MEP EP#37

Podcast Notes

MacroFab is moving soon. Fun times! See Figure 1 to see all the stuff we need to move. Parker has finished the first version of the Selective Solder Fixture. It uses magnets to support the PCB to prevent sagging. Files here. To calibrate the machines MacroFab is designing, Parker is working on the O.A.T.B. or Optical Alignment Test Board. It is a 16"x16" PCB panel that has markings and footprints of all sizes to calibrate computer vision systems. As a side project, Parker is gathering parts for the Fantastic Air Realtime Tester. He is going to use a Adafruit Light Tower, the Macro Duino, and possibly the IAQ-CORE air quality sensor. The IAQ-CORE runs $35 however and Parker wants to try the CCS811 which is probably cheaper if he can get his hands on one. Stephen has been continuing work on the Synth Engine he was working on the past couple weeks. The AD9833 is up and running along with a 16bit A/D and D/A. He is able to produce a saw wave that ranges from 13.75Hz to 14080Hz. It is 0.5V/octave or 0.041666V/note. Tuning and tracking is excellent. It seems the Arduino libraries can not handle floating point calculations past 7 decimal places. Stephen has also jumped on the fixture train and has a cut tape strip feeder for placing cut tape and reduce wastage on our My200 Pick and Place. Scott Shawcroft, a previous guest on MEP, now writes for Adafruit! His first article is about the Arduino Zero and is a very technical walk through. Go check it out! Parker has found that datasheet pin names vary from manufacture to manufacture for the same chips. Example is the 74HC595 and pin 9 which is the serial output of the IC. KiCad uses inverse QH for the 74HC595 pin 9 marking. Wat. NXP: Q7S TI: QH’ ON Semi: SQh Diodes Inc. : Q7S STMicro: QH’ Philips: Q7’ National Semi: Q’h Motorola: SQh SGS-Thomson: QH’ Fairchild: Q’H Toshiba: QH’ Someone should decap different 74HC595's or other 7400 series chips to see how much different they are. IoT done right? Mark Rittman using a Amazon Echo to voice control his