Space engineering

Circuit Break Podcast #126

Space Engineering

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June 27, 2018, Episode #126

Stephen picks an enclosure for the uTracer project and Parker gets a new Jeep Grand Wagoneer.

Podcast Notes

  • Parker
    • MAX6682 breakout board finished and ordered
      • This is for the thermistors
      • GitHub repo for the board files
    • New Jeep, The Grande Wagoneer
      • A/C doesn’t work as expected
      • Found the FSM and Schematic
      • Schematic has four parts that control the A/C Compressor
        • Evaporator thermistor
          • Turns out this is a standard 5K NTC thermistor
        • A/C temperature sensor
        • Compressor Low Pressure Switch
          • Standard part #4773763
        • Climate Control Box
  • Stephen
    • uTracer update
      • Enclosure will be a Hammond Manufacturing 1441-16CWW
      • uTracer PCB will be a daughter board attached to the relay control board
      • Built in USB -> RS-232
  • RFO
    • Spider silk microphone also senses slightest waft of air
      • “most waft-able air movement sensor ever”
      • 400V field, ~0.5V/Pa
      • Research paper is behind a pay wall :/
    • Voltage Regulator heatsinks – when are they required?
      • Maximum power dissipation is determined by the maximum junction temperature rating, the ambient temperature, and the junction-to-ambient thermal resistance.
      • PDmax=( TJmax- TA) / RθJA
      • Junction-to-ambient thermal resistance measured in C/W
      • Maximum Power Enhancement Techniques for SOT-223 Power MOSFETs – AN-1028
      • Constructing Your Power Supply —Layout Considerations – SLUP230
      • Jarrett from slack asks “WTF do you do with 2 million free LEDs?”

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MAX6682 Thermistor breakout board Parker designed.

MAX6682 Thermistor breakout board Parker designed.

Parker’s new ride. 1990 Jeep Grand Wagoneer.

Parker’s new ride. 1990 Jeep Grand Wagoneer.

Stephen’s mock up of the uTracer enclosure and where the internal components will stack up.

Stephen’s mock up of the uTracer enclosure and where the internal components will stack up.

About the Hosts

Parker Dillmann
  Parker Dillmann

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
  Stephen Kraig

Stephen Kraig is a component engineer working in the aerospace industry. He has applied his electrical engineering knowledge in a variety of contexts previously, including oil and gas, contract manufacturing, audio electronic repair, and synthesizer design. A graduate of Texas A&M, Stephen has lived his adult life in the Houston, TX, and Denver, CO, areas.

Stephen has never said no to a project. From building guitar amps (starting when he was 17) to designing and building his own CNC table to fine-tuning the mineral composition of the water he uses to brew beer, he thrives on testing, experimentation, and problem-solving. Tune into the podcast to learn more about the wacky stuff Stephen gets up to.

Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

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