Podcast Transcript
Host 3
Hello, and welcome to the macro FEHB engineering podcast. We are your host, Stephen Craig and Parker Domon. And this is episode 82.
Host 2
So next week, the Mac fab engineering meetup hardware Meetup is back on for August. It's August 30. At 6pm. That's right at the macro fab headquarters here in Houston, Texas. This month's topic is lean manufacturing and product design. That's right. Steven, you're actually going to give a talk
Host 3
this right because you gave a talk last time. Yes. So we're kind of trading off. I'm going to do a talk on what Lean Manufacturing, but how to design for Lean Manufacturing and things like the Atkins diet, right? No, no, yeah. Cut out cut out all bad designs, right? Yeah. Yeah, no. So I'm gonna do a quick little carb for like, 1015 minute lecture on that. So elixir is not a right word talk.
Host 2
No Talk. Yep. And then we're gonna have
Host 3
Host 2
Now this beer. There's free beer there for all its sandwiches this time. Oh, it's all beer though. Right? Okay,
Host 3
this is important. The important arts are taken care of. Yeah.
Host 2
So beer and sandwiches, which doesn't sound as good as beer and pizza, but we'll have guests Scott Hanson and Eric Benson. Hoffer.
Host 3
I think you got that right.
Host 2
They were on episode 77. A couple weeks back. And did the they do the idea tank podcast here in Houston. Yeah, so they're gonna be back. And we're gonna do like a live idea tank after Stephen stock, which would be a lot of fun.
Host 3
Yeah, yeah. We're kind of breaking it up a little bit, do a little bit of a serious talk and then go into idea tank and have a bunch of fun with it. Yeah.
Host 2
And you know, hopefully get the the audience engaged and talk in.
Host 3
Yeah, yeah. Well, have a good time.
Host 2
Yep. So last week, I wait is the is that blog out yet? My aim. Okay. So last week, I finished writing an AFMA article on basically how to get the IDE that Silicon Labs, which is called a Simplicity Studio, right. i It's got a lot of like funkiness, because they have this whole like hardware configurator crossbar mumbo jumbo stuff,
Host 3
which is both, like, helpful and annoying, right? Yeah. Cuz it's just
Host 2
something that you're not used to when you're writing C code for a microcontroller, let alone a at 51 style. Hardware, or, excuse me, hardware architecture.
Host 3
Right? It's kind of like if you're used to MP lab, and then you jump over to ml studio. You got to relearn everything. Yeah. Yeah, just knowing where stuff's at. But but the code is still generally the same as the C code,
Host 2
right. It's just what headers you're using and what you know, registers are named. Yeah. Right. So I have an article walking through and basically getting LED to blink. How do you get Blinky the working code?
Host 3
That will be out next week?
Host 2
Or assist? Yep. Very cool. So Stephen synthesizer.
Host 3
Today is the day it's a red letter day it is and and so we have been working on a handful of projects. For those who have been listening from the first episode. They know that God help you. Yeah, yeah. They know that we add a lot of projects, but we don't necessarily finish a lot of projects. I can say today that we I'm putting quotes up finished the synthesizer, I say quotes because
Host 2
it needs it's like, it's like when a video game goes gold. It still needs like a day one patch.
Host 3
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the symbolism needs a little bit more love right now in terms of like, aesthetics and like a backplate and things like that, but it makes noise and it does what I want it to and this
Host 2
circuit boards need to be a little bit better attached and just thrown in the back of the box.
Host 3
We're gonna we're gonna post some pictures of this. So let me explain this real quick. So I decided to go and get a piece of steel from Home Depot and make a nice fancy faceplate for this for the synth. I've been posting some some tweets about it recently. I got it all knobbed up and I got a whole bunch of embossed labels on it so it looks all back to the future. Yeah, and Parker saw that and was like Hey, I got to make an enclosure for this and you had a piece of really nice wood lying around yeah
Host 2
really nice piece of curled maple Yeah, curly curly maple
Host 3
I was just calling out that we call the code what really nice piece of wood right along with personal rocket. Our that was our first code word ever. Let's go with let's go with the curly maple. Let's Let's make curly maple our code worth this.
Host 2
So send that code word along with your address. If you're in the United States, we actually found that we can't ship swag overseas,
Host 3
we apologize. But send that into podcast at macro fab.com. And we'll send some cool swag your way up. And if
Host 2
you're overseas, just send an email anyways, because we'd love hearing from our listeners.
Host 3
Yeah. So back to this. So yeah, Parker Parker saw the faceplate was like, I'll make you a an enclosure. I was like, oh, sweet art. And so like, he made me a synth. And so today's kind of fun, because today's actually my Two Day two year anniversary with macro fab, I finally finished the synth. And it's been like, a year since I conceived the idea. And we have something that makes noise. So we have Chris over here,
Host 2
you you've had things in the past that have made noise, but this makes noise that sounds pleasing to the ears.
Host 3
Okay, this this makes the intended sound Yes, not not partial intended sound. This makes the complete intended sound. And there's 1000 ways to make it better and 1000 ways to add more to it. But this is like I would call this what I wanted, you know, the end result. So Chris is going to play it for us. Give us a little bit of a demonstration. So we'll let it rip for a little bit.
Host 2
So if you would like to use our clip there in your really cheesy 80s Like throwback movie, right into podcasts@macro.com Thank you, Chris. Yeah, thanks.
Host 3
That was killer. Yeah. And that was all on the spot too. Yes. That none of that was pre meditated. He literally just played that. So that was that was great. Yeah, we used a little for those who recognize that that was the arpeggio from the beginning of the intro of Stranger Things. Yep. The Netflix Original. I love that. Well, not not.
Host 2
Not yet at least. But yeah, no, I
Host 3
mean, I've seen is working. It's it's it's doing things it's making sounds.
Host 2
Well, it's also it's, it's not a danger to the human operating it either. That's, that is true. Now, because it's an analysis on the other side. Yeah. Yeah. There's a problem. There's 30 volts in there tops. Yeah. So well, it's actually still hooked up to a lab power supply, too.
Host 3
Yeah, I need to I need to install an actual power supply in it. Yes, actually, it's might be safer this way. Because it has constant current because it's constant current. And
Host 2
if you put a plug on the back, you now have 120 inside the chassis, instead of it being contained into this nice UL certified power supply that you have.
Host 3
Oh, yeah. Well, and your the enclosures made out of wood. And so if you put 120 into that, you think you're breaking some rules there. Yeah.
Host 2
That'd be fine, though. Yeah. But it works. When you put a metal plate or something.
Host 3
Yeah, we'll put a metal plate and people think that it's super safe. Yeah.
Host 2
Maybe we can get like knockoff UL stickers or something.
Host 3
I should put that on there. And I should get one of those golden QC approved really crappy Chinese QC
Host 2
stick? Yeah, it's got the kind of like the hologram on it.
Host 3
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it makes it like golden. Yeah, yeah. So as of the last time we played this. I didn't have a good
Host 2
envelope working. No, the envelope had some weird art shakiness to it. Yeah,
Host 3
yeah. And, and there wasn't a filter. I had the amplifier, the voltage controlled amplifier. So I was able to play the Mario brothers theme song. But now, it has the filter.
Host 2
Yeah, it had that weird like, sound.
Host 3
That's right. And that was the Zener diode. Getting down getting all funky on a scotch. That was many episodes ago. Yeah. But yeah, yeah. So that that got all fixed. And now it has a proper filter installed in there. And it's actually a clone of a of a Mogae ladder filter. And this was the one where I was waiting on those chips to come in for weeks special chip. Yeah. Built in on vero board. And
Host 2
it works. And you have enough of those to actually lay down a proper circuit board, right?
Host 3
Yes, yes. In fact, it actually has a proper circuit board that can utilize that chip. Now ti actually has a remake of that chip that Mouser has, they no longer make it but Mouser has like 1000 of them in stock, and they're 90 cents each. And they come in a SOC 14 package. So I could just make it with that. But I have three more of these chips right now. So I could I could make one more proper filter on a on a PCB, which I probably will, because this variable board that's in the back right now is super janky. We got like three of them in there. I've got three of them in there. Two of them are not working right now.
Host 2
The bet my favorite is I looked at it this morning. And there's actually a dead bugged, like, dip a chip somewhere in there. I don't know what that part does, though.
Host 3
You know what? That is the most critical part of the entire sin and it's just hanging in the air by wires. That is the the reset integrator for the for the signal. Oh, you
Host 2
know, reminds me of it reminds me of like, the part in Spider Man where Spider Man is like trying to like pull stuff together. And he's like floating in the air.
Host 3
Yeah, because I took the dip eight and I bent the late Lily out straight out and it's in I would I prototyped with that circuit by just I would solder on a cap. And if it didn't work, I'd solder on a bigger cap. And I kept doing that. And I actually have four caps soldered in parallel, because it just happened to work with those four in parallel happened to pull up.
Host 2
Now when we make that into a circuit board. Are you going to put those four caps? Oh, yeah. Are you going to find one cap the rule all four caps? No,
Host 3
I'll probably just do all four because one cap probably wouldn't work for whatever reason? Probably the ESR. Yeah, probably whatever reason, you put more
Host 2
caps in parallel, the ESR will drop down.
Host 3
And this is the this is the most critical part because this is the circuit that sends the reset pulse to my integrator. So as you know to create a ramp pulse, you have a linear wave and then it has to reset this that dead bug is the thing that actually sends the reset pulse. So it has to be super fast, super accurate. And it can't have overshoot. It can't Is it a 555? No, it's just an op amp. Oh,
Host 2
it's just an op amp in like an oscillating mode? Uh,
Host 3
well, no. So so my, my microcontroller talks to a digital pulsing chip. That pulsing chip then gets sent to the oscillator or the dead bug circuit, which then communicates to a transistor switch. Which is what I have to have some analog some function there. I wish
Host 2
to draw that out for the notes. It's gonna be dirt. Strong napkin. Yeah, sure. I mean, it's it's just the napkin will be just as nice as the actual circuit. Yeah, physical life.
Host 3
The great part is it looks great from the outside. But what's it's what's inside. That doesn't count. Oh, yeah.
Host 2
I caught the mullet synth. Yeah, the mullet it's it's business in front and party in the back.
Host 3
It's great. I'm glad to finally get this up and running and have something that can actually be played.
Host 2
And hopefully in the future, our intro and outro on the podcast is played on the sun.
Host 3
I want to I want to redo the intro and outro with this synth. Heavy sweet. That's the next step.
Host 2
So I completely forgot where I was gonna go with that. Um, oh, yes, that's right. So synthesizers, how does someone get into making synthesizing music? Or synthesized music? I guess Sure. way to put it. Because not everyone can just go like I'm gonna, you know, no one's like, you and I can just build a sense. And that's how you get into synthesizers. That's going crazy.
Host 3
Actually, you know what's funny? This is now the first and only synth that I own. So the way you get into it is you get
Host 2
like, earlier this morning, I put the headphones on. I'm like, I'm turning knobs. I had no idea what I'm doing, though.
Host 3
Yeah, but that's so much fun. That's where like the magic is, yeah, but Chris,
Host 2
like, when he was playing it earlier, he kinda looked like he knew what he's doing.
Host 3
He knew he knew exactly what he was doing. I have everything labeled. No. Okay. So getting into it is is kind of weird. First of all, you got to get a bunch of money together, and then go buy a whole bunch of crap. And then play a whole bunch of it. Figure out what you don't like sell all the old stuff that you don't like, and then stick with one. So
Host 2
what's the if you if you if you had 100 bucks. Okay, what should you get?
Host 3
I would add 200 to that, and I would go buy an Arturia MiniBrute? Because that's like the all in one package. Okay, that's probably the best place to start. And it's 300. Right? Or is it more than the MicroBrute? I'm sorry, the Yeah, The Arturia MicroBrute is a budget. And that's really in quotes budget. Because it's an all analog, it's synth that sounds incredible. It's a it's a mini keyboard synth. It's in, it's fantastic to start with. And it's really easy to get good sounds out of it. It is it is actually the design of that synth was kind of inspired by a guy who runs youth synth. That's why you Syl th.com or dotnet, I can't remember. Regardless, this guy is an absolute wizard at sense. And he he's amazing, he puts the bill of materials in the schematic for every module he's ever made. And he has monster since like the size of a wall kind of stuff. Well, he kind of got contracted by Arturia to make this synth, or to at least inform the schematics. And it's an incredible synth for a really reasonable price. So 300 bucks gets you the whole thing. Now, there's plenty of others available out there, most of which would cost you a bit more. Now if you want to get into the $100 kind of range, and just start having fun with it a Sruthi. I don't remember how to spell it sh r u ti, something like that. It's by Mutable Instruments. You can buy it as a kit, and put it together I think I think it runs off of Arduino. And it's a full digital synth. So it actually spits out pulses off of PWM. But it can do everything that you just heard for 100 bucks. And it's all uses like three knobs on the front. So you send it digital commands, and you basically get these kinds of sounds. And it has a ton of features. And I don't remember exactly how much that is, but I think it's around the $100 range. It might be more, but if I were to say getting into it, go check that out. And FOS music from outer space.com is a another ample resource. That guy sells a bunch of synthesizer kits and a bunch of PCBs. But he's another one that just, you can find a schematic for absolutely anything. On that website. If you want a schematic for a VCO. He's got like 10 of them on there. If you want a single PCB that has every part on it looks sort of like what I did, he sells those two. But he provides all the schematics and Billa materials, free to use for personal use, and his stuff he makes really, to be honest, it's like super cheesy music, like all of his stuff is like, Bach on a synthesizer, and it sounds really dumb, but his sins are awesome. And all of his, all of his resources are incredible. In fact, I guarantee you I used you know, I got an inspiration with a lot of my designs from his stuff. So between Yusef and mfos, you can build everything you need, or at least go explore how they work. Both of those guys also have like theory of operation, how to calibrate since and even a good chunk on how to play them. So awesome. That's where I'd go.
Host 2
Yeah. Well, congratulations on finishing, I think is the first met project we've actually finished. Second one, the space echo space echo was basically was done. That's not really a project that was more of a rebuild. We didn't design anything. Oh, no, no,
Host 3
we didn't know this does not have any fine gold caps in it, though. No, I apologize. People know find golden they'll find gold. So cheers.
Host 2
So yeah, the first met project done. The resistor resistor is coming soon. No.
Host 3
We actually had some people write in about that be like, Hey, what happened? So So Parker actually got on
Host 2
it. Yep. Okay, so we'll go on to the Powell Pick of the Week. Yep. So this is the project 5474. And if you know what 5474 is congrats, because you are old school electronics? Yeah. 54 series and 74 series chips, basically are the old school building blocks of logic,
Host 3
the original bread and butter. Yeah.
Host 2
So this is a basically a project that they are categorizing and snapshotting all the old school dyes of the insides of these chips and all their sub families and everything. And they got a quite a ways to go. But if you go on that website, it's I think, Project 5470 four.org. You can just look at all the dyes and it's very nice looking.
Host 3
It's so most of the old old 7400? No, is it 70 474,004 1000 74,050 4000? Chips? Use 100 transistors or less? Yes. So they're kind of reverse engineering all of them correct. And if you know, the 74,000 or 100 series, whatever it is, there's a lot of chips out there. Yeah. So this is a huge project. So
Host 2
the the, they're taking die shots and basically reverse engineering the schematic of what they would be transistor level. Okay,
Host 3
quick in. Okay, name, a project you've worked on that has used a 74 series
Host 2
chip. I've used the 74 HC 595. Okay. Yep. And that is actually, you know, the one I can really remember is the 165, which is the parallel to serial output. Because you can use that in Nintendo controllers, really, that's on the Nintendo controllers work. They have a parallel to serial shift register, to just parallel all the buttons that what you got out of the seven pin connector that you would plug into like NDS, it would actually only use five of those pins. Power ground clock data latch. Nice. And yeah, so it would pull in all those pins. And actually, the SMDs was just too ganged up. So it was the same chip, you can actually like, graft and NAS controller onto another MDS controller and use it as a SNEZ. Controller.
Host 3
Really? Yeah, I didn't know that. That's cool stuff. That's awesome. Yeah. So I used I, to be honest, I don't remember the number but I used a hex inverter, one of the 7400 hex converters to make Theramin. Once. If you take the output of a hex inverter and plug it back into the input, it automatically oscillates. Oh, you make a ring oscillator. You make a ring oscillator, it'll rip at whatever speed it possibly can a couple nanoseconds by 10 nanoseconds. But if you put it through an RC filter, where the RS potentially ometer, you can control what that speed is. And then if you put two of them, you add them together, effectively two of those oscillators and make one of them such that the sea is controlled by how close a human being is to whatever object you can make a Theramin by cancelling out the two. So I connected two of these hex inverters to a coke can and electronics store. And this kid was walking by and I was like, Hey, you want to? You want to coke kid? And he was like, yeah, absolutely. He walks up to any kid before he even got to it. The speakers in the whole store like
Host 2
scared the hell out of the kid. You know those?
Host 3
Yeah. Yeah, it's they're super, super easy.
Host 2
I think we pretty cool. Yeah. Cuz a lot of people like buy therming kits. Yeah. And they have like a microcontroller and blah, blah, blah, but hex inverter in a resistor.
Host 3
It only makes a squarewave. So it sounds super Nintendo. But it sounds awesome. Yeah. Like if you want like a real Theramin that does a sine wave stuff. So yeah, that's, that's another game that's a lot harder, but just a hex inverter that they modifies based off of distance. That's not
Host 2
actually that not. Yeah, so check out Project 5470 four.org. He seems cool dice shots. Awesome. So for the RFO we're good. We changed it up a bit this week. Because this week, Hurricane Harvey is coming to Texas. It's barreling barreling towards the Corpus Christi Houston area.
Host 3
We're gonna get absolutely hammered. Yeah, rain wise, it's
Host 2
probably gonna start raining Friday, midday and not stopped till Sunday. Or maybe even longer. Yeah, depends on how long it parks for. So I had an interesting idea. How, or actually a question how does an electric electric engineer or electronic engineer or maker last through a power outage? That's like multiple days long? Because one you can't have internet unless your phone has has it. But then your phone will die because you don't have power. How do you how do you do it?
Host 3
i That's that's that's tough. Yeah, it's really tough. I mean, I've got I've got a couple gallons of homebrew at home. That helps for sure.
Host 2
Yeah, by adventure. Oh, get warm.
Host 3
Host 2
Oh, no. Oh, get a bunch of ice and fill up your ice because you have an ice just as a as a as a kegerator. Right. Yeah. Fill the whole thing with ice. I lost by a week. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Host 3
Well, there we go. That's how you can drink
Host 2
five gallons in a week. You probably could do that. The only thing you could do is drink beer.
Host 3
You would be you'd be that'd be a rough week would be a very roughly.
Host 2
I was actually in a similar vein is just gonna have a lot of ice. Ice really takes the edge off but to go back is I would get a a propane powered soldering iron.
Host 3
And you'd solder in the middle of a hurricane. And
Host 2
actually, this weekend, I'm gonna build our new benches for engineering at macro fab. And oh, but you need a welder for that. Yeah, but as long as the power doesn't go out, okay, so just but that's not all
Host 3
the batteries from all of your cars and gang them up and get up and start welding. It put it put put them in series. So you got 48 volts. Yep. Or not. I'm sorry. 24 volts. Yep. And then and then just our blessings hammering. Yeah,
Host 2
I bet you could do it. I probably get one Weldon. Yeah, probably. Drink bad. But yeah, it's just, you know, without, without internet, it's in power. It's really hard to do electronics. I mean, yes, Josh is chuckling over there. But without electrons flowing. It's hard to make electrons flow right. self fulfilling prophecy.
Host 3
So hopefully we survive this weekend. It's going to be absolutely crazy.
Host 2
Yeah, be fine. Yeah. Yeah, just don't. Once I say high water turn around. They have some fans. Yeah,
Host 3
turn around. Don't drown. Yeah, we without fail here in Houston. Every time it rains heavily, which happens fairly often, once a year. There's still people who just like, there's 15 feet of water in front of them. They're like, Nah, I can drive to that. And they're in like a Nissan Sentra. And then they'll try to drive through that. Without fail. It happens every single time. Yeah.
Host 2
So I think that will wrap up this episode of The Mac fab engineering podcast, right? Yep. We were your host Sparky Dolman
Host 3
and Steven Craig. See you later. Take it easy. Thank you, yes, you our listener for downloading the show. If you're not subscribed to the podcast yet, click that subscribe button. That way you get the latest meth episode right when it releases, and we'd love it if you review us on iTunes. If If you have a cool idea or project or topic that you want Parker and I to discuss Tweet us at macro fab or email us at podcast at macro fab.com
