MEP EP#11

Podcast Notes

Parker has been hard at work on the PinHeck Test Fixture. It uses over 160 pogo pins to test every single function of the PinHeck Pinball System. There will be an article about designing pogo pin style test fixtures for production in the next couple weeks.
Stephen tested the Diode Compression opamp he built a couple weeks ago on the FX Dev Platform. Sounds great!
Noisebridge, A hackerspace out of San Francisco, wrote an article about the large variety of fuse quality. Cheap and gray market fuses tend to not break the circuit and melt. Potentially catching fire. Something even as simple as a fuse should be tested in your product to ensure everything works correctly and safely.
Arduino.cc released a new ARM build of their popular IDE. Users can now compile code and develop on their raspberry pi style devices. Parker thinks an Android version would be great to tweak and push code up over Bluetooth or WiFi.
Semiconductor materials market fell 1.5% in 2015. Mainly from changing the die bond wires from gold to copper. Materials to make semiconductors are inexpensive. Labor and process driving the cost of semiconductors.
Sleev is a Kickstarter that sells adhesive lined heat shrink tubing for $3 for 2 inches. You can buy the same stuff at McMaster for $5 for 4 feet. Goes to show that consumers will buy anything with a fancy graphic and video.
Stephen thinks we should Kickstart the "SKRü".
If listens have any silly ideas for Kickstarters let us know via twitter: Parker Dillmann, Stephen Kraig, MacroFab, INC..

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