#458 – An Interview with Ken Burns

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Welcome Ken Burns of TinyCircuits!

• TinyCircuits is located in North East Ohio (NEO), in Akron.
• Ken also attended the University of Akron
• Decided to stay in the Midwest
• Past guest Todd Bailey talked about going to a job for working with graybeards
• Ken used to work for Avid, which was later bought by Avnet/E14.
• Since it’s a design shop, he got to try out different types of electronics.
• This included learning the entire process and taking it to a CM.
• Wireless HART developed by Rosemount (now Emerson), based on 802.15.4
• MACtek made a PC based interface device for wireless HART
• Dust networks bought by LT
• The standard uses a negotiated time for when to wake up to save power.
• Pepperl and Fuchs bought out Mactek
• Decided to leave Avid to start a company
• Wanted to make a smart sensor platform
• This was late 2000s (2008), so Arduino was getting started
• TinyDuino (and the other boards with the same form factor) is 20×20 mm
• TinyCircuits have launched 3 kickstarters
• Digispark was 2 months prior
• This was early kickstarter days. His Kickstarter video recorded rough.
• The stretch goal was to do mfg, inspired by companies like Dimension Engineering
• Couldn’t have done it otherwise because of the volumes being low per board
• Kickstarter money worked as seed money
• Design was done, but the manufacturing all the problem
• Example system is a processor board + USB shield + GPS (for tracking cats)
• Was in MAKE magazine for that kit
• Everything is open source
• Didn’t need as many feeders as they got for the PNP machine.
• Bought a used machine
• Machine was from 1996
• It had 80 feeders included and was bought with the reflow oven
• All delivered for 25K
• Juki
• Started with 0402
• Bought it from a company that was reputable
• A month of tinkering to get it started
• The bigger learning curve is making consistent product
• “Paste is by far the most critical step in the process”
• Yields started at 40%
• Need to use fresh paste every time
• Yield is 99% now
• Dek 265 helped make things more consistent.  Got it a year after original stuff for $3K
• They are now running with a Panasonic SP60
• Got a new PNP 2 years ago, also from Juki.
• New machines allows small runs or big runs
• Allows testing of a lot of different products
• It’s gotten much cheaper to send it out than when they started.
• Doing manufacturing allows you to do a higher mix, which might be cost prohibitive with sending out to a CM.
• TinyCircuits has done some CM work where it makes sense. Ken says they’re not going to offer ISO9001 or anything.
• It makes sense if the customer wants something custom designed
• Robotic golf caddy
• Chris asked what customers are asking for at TInyCircuits.
• Roadmap is higher end stuff
• Whiskers are breakout sensors.
• They are now funding on Kickstarter!
• 5 pin input mux allows you to talk to different versions of the same sensor (up to 16)
• Dealing with the Tariff
• Selling batteries on digikey
• “18650 is the biggest thing we sell on eBay”
• Selling on digikey and mouser
• Johnny 5 / firmata (used by past guest Jason Huggins)
• Latest stuff supports circuit python
• Little Bits sold to Sphero for unknown amount after raising $70M.
• Working with group out of MIT
• tinycircuits.com
• They work out of the old Goodrich plant in Akron