The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

A weekly show about the trends in the electronic industry.

You are here: Home / Radio Show / #4 – Cultural Differences

#4 – Cultural Differences

Now that Dave and I have been trying to get some thoughts together a bit prior to the show (though the show itself is still quite “off the cuff”), we have some topics we can list out for you. You can use it either while listening, after you’ve completed listening, or hell, you can forego hearing Dave and I completely! I mean with an Ohioan and an Aussie, that’s a lot of nasally voices, eh?

Anyway, see below for a quick outline of what we’ve talked about and links to the things we’ve been talking about. If you hear anything we’ve missed, be sure to add it into the comments section, along with your questions or thoughts. Any suggestions for future shows should be placed on The Amp Hour Suggestions Page so that we can easily separate it out and talk alllllll about you during our next show. Looking forward to seeing all your comments and if you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed using some of the links in the upper right hand corner of this site.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Remember to please leave any feedback (especially on the outline format) or questions in the comment section. Thanks for listening and reading!

Comments

  1. People should still make the effort to understand analogue electronics as well as working with microcontrollers and so on. Sooner or later one will need to create external circuitry to work with AVR, Arduino and other MCU systems. As Dave said, you really need to know the basic building blocks. It is analogous with basic mathematics, people can (usually) use a calculator but hit a brick wall when required to calculate without one.

  2. Dave,

    You mentioned you get your personal boards done in china.. can you post a link?

    Thanks!

  3. The board prices on Let’s talk Geek was given in ZAR, not US$. With the current exchange rate, that would be around $80 US.

    • Hi Guys,

      Yea I should have said Rands or ZAR on the show, thanks Eddie

      But in general all electronics are very expensive in South Africa. I mean a Fluke 87-V is $830 (R6000.00) here! Rigol scope DS1052E is $1052 (R7638.00)!

  4. “Nobody is going to be able to make an IC at home.”
    -Dave Jones “The Amp Hour #4”

    Is this a challenge?

    In 1971 The Intel 4004 was built on 10 μm technology. The 6502 I think was around 3-5 μm. Current consumer laser printers are hitting 1200 DPI which corresponds to a bit over 20 μm. There has never been a better time!

    It is completely within the realm of feasibility to hit 10 μm in a homebuilt lab. We have no need for a large amount of the equipment that allows for mass manufacturings. Though for cost sake much of what is needed would need to be built.

    Direct laser maskless lithography would probably make a good choice for exposure. And a good chunk of work would have to go into various chemistries because I’m willing to bet that many of the resists such are unavailable in small quantities.

    10 μm, totally doable.

    • 10 μm, totally doable.

      Anything is do-able of course. Yes, consider it a challenge.
      But of course it would be pointless to do so when you can buy the manufactured chip fully characterized and tested for a few cents. But if it floats your boat, go for it.

      I was of course speaking in terms of generating useful product compared to the 3D printers we were discussing.
      Useful IC’s at home? – never for the foreseeable future.
      3D printers?, they are here now and generate infinitely useful parts. In a few years everyone will have one.

      Dave.

      • I guess it depends on what you call useful. There are plenty of MEMS, analog and specialized circuits above 5 microns that would be useful.

        As far as for use with a 3d printer. Printable circuits are starting to hit their stride in academia and varorwareish startups. I believe the current stuff is able to hit the level of common microcontrollers. So a printable Intel i7 is probably out, but a printable MSP430 or display controller probably isn’t that far away.

      • But your arguments for 3d printers apply to IC’s as well; I am unaware of any 3d printer that can print better quality and cheaper than traditional manufacturing. You buy it because it’s made to be exactly what you want it to be and because parts are (almost) immediately available. I see the same benefits of 3d printers as home made IC’s.

  6. Lol, Thanks for attempting to avoid “The Waz” talk.

    The Maker-bot seams to have taken the 3d printing spotlight, but it wasn’t NYC resistor that first developed and marketed the idea. Reprap a much bigger and better open source 3d printer (http://reprap.org) did it years before. There is even a company here in New Zealand running a successful business selling parts and 3d items.

    Blender (www.blender.org) is the program to learn when it comes to 3d, its open source therefore free, and you tube is full of tutorials so learning it can be relatively easy.

    Chris, New Zealand is only just across the ditch from Aussie (we are their neighbours) and even we find it hard to understand them at times :).

    Mike.

  9. I got nothing to add to the discussions but this is awesome to have a real electronics podcast. I have had no luck on finding one until The Amp Hour

    Hobbyist-s are working on sending human in space so, making IC is no problem. But the reason for doing it for other than “Because i can” or “I want experience” is highly improbable.

Trackbacks

  3. […] start up is next to impossible so funding is one of the only options available. We also referenced the reader comments from last time concerning making 10 micron feature size chips at home and encouraged people to give it a shot. Who are we to say what people can or can’t […]