data sheets, right for this part, that have the same datasheet number. Same revision, same revision. Well, doesn't say revision, but it's got like a number at the bottom bottom. So you assume it's the same thing? Yeah. But so it's got the same numbers. They look slightly different, though. Okay. But in the only differences in the top drawing for both these, one of them's an anode marked, and the other ones cathode marked. Ouch. Yeah. So you have not, it's not like, there's a light a datasheet revision number difference, or like, this affects these lot numbers. There's none of that. It just
it just says, here in this datasheet the anode is this point. Now the other one is cathode. That's terrible.
Terrible. That is terrible. Yeah. I actually will link the the data sheets in the in the in the podcast description. But uh, yeah, it's amazing how this discrepancy is around, especially when you google this part number. And so I think Mouser and DigiKey have the correct ones. At least they have the ones that match our parts. Well, and when tested our parts, so that's
just the thing. We've been putting these parts on boards for a long time. Yeah, we know their cathode Mark.
Yeah, we know that our Kathlyn mark, and they've been Kathlyn. Mark for two years. Now.
We know that cathode marked as all LED should be as
all of these should be all diodes should be.
Yes. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah. So yeah, no idea what's going on with that part. That's be wary of data sheets.
That's crazy.
At least where you buy this part, the data sheets are correct.
It makes you wonder. Okay, so the I've seen both data sheets. It's not like the one that says anode Mark was a mistake. It was a clear it was they made the decision to do that. Yes. I mean, it's it's, it's not like a changing of just lettering. Literally, the drawing is different different. So so some engineering had to do that. So there's got to be a reason behind it.
Yeah. Well, I think it's just a bunch of BS. So that's what it turned out to be. Yeah, that's what turned out to be I think, why don needs a shorter ducks in a row, basically.
So I think light on needs to come on as a guest and apologize to us
apologize publicly. For wasting five minutes of our day. Yeah, what's going on?
Oh, that's great. Yeah. So hey, have you heard about the new Atmel news about atmail removing some support for their oscillators in their Mega Chips?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So you know, when you when you first initializing a chip, or programming it you have to select your fuses and you select Configuration bits. Yeah, we're at meltdown. Yeah, for ours, right. And for the the megas, including the mega use on the on the Arduino UNO's. They had two options for crystal oscillators they had a high power and a low power. The the low power was was generally used for low speed stuff and high power was a really high current robust just beefcake version. Yeah, that could. It was it was basically meant to handle weird offset loads and high speeds. And in fact, I think the the datasheet calls out 16 megahertz Max, but people could, can, you know, push them up to 20 megahertz without much of a problem. So Atmel decides to get rid of the high current oscillator. It's no longer included on the dies.
They actually changed their tooling Yeah, completely completely removing it. So it was a microchip decision.
You know what? It could be? That would be weird, though. I mean, how weird would it be if microchip buys Atmel and then makes this decision and bricks a whole bunch of? Well, I say quote bricks because it's easy to change, but but it's still something where if you don't know what's going on, you'll scratch your head. And if you don't have a scope, you're not gonna know much about it not oscillating. Exactly, yeah. So it's, I don't know, it's weird. So they replaced the high current oscillator with a more robust, low current. So overall, it's it's not necessarily a bad thing. The the one oscillator is no more robust and can handle up to 16 megahertz. Not sure how it would handle overclocking, but I do you really need overclock an Arduino?
Well, it's there's that and a lot of a lot of people use AVR breadboards. We have parasitic capacitance on your clock lines.
Yeah, where a couple pika ferrets here and there makes a different extra difference. Yeah.
Exactly. I ran that issue with the parallax propeller sometimes. Really, back when I first started
just just throwing a jelly bean ceramic cap in there. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know. It's uh, what do you think about that? What's, what's your thoughts
on I think it's interesting that they're changing all their tooling for the Mega. Yeah. And that's what's I guess I don't really have an opinion on the actual cuz I don't do a lot breadboarding stuff. And I actually calculate my load capacitors from our crystals.
Ooh, and lead us here.
Just throw in random caps in. But it's I wouldn't have a problem with that. But I just find it interesting that after microchip buys bought them that they're changing, like, the tooling for like a chip that's been around for 12 years. Yeah. 15 years. Yeah. It's, it's,
it's interesting. I wonder if Arduino is going to go in and rewrite some of their some of their libraries and things that reference that?
Yeah. I wonder if they have to change their if you have to change your future settings, if they're actually changing all that to use a different fuse bit?
Hmm. Well, actually, you know, it's funny, atmail actually came out saying, you can still purchase the old version. And kind of left it at that I'm sure. You know, if you want to order a million of them, you can order the old version?
Yeah. Oh, it's probably they'll have, they'll do like one last run. Yeah. And then just keep them on the shelf until they get used up. And like five years? Yeah, probably something like that. And hopefully there's enough. Well, maybe Atmel. Maybe, maybe Amazon won't exist anymore by then.
But it makes you wonder at the same time, if they're making changes on that, are they making changes on anything else?
Yeah. I still want to see like an AVR core with microchip peripherals. So that would be cool. Yeah. Because microchip so I think has better peripherals than AV ours. But AVR is there in they have better basically, instructions per clock for most instructions are better on AVR rates. Yeah. We'll see though, it seems like the eight bit dynasty is starting to die off slowly. Yeah, it's kind of inevitable in a way. Now, everyone's going to a 32 bit ARM even, you know, cuz you can get a 32 bit ARM pretty inexpensive. Like, what a Cortex M zero for like 20 cents or 30 cents.
Yeah. Well, you know what, honestly, I don't think the eight bit realm is ever going to just die off. Because it's so useful. And it's so simple. And it's quick to turn around for a design such that if you need, I don't know, a port controller or if you need something to just turn on a switch or something like that. I don't want to go through the headache of looking through, you know, a Bibles thickness, data switch register, you
need to hit Yeah, right.
Just give me a simple little picture. If and I can do it in an afternoon. So yeah, I think the eight bits are gonna stick around for a while, but probably not as big
as they've been not as big. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree there. Yeah. I think the more interesting thing would be how long does the pic 32 hang around for? I guess until whenever this microchip even have any arm stuff? No, they don't. I think that's why they bought at all right.
Probably. I mean, they're probably looking at which which direction they can go. Because in general, I mean, if I read something that more professional designers choose pick than anyone else. So they kind of don't have a direction to go. In terms of growth in net net portion. So I guess they're just trying to do parallel shifts.
Yeah. Well, it'd be interesting to see what happens to the Atmel microchip situation next couple years. Yeah. Yeah. And then I saw this really cool thread on the eceee subreddit this week. And it was what makes someone a bad engineer. Oh, So I thought this would be a good topic to talk about.
Why are you looking at me like?
Personally, I was reading through the comments. And my favorite one was what makes a bad engineer fucking around on Reddit instead of getting their shit done was my favorite,
if there could be a sticky at the top that would be perfect
on the top of the EC subreddit is it says that's a little more serious though is I think if you the big thing about engineering is is not fault if you don't follow best practices and ethics kind of stuff. That's what my opinion makes a bad engineer. If you don't take that stuff in consideration with your design, and that kind of stuff.
Blade like the ethics of Yeah, he's talking about cutting corners, cutting
corners, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Okay, but like safety concerns.
Oh, yeah,
we don't need that polyfuse Who cares if you plug in this device and it shorts out and takes the entire you know, computer with it?
Or you know, so something shorts out and puts puts mains voltage right on the chassis? Yeah, things of that sort that kind
of stuff. A lot of cheap USB chargers do this where basically you get line voltage on like the shield? Yeah, yeah. That can happen really easily with a lot of these cheap USB chargers you. There was actually an Arduino device that they SPECT tantalum cap capacitors, with their I think it was like on a five volt rail, they were putting like a six volt, rated tantalum. And it's like, you'll be pushing really close at six foot mark.
Yeah, any spikes in your any spikes and potential
fire? potential fire? Yeah. Stuff like that. That's what gets me the most, I think,
well, and okay, so, so actually interesting ethics involved with that. And this could be a huge topic, but but I think even going further, a good engineer on the other side would be one that if he found something like that, he wouldn't stay quiet about Yes. A bring that up and raise the red flag. Yep. Well,
that goes back to the special disaster. Oh, yes. Rockets. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's actually one of the things they bring up in. When you're when you're an engineer in trainee, I in college. Yeah. usually take an ethics class. And they act. That's actually one of the textbook ones they bring up. So yeah, that's
up there. We had one at a&m Or was about a building in New York, that was rated to withstand a certain amount of storms. And some student calculated that once every 100 years, there was actually it will statistically be a storm that is large enough to actually physically blow the building down. And he wrote a personal letter to the civil engineer who was in charge of that that building. And it was a huge, ethical, ethical thing, because there was only two people in the world who knew that information. Yeah, that the building, statistically, given enough time will fall down. So he had to make a decision there. So
did he know what they did? Yeah, he,
they actually bit the bullet. They stripped off the entire side of the of the building and they reinforced it. They'd paid the cash.
I guess I could have, because it wasn't Superstorm Sandy was was that last year? Yeah. Yeah. Because that would have been that storm.
Yeah, yeah. It very well. Could have been and apparently, it's, it's, it's Western things. But it's a textbook example now, where a college student did the math and prove the principal engineer wrong?
Just check the math. Yep. That sounds good. Check your math. Because sometimes you will fat finger your TI 83. So,
you know, one, one thing that I personally think, potentially makes a bad engineer is an engineer that is unwilling to admit his own mistakes. And an engineer who was unwilling to learn. Yeah,
I agree there. That's,
I think engineers should always be furthering themselves and and on a quest to, I guess, consume more information and just learn more. And it's not that if you if you don't do that, with every moment of your day, you're a bad engineer. I'm just saying, We should always be furthering ourselves.
A good engineer will say, I don't know. I'm going to figure it out though.
Right. So if this sentence doesn't end with I don't know Correct?
Right. Because I don't know is an okay you know, answer to give right when a best the best answers but I will find out Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's that's the furthering your education.
If there's any anything that you learned in college? I mean, honestly, college engineering in college is just teaching you how to find where the answer is. No. Just you learn how to be resourceful.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's that's about 50% of college. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'll put the link to that, that that thread in the post, because, and y'all should give it a read. It's pretty interesting what people come up with.
Yeah, it's pretty funny.
And then, for the last RFO, it's kind of not really an opinion thing. But it's kind of this kind of spurred some project ideas from us. Yeah. There was this really cool video of a basically someone turning on a high powered high current. Power Line transformer. Yeah. And how much noise it makes when the inrush current kicks in. So we're going to play the clip Yes, what do you think of that? That's,
that's absolutely awesome. It's a that looks like a 16,000 volt transformer. Yeah. And and they probably just did it from did nothing and just nothing hammered the load on. That is that is super cool. Here. The
thing is fiber. Like what probably? It's 120 hertz, right? Double, double the frequency? Oh,
no, it would be it would be 60 120 would be if it was rectified. Oh, yeah. That's, although it does sound like the so the pitch actually changes. And I bet you there's some kind of strange phase shifting that's happening there. That's actually changing the pitch
or, or it's actually vibrating the chassis. Oh, yeah. That could be it too. That's actually hitting close to the frequency of the chassis. The resonance. Yeah, you think they would design that chassis to not be at that residence though?
So I, I did a, an internship for a power company during college, and I worked a lot with transformers like that. Those transformers are designed just to be really big and heavy and beefy. Yeah, I don't think they really care too much about that. Yeah.
But yeah, so we had we were talking about this this cool sound, because it sounds a lot like in Star Wars. Yeah. My my favorite sound effects is when Obi Wan turns off the tractor beam. That sounds that's my favorite sound. All Time. And then you brought up the it's a similar sound when they
when they go when they go to fire the desktop. That's our laser. Yeah. And the little guy with a weird funky hat
pulls a little lever back. Yeah, that goes the opposite way.
It's probably the same thing just played in reverse. Yeah.
And then once you expand the thing you want build
so so I want to I want to build a lever a button. I'm not sure yet. What I probably Oliver because because they're both will they'll be one seen. He had to like spin things and like press codes and do his was like the Rubik's Cube Star Wars version. But I want to build kind of a lever that just, I think it's just gonna make that sound effect. But you only pull that lever when you complete a project or something. If you hear it, everyone's like, Oh, man, engineering finish something. Honestly. It'd
be like the power switch for the engineering at the new building. Oh, that'd be awesome. Go. Do anybody leave?
It's kind of like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The doors. Yeah. And they walked by he's like, ah, yeah.
But yeah, yeah, give it give a listen. That sound effect and I'll link the Trent the tractor beam to sound effects. Yeah, very similar. I guess. I guess they did real recordings on pretty much real life things and modified it.
Probably. Yeah, I doubt they'd have. I don't know. Maybe they had. Yeah, no, it was probably all real life. Yeah.
Well, there's a really cool video on one more most complicated sound effects that they have in Star Wars. Yeah. And it's the the Millennium Falcon. Falcons hyperdrive, failure sound
right. Yeah, everyone knows
that everyone knows that sound. It's like it's like six different sources. Combined together and mixed.
Yeah. One of them was a prop from an airplane. Yeah. Actually, it was either turning on or turning off turning on turn it on a solenoid kicking in and starting up. Yeah, yeah. And then I think they played it in reverse or something. And then I think they just what they took six or seven and they just stacked them on top of each other. Yeah, it played that
and then it's got like clunky noises and stuff like that they mixed in. Yeah, that's my second favorite. Sound Effects
Parker's list of favorite Star Wars and effects.
Awesome. Yeah. Well, that's gonna do it for this week for the macro fab engineering podcast,
we're your host, Parker, Dolman. And Steven Greg.
Catch you later. Take it easy
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