On this episode, Stephen gives an update on the FX Dev board and Parker talks about his MacroDuino project.
Podcast Transcript
Host 3
Hello, and welcome to the macro FEHB engineering podcast. We're your host, Stephen Craig and Parker Dohmen. So hey, this is episode number 40. Yeah, finally, yeah. Moving along big four. Oh, so this week, got some fun stuff going on. We're actually filming the video for the FX dev board. That's right, tonight. Yeah, right after the podcast where we're going to be doing a part of the video. And there's going to be another part of the video over at the at the fab in the new location.
Unknown Speaker
So from that front tomorrow, right, that's right. Yeah.
Host 3
So getting the getting the filming crew to come over. And we got we got some really unique locations. We're going to be doing some of the Filming Filming in the place. We do the podcast, some of it in the post office, and some of it at the fab. So it'll be it'll be pretty cool. I'll keep everyone up to date when that'll be launching. I'm sure we'll be talking about that on the podcast pretty regularly.
Unknown Speaker
Host 3
Yep. Yep. So So yeah, that'll be fun. Been been a long time coming. But But I it's going to be killer. Video is gonna be great.
Host 2
The best thing about it is the you're finalizing the enclosure. Yeah. For now. And it's got the magnet. So make the lid snap on? Oh, yeah.
Host 3
Yes, yes. No, it's good to see everything come together. So yeah, also this week, just been working on some some jigs for some some customers. Actually once. Sorry, was it programming once, program and test. This is for a customer that has their board does motor control stuff. So this is actually a second revision because they completely redid the board, which means their old jig is basically obsolete. The good. The good thing is they kept all the connections, the same, it just different location, you just got to move everything around. I had to move everything. But they're bored. They're bored square area didn't get much bigger. But the way it got panelized means that this new jig is 16 inches wide.
Host 2
So it's a big job. So it's like the pin hack tester then yeah, yeah, it's it's a big jig. Yes. Because the pin hack board is like six by 14. Yeah. So the tester is like 16 inches wide.
Host 3
Yeah, yeah, well, and these, these guys, their board is L shaped. So on the part of the L, like the inner corner is actually routed out. So you can see through the panel, which is perfect, because on the first jig, I made it, and I didn't put an LED, or I didn't put an indicator to show which board in the panel, which it was two rows of five. So there's 10 boards on each panel. I didn't put an LED to show which one was programmed. I was like, You know what, I need to add that to the second version. So now there's a nice little window next to each board where a little LED will pop up. You know, it's the little things that kind of make it not helping. Yeah, I did actually add LEDs to the old jig, but I just kind of just hacked solder them in, which worked, but now they're officially part of the jig.
Host 2
Yeah, on that note is because we're working on a new version of the Kinect system. We're actually it probably won't be called a pin heck anymore, because we're actually redesigning about half the board. Yeah, but we'll be able to keep the old tester. Oh, cool. Yeah,
Host 3
so you leave in all the landing pads and same
Host 2
all that's gonna be saying to the outside world, it's gonna be same except the only thing we're changing really is the DMD port because we're going to go to HDMI. Cool. Yeah, we cool.
Host 3
You're changing some some processor stuff, too, right?
Host 2
Yeah, the prop is going to get axed and then we're going to be putting on a Octavio systems, the system on the system on chip guy and run Linux for the AV kernel. Awesome. And yeah, that's, it's gonna be really cool. The interesting thing is, we still have a pic 32. It's going to do all the game code. And it's actually going to tell the Linux kernel what to do. Like the bare metal, like pick is going to be telling you it's the Master. Yeah, it's the master. It's going to be telling the the Linux system what to do? Well, it's
Host 3
just offloading the Grunty stuff. To the to the Linux.
Host 2
Yeah, well, yeah, it's basically it's offloading everything that doesn't need to be timing critical. Yeah, like pressing a button. Moving a solenoid flashing a light. That's pretty timing critical. Yep. But some that's not as, like, Play Sound Effect X. Like it can be a couple of nanoseconds lagged. Right. And no one will know.
Host 3
No, yeah, it doesn't affect the gameplay. Correct. Directly. Correct. Yeah.
Host 2
So that's why we're going that route. Awesome. It's kind of backwards. A lot of other people out there that are that build pinball systems and stuff. They do it the other way. They they basically have a Python script that Is your game. And so your game code, game code runs on? You know, an iOS? Sure and then spits out? It seems to be okay. Just one of those like, I don't trust it.
Host 3
You want you want control over bare metal?
Host 2
Yeah, I want to know how many clock cycles it will take to run that operation.
Host 3
Um, you know, I haven't seen any of the code for any of that, but I'm sure the code in that pic 32 is must be a beast.
Host 2
It's it's pretty beastly. Um, we actually have a clocked like, there's a certain frequency the kernel runs out. I think it's like 2000 Hertz. It's what the kernel runs. So it does everything into in, you know, 2000 times a second. Wow. It's pretty quick.
Host 3
It must just be a ton of interrupts
Host 2
there is a lot of interrupts I think we use all the interrupts and all the timers.
Host 3
Yeah, well, you mean with how many? Well, on a pinball machine, there's two inputs, right? I mean, to two inputs that the user has control over. Correct. Okay. But then everything else is just lights and bump interaction interaction. Yeah.
Host 2
And we have it all written. I don't know what some of the other games are written as, but the ones I worked on. They're written as state machines. The the, like, how the rules are written. Yeah.
Host 3
So wait. Well, I guess I guess if if the ball is hitting something like a bumper, or whatnot, the processor has to know that. Yes, switches. Okay. Okay. I was thinking, like with a bumper, it wouldn't necessarily have to know it, but it has to know in order to count tally score, yes. Okay. Okay. Man, that must just be a beast.
Host 2
Yeah, cool. Oh, yeah. Okay, so what I've been doing Yeah. So last week, we were talking about the Bluetooth cheaper do idea hack. So I haven't done too much about that yet. But I did make sure I got my bluetooth module in, connected it up to my phone. That all worked. And then I looked at my radio my jeep and I'm like, I probably should buy a spare in case I've messed this one up. And so I bought a spare for like 15 bucks on ebay. Nice. And so when that comes in, then I'll probably have the spare one. So that way, I still have radio on my jeep. So I you know, commute I can listen to NPR and in music, you know, like good stuff. And yeah, cool. So hopefully comes in tomorrow. It should be at my house tomorrow.
Host 3
I'll be able to hack it this weekend. Yeah, I need to throw up some pictures of the the Bluetooth module. Yeah, I did last week. Oh, you didn't? Okay, cool.
Host 2
And then the macro tween No. Oh, yeah. I got the rev to this this morning. And thankfully, it works. Awesome. I had to do some I completely forgot that I put the 80 Mega 320 P be
Host 3
right then the new most newest one
Host 2
newest from January I completely forgot I did that. And I basically tried to load in Arduino the like stock 328 P bootloader. And it threw a you know, it's not the right signature. Oh, okay. Yeah. And, like, Oh, crap I had I actually almost just swapped it out with my old you know, 320 Regular P.
Host 3
Oh, do you think that chip was bad? No. Yeah, first.
Host 2
I'm like, and I looked at it. I'm like, Oh, I get the PB. So now I had to, you know, Hunt online for some code. And
Host 3
so somebody has already made a bootloader for the PB. Yeah. And
Host 2
all the stuff that supports it in Arduino. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I'll put I can't remember. Oh, there it is. It's called Water rot. It's German.
Host 3
Okay, so I guess it's a third party thing. It's not necessarily Arduino. Correct. It's
Host 2
a third party thing. And this water rot is a like, it looks like a German based like maker store, kind of like added fruit. But they do development to cool. And so you can go on their GitHub and then you can just follow their instructions and get it working. So I got mine working this morning.
Host 3
I to be honest, I can't remember at all do you. Do you know what the difference is between the P and the PB?
Host 2
The PB the new one has it can run? I think it has 20 megahertz clock support. Yeah. It also has double the amount of timers double the amount of spy interfaces double the amount of you arts. It says double everything.
Host 3
Oh, okay. Yeah, I remember cash. That was that was a low number episode. Yeah. Seven. Yeah, yeah, it was really low. That's right. If they didn't drastically change any one feature, they just added a whole bunch of or duplicated feature. Correct. Okay. Okay. i Yeah.
Host 2
Cool. And then what We've talked about this on the podcast before by actually started working on it is the wall clock that one designed for here at the the bomb shelter or recording studio. And I want to build one for macro fab two, because this can be ginormous. Yeah. And so I decided to basically build a digits myself because the digits are expensive. Like we're talking cuz I want this thing to be like 16 inch high. Seven segment displays. Yeah, like Monster. Yeah. And I think the 12 inch ones are still like 60 bucks a pop, which is pretty expensive. And then I was like, Okay, what if I made a PCB that big? That's really expensive. Oh, my gosh, yeah, that's ridiculous. And then I was like, Okay, what if I just made the individual segments. And so you have, you know, seven of these same boards, right, and panelized it up or built them up like that, and they actually got the price pretty close, pretty low down. And then space, I'll have that. I've actually designed one segments. And so I just had to, you know, click 49 in the macro five interface and just order them. Wow. And then the brain board is a prop with some moss vets that basically just dumped power onto segments. I thought
Host 3
you were gonna do in the Mecca Duino. Now, yeah, well, I guess it doesn't have an RTC?
Host 2
No, it doesn't. So cool. So this board will have an RTC on it. Yeah. So it'll be easy. Yeah, no, have a UART interface so that you can just plug USB into it. And we'll end
Host 3
when the Prop has enough IO that you can just go directly to the segments, right?
Host 2
Yep. And I was thinking about putting Bluetooth on it. So that if you don't want to have a computer talk to it, you can just Bluetooth into it and maybe write a simple app.
Host 3
Yeah. Well, an idea. I don't know we kicked it around the other day for for the studio, is to somehow try to get the the time clock out of Pro Tools and spit that up on the wall out of this thing. So if Pro Tools could could take control of it and show the the the actual timestamp, that would be pretty cool.
Host 2
All we need to note for that is how this Pro Tools talk to things. Right? I know there's external outputs for it. Could you talk to Josh here about that? And we just have to figure that out.
Host 3
Right? I don't know. Might be fun. It might also be a headache.
Host 2
I don't think weeds too bad. Sweet. Yeah. Now the RFO section. So we have to our foes this week. Cool. So the first one is we talked about this previous episode. It's about that USB killer thing? Yeah, they the high voltage Yeah, that basically plug it into your your computer. It uses the five volt line to basically buck boost up to like 200 volts, and then dumps it onto your data lines destroying your computer. Yeah. Or at least destroying your USB frontin. So there's a upgraded version, I guess you can call upgraded version of this now. And I found on Ollie Express. When in Aliexpress Yeah, someone the Eevee log RC channel, put this link in there. Yeah. And the thing about it is it's it so they say it's a USB killer device, oh blah, blah, blah, but it's packaged to look like a Kingston USB drive. And it comes in a Kingston USB drive, like packaging
Host 3
is a weapon. Yes. That's hilarious.
Host 2
Yeah, so it comes a knockoff packaging and it looks like a knockoff Kingston. Like if you just like, drop this somewhere. Someone will totally think it's legit and plug it in their computer. Oh, that's messed up. Um, the only thing about it is it's would still be kind of expensive. It's 40 bucks. It's not like you can just buy like, you know, 100 of these and just like ruin probably like, you know, at least 100 computers pretty pricey stuff. And the best thing I like about this as the because I don't like the device. You can sell whatever you want. But this is like starting the missile like make pranking way too easy, as you can call blowing up someone's computer a prank.
Host 3
Well, okay, let me let me actually tell you this real quick, because this is totally in line with it. I was I was prototyping some circuits just the other day on my kitchen table. And I was I was using an Arduino from my laptop connected to a breadboard. And I was the the USB was powering the Arduino, which is five volts. And I was using that to interface with some plus minus 15 volt stuff. I don't know how it happened, because I wasn't actually doing anything at the time, but Somehow, my positive 15 volt from my power supply hopped onto my five volt from my computer's USB. It took out my USB and it took out windows. And it took up my motherboard. My computer like it all happened at once and it didn't it didn't even sound like a shock or a spark or anything like that. Windows goes at like that. And then my whole computer went dead and it won't do anything. It's like the motherboard is fried I totally took took it apart and yank the hard drive and put in another computer because it's just like wow, I bricked a British computer with only 15 volts Yeah, so 200 volts is almost like a guarantee. I mean this was this computer was just it was legit garbage HP so it probably didn't have any zener protection or anything on the five volt line. But yeah, it doesn't take much it that's the lesson here it doesn't not take much to kill a computer
Unknown Speaker
Host 2
the the description for this product is awesome. Yeah, that's the best Chinglish I've read in a long time this is gonna be good this is good so I have some examples. high voltage power must be off after standing for two minutes until the release of more than electricity and then carefully openings on the motherboard
Host 3
we probably talked about this on the on the pocket he's more than like just the the English from from our oven though the little process oven or not it's the best please do not know Yeah, please do not place an area of strong tremor. Yeah.
Host 2
Like please turn handle to 90 degrees C
Host 3
Yeah 90 degrees Celsius to open door
Host 2
and then the other really good sentence into that poll. That was what is the what is the new version upgrade. Solve the USB killer version 2.0 problem of unstable extension cable. By the test extension line five meters long killer can still release pulse. Nothing can stop it from releasing high voltage pulses. Nothing It's like a fucking Terminator. Yeah,
Host 3
no, this this is honestly this sounds like a like a Godzilla thing. Nothing. Nothing could stop it from release. Perfect. That's amazing. No, there's hours of fun with Chinglish. Yeah, when you when you get a device that clearly is like a Shenzhen special. First thing pull up the manual and read it. Yeah, because most of the time when we get crap, the first thing we do is the manual goes in the trash is not worth it. But just for the comic factor. Pull out it Oh, it's so great.
Host 2
Though Yeah, I I support these people in building and selling whatever they want. But I don't like where they're going with it. Like it was just like a bare PCB. Sure, fine. But the fact that actually packaging it like a thumb drive, yeah. And an actual well, not actual, probably, but no knockoff packaging of Kingston. I'm almost wondering
Host 3
if we should buy one of these and run some tests on it and see what they did. And, and I don't know, make something goofy out of it. I don't know. It seems like it could be fun. But 40 bucks is a lot for something.
Host 2
We can make like a how much voltage is a Jacob's Ladder need to make? How much voltage?
Host 3
Oh, a lot more than 200. I mean, we could make a really small
Unknown Speaker
Jacob's Ladder. A little tiny, like 800 volts. Yeah, let's
Host 3
let's let's give it a shot. Or like a USB BBQ starter or something like that. Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker
Host 3
Yeah, we should. We should totally pick one out.
Host 2
I'll pick one of those up. Tomorrow. Sweet. Hi, our phone number two. What's new ESP? 32 testing the Arduino library. And that's the article that was on Hackaday. I found this from and basically, you know, the ESP 32 Is the updated version of the ESP 8266. I think what basically it's the Holy Grail IoT chip. Yeah. The ESP 32 Looks like even more of the Holy Grail. IoT chip because it's fairly inexpensive. It has Wi Fi and Bluetooth. Whoo Yeah,
Host 3
but does it actually have a datasheet Yes, it does. Oh, that's the
Host 2
company the company is suppressive is doing a really good job it looks like the actual document this stuff they're they're kind of like Silicon Labs I guess. Yeah. That because that's the only like fabulous company that came my mind. Expressive is fabulous. Yeah, they just build IP and then farm it out to the cheapest place probably in China to build it right.
Host 3
But yeah, so they trying to make like an environment right? Yeah, no,
Host 2
they they. It works for in Arduino IDE.
Host 3
Oh my Gosh, people are going to just completely go nuts all over this. Yeah.
Host 2
So they have the core support for the GPIO. That excuse me GPIO UART, Spy IC and Wi Fi. So they have Wi Fi
Host 3
working. And they just pull up the Wi Fi library and you're going good go. Oh my gosh,
Host 2
there's a couple more RAM things I need to do. Bluetooth is not implemented yet for that for the Arduino interface. I'm gonna assume don't get to that soon. So
Host 3
but it's not implemented. But that doesn't mean you couldn't just take 30 minutes and write your own code to do
Host 2
correct. Yeah. But yeah, so this is this is interesting is basically the company that makes the chip is making it work in Arduino IDE. This is like Atmel making their new chip working in MP lab. No, no making their chip work in in Arduino. Yeah, yeah. Because Atmel doesn't care, I guess. Or they don't care about that. They have like, oh, yeah, just let the community do that. Whereas, you know, basically, they had the Arduino community does, basically adds all that mail chips. And well, it's
Host 3
all about marketing to the right people. These guys know what their user base is. Yes. And they know what tools they're going to use.
Host 2
Yep. So I'm thinking is I'm gonna watch this pretty closely and probably pick up an ESP 32 Dev Kit. Yeah. Just to play around with that. See how well those libraries actually work? Apparently, some of the third party stuff is kind of sketchy, but it's actually pretty easy to get working. You set to change them. You know, like, the stuff that's actually hard coded in for like, AVR is, you know, change that around a bit. Get it working, huh. Cool stuff.
Host 3
So is this something that you can just go into the interface and download the kit? I think they have that area where you can download extensions or whatnot. Yeah, I don't
Host 2
think this is for that yet. Okay. I don't think it's a JSON that you can put in. Yeah. And then you can download all the board stuff through the Arduino. You know, IDE. I don't think there's one there yet. But there might be I didn't see
Host 3
one. Huh? Well, if there isn't, it's coming soon. Coming soon.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, aseco Moore's that space echo, echo, echo, echo, echo, echo, echo, echo, echo, echo, echo. Echo, Echo.
Host 2
Echo. Yes. Space echo. Completely forgot about that. Yeah. Maybe because I did not write it down list. So it's been a while since we had a space echo update, mainly because we've been basically working really hard on the move and bunch of other stuff gotten away,
Host 3
but and it's tucked away at my shop. Yeah, his shop,
Host 2
Steven shop and last night went over there. And basically D soldered entire board.
Host 3
Yeah, crack a couple beers and do a bunch of soldering. Yeah. For like two hours.
Host 2
So we're about three quarters the way through re soldering the entire thing now.
Host 3
Yeah, well, it with this kind of thing because the space echo fired up. It just kind of didn't do exactly what it was supposed to do. Just from experience, that just tells me. You know, go look at the components. If they look super crusty, then replace those. But if they look fine, then you're most of the time. You're fine. We're recapping the whole thing. Yeah. Half the machines already. recapped Yeah. But we're hitting every single solder joint in it. Or I should say Parker is Yep. So I got a nice Hakko D solder gun. Just pull the old solder off and throw some brand new lead on there.
Host 2
Yeah, and we're using my I've got some I got like 20 pounds of old school. Kester 6040 rosin, the good stuff that's leaded. And it's actually you know, circa 1964. Ish.
Host 3
It's that stuff is such a dream to solder. It's so easy.
Unknown Speaker
The problem is, you can't use that the AP macro fab. No,
Host 3
no, we never use lead solder but at Steve shop. Yeah, we're all about lead. Oh.
Host 2
So yeah, it's uh, you know, the space echo is newer, but it's pureed Correct? Yeah. That's curious will not get you know the purists that are into audio gear when I get angry at us.
Host 3
No, especially because we're using fine gold caps in there. Yeah. Fight Nick.
Unknown Speaker
Nick con. Gold. Whoo. It's
Host 3
Host 2
That's gonna sound Yeah. Um, so yeah, hopefully by this time next week, we have it all put back together. That's the other thing. I'm so thankful I took pictures. I got find the pictures though. I didn't take pictures of it. Yeah, because I had looked at it last night and I'm like, I had no idea how this
Host 3
is a bundle. have wire Yeah, it is an absolute mess is
Host 2
a mess. And the thing is I was really good at like when I D soldered something. I it was a wire I actually restarted it right away. Yeah. And so that I didn't have any loose wires. I went to it last night. That's all too loose wires. I'm like, I have no idea where Let's go. red wire and a blue wire.
Host 3
Yeah, so it doesn't tell you anything? No, yeah, we actually have a full printed copy of the original service manual. But okay, so So here's the thing when it comes to repairing something, if you can find the schematic, you're super excited. If you can find the service manual, it's like you hit jackpot. But still, the server's manual doesn't always get you all the way there. And the server's manual is just like, here's the schematic and here's some some photocopied images of the board. Yep. Good luck. It tells you how to calibrate it. But it does not tell you where every wire goes.
Host 2
Yeah, and it doesn't have any color codes for the wires either. And so it's like, I have a red wire and you start looking like what is the I'm hoping that the other end of the wire is hooked up to something that we can easily find on the schematic.
Host 3
You know what? Those wires were pretty beefy. Remember, it had a little Oh, it had a like a little actuator. A little spring actuated that neck like clip something in place? That might be it? I bet you they connected to that? Because that was a two pole device. It was like a little motor actuator thing.
Unknown Speaker
Those other wires so that there are oh well.
Host 3
Good luck. I tried to help
Host 2
figure it out. It can't be too hard. I mean, you know,
Host 3
there's not a lot of connections left. It's all it's all analog. How
Unknown Speaker
Host 3
Host 2
Well, yeah, so that was episode 40. Yeah, the macro engineering podcast. We were your hosts Parker Dolman
Host 3
and Steven Craig later guys, take it easy.
