EP#431: Timing Tariff Modulations

Episode Transcript
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Parker Dillmann (00:10):
Welcome to circuit break from MacroFab, a
weekly podcast about all thingsengineering, DIY projects,
manufacturing, industry news,and now time modulation. We're
your hosts, electricalengineers, Parker Dillmann.

Stephen Kraig (00:24):
And Stephen Kraig.

This is episode 431. So, yeah, time modulation.
This one been a great topic forepisode 420, but we are going to
we had James Lewis on for thatone, didn't we?

Did was that 420? Yeah. That that was when we were
talking about was that when wewere talking about reliability

no it was his

no is apple 2

is apple 2 mega yeah the mega 2 I'm making sure
it's that was that episode Yeah,episode 4 20, and I said blaze
it

yeah, that's right.

And that made it and that made it into the
episode. Alright. So, yes, timemodulation in regards with
capacitors. We're We're notactually gonna be talking a lot
about capacitors except withthis article. It's a a research
paper about a differentstructure for the dielectric.

(01:18):
I wasn't able to get the paperbecause they have you have to
pay for it. Yeah. Even though

it's behind a

paper and my tax dollars actually paid for
this research but this is asociety that we live in so so
this new dielectric is aheterostructure of berymium
night Knight. What is that? 9berrymium titanate. Tight. Well,

(01:48):
that's a I wonder what that is.

That's a hell of a name.

But it's sandwiched between 2 other
structures. I think the paperprobably covers more of what it
is, this material, but it's athey have a 2 d material, and
then they this 3 d bariumtitanate. Titanate. Man, I am
never gonna say that correct.And that's a 3 d structure

(02:15):
probably because it's a crystalwhatever its crystal structure
is, it's 3 d.

Sure.

Versus a 2 d crystal structure, and then
there's another 2 d on top. Soit makes like an ice cream
sandwich of semiconductormaterial, but it's the thing is
they can make it really thin aswell. We're talking atoms thin
and but I had to go look up whata heterostructure was because I
was like, it's been a long timesince I've done semiconductor
physics, and I've actually neverdone that outside of school. So

(02:43):
a heterojunction is basicallythe interface between 2 layers
of dissimilar semiconductorsthat have unequal band gaps. And
so solar cells are really commonheterojunction material.

I I like this. Okay. So you you this is
originally defined as aheterostructure, and I love
these kinds of definitionsbecause it, the definition of a
heterostructure, it says it's adevice that contains multiple
heterojunctions. And it's cool.Yeah.
Go look at that up. Let me golook what that means.

Yeah. That that was me about 3 hours ago.

That's great.

And so I'm like, okay. What about the
opposite? What's a the ho a homojunction? And it's different
materials, but they have equalband gaps. And usually, that's
achieved by different doping.
So diode p n junction, that's athat's a a homojunction. Mhmm.
So they had so the materialshave the same band gaps, but
they're achieved, you know, withdifferent doping. So it's a

(03:41):
different material. So the bigclaim of this whole article or
not this article, this, thisresearch paper is they were able
to basically increase thedensity of a capacitor over a
commercial capacitor by 19 timesand then also the efficiency.

(04:03):
That's actually was the moreimportant thing to me at least
was the efficiency gains. So,like, I wish I could get the
paper so I can actually readwhat they actually mean by they
say 90% efficiency, which Idon't know what efficiency.
Yeah. You you need loss, energystored. I don't know.

Yeah. There needs to be a definition of that.
Also, I we've we've talked aboutthese kinds of things multiple
times on the podcast wherethere's this really cool
breakthrough. And I'm and and inno way am I downplaying what the
breakthrough is. But in so manyways, the breakthrough is what's
focused on, but the practicalaspect of what we get from this

(04:43):
breakthrough is stillpotentially years away or maybe
not even.
Like, we I think we talkedabout, the the room temperature,
superconductors, and and and Iwould not be surprised if
everything in this paper isabsolutely correct, but their
capacitors that have a maxvoltage of 1 volt or something

(05:03):
like that. Right? Becausethere's not a lot of information
behind all that. Although, theclaim here is that they have 19
times the energy density ofcommercial capacitors, and I'm
wondering if the use of the wordcommercial is a one to one
comparison. Reg regardless, Imean, this would be really fit.

(05:24):
Everyone's always looking forthese huge leaps in technology.
Right? And numbers like 19 timesor we've reduced leakage by a
1,000,000,000 or something likethat. It's great, but what does
that actually mean?

Yes. So if if efficiency, I think, from what I
was able I was reading inbetween the lines of what I
could find about this is it's inbasically leakage current. Sure.
Because they're they're able tobasically more accurately
control the time modulation orthe dielectric modulation of in

(05:58):
between the layers, basically,with this 3 d structure. And And
so they can get everythingtighter and closer, and,
basically, it basically justimproves the overall efficiency
of the capacitor.
The closer you can get yourplates, the more fit the better
your capacitor actually is gonnabe. Mhmm. But then you typically
have more leakage currents.Correct. Because it's easier for

(06:19):
the electrons to just shootacross the dielectric, but
apparently this three dstructure prevents that somehow.
I I wish I knew more, but what'sinteresting is they actually do
claim a 191 joules per cubiccentimeter. You can actually
read that in the abstract. Mhmm.So during I did some quick math,

(06:41):
which that turns out to be,like, 53 watt hours per liter. I
love metric conversions likethis because thinking of wattage
per volume volume of liquid issuper funny.
We're, like, we would think ofit as we would think about it as
density. Oh, I guess that's whyit works. It's like a milliliter

(07:03):
is equal to a centimeter cubicof water. So that's somewhat so
it makes the conversion that wayeasy, but it's it feels weird to
think of it as to us, a liter isliquid, but in other, maybe more
civilized countries, that is isjust volume.

Yeah. And this is energy per volume.

Yeah. Energy per volume. I just think per
liter. I'm I'm just imaginingwhat's that movie? Is it
Supercop?
What he wants a a cheeseburgerwith a liter cola?

Oh, no. Super Troopers. Yeah. Super Troopers.
That's it.

Yeah. This is I I'm flashing back to that scene.

It's for a cup.

Does he look like he's spitting my burger?
Yeah. It does.

Yeah. I guess I guess it it does make sense big
with us with us always trying tominiaturize everything, it makes
sense to to focus in on how muchenergy we could put in the
smallest amount of area and holdit. Right? And be efficient.
Right?
Yeah.

So 53 watt hours per liter, lithium
batteries are 500 to 600 watthours per liter. So we're
actually it's still 10 x off,but it's within stabbing
distance now over lithiumbattery in terms of energy
density. And you're talkingabout, I'm assuming, way less,

(08:33):
you know, environmental problemswith strip mining lithium and
and all those rare earth metals,but, of course, I don't know
what it takes to make bariumtitanite titanate. Yeah. I was
just about to say,

this is this might be another one of those,
like I was saying earlier with,oh, cool. We've we've taken this
massive leap and all of all thethings are fantastic, but it
requires this ridiculous crystalthat is very difficult to grow
and and super not ready for anykind of game day in terms of

(09:07):
quantity. So I don't know aboutbarium titanite if that's
something that could be done onscale.

But I don't know.

It it does. I don't know. The way that this is
structured kinda makes it seemlike they're trying to make the
best possible capacitor giventhe material they have. And what
I mean by that is if you couldartificially grow a crystal in a
perfect way such that the layeris exactly the dimensions that

(09:39):
you want every layer, could youend up making literally the best
capacitor given that material?There's nothing more you could
do because you have optimizedevery bit about the crystal.
And it kinda sounds like they'reapproaching it in that kind of
way.

Yeah. There there's also some talk about the
notes section where theseresearchers weren't even trying
to improve capacitors. This waskinda like a spin off of other
research, and they're like, oh,this is an interesting effect
that's happening. Let's goexplore that real quick.

I mean, that's pretty

And then they and they lead to this big break
well, potentially bigbreakthrough. What's also
interesting though is when youGoogle the this article, you
find a couple news articles outthere, and It's amazing what is
Written about it because it'sall pointing to everyone's oh,

(10:35):
this is gonna make EV batteriesbetter or this is gonna make
cell phone bad smartphonesbetter. It's totally like trying
to play off like battery tech.

Yeah.

Whereas, technically, this tech has
nothing to do with makingbatteries better.

And you just showed that they're an order of
magnitude worse than whatalready exists.

Yeah. Their order of magnitude was now, I
this there is. What'sinteresting is that these
articles are like, oh, it'sgonna make batteries better blah
blah, but they don't explain whyor how Yeah. That would happen.
It's just I honestly think thesearticles are just written by AI.
They could be. And they go writean article about this at they

(11:16):
probably just took the abstractthrough that chat gpt and say,
connect us to smartphonebatteries, and write a 4
paragraph article about it. Ibet you that's what happened.

I okay. That that brings up a thought that's a
little bit scary. Could you goto whatever AI, and have it
write a scientific paper aboutsome material and have it just
make a whole bunch of claimsabout stuff and then just post
that on the Internet and see ifpeople run with it. The answer

(11:50):
is yes, of course. Right?
But I guess my question my realquestion is how hard would that
be? And I I don't condone doingthat's heavily deceiving people,
but it wouldn't surprise me ifyou put that up there. If there
would be articles within a fewhours of other AIs saying, oh,
your the world's gonna beamazing because of this

(12:11):
scientific paper that came out.

That's the dead Internet theory.

I don't believe I've heard that. What is that?

So dead Internet theory is the
conspiracy I'm doing air quoteshere because I actually think
this is proven now at thispoint. But it it it's a it it
asserts that the Internetconsists mainly of bot activity
and automatically generatecontent to manipulate, like,
algorithm creations and stufflike that. So, like

Oh, sure.

Basically over the idea is, like, over 50% of
the content that you look at onthe Internet is most likely AI
built and driven, includingcomments on videos and threads.
Maybe not forms, but in onReddit, social media, that kind
of stuff. That would not I,yeah. I I agree with this, with
that Internet theory becauseit's very easy. Especially

(13:02):
nowadays.
It's they the the conspiracysays it would it was starting
around, like, 2016, 2017 was,like, the tipping point, and
looking at chat gpt what you canmake it do. It's yeah. I don't
know if we're at, like, quite,like, 90% of the content online,
but probably pretty close.

Yeah. I remember I a few years ago, Twitter, I
think it was. Yeah. I believe itwas Twitter, went on a ban
rampage of just getting rid ofbots. And, I mean, there were
huge portions of people'sfollower bases that were just
getting axed.
And, I mean, I saw numbers up inthe 100 of 1,000 in terms of

(13:47):
individual content creatorslosing 100 of 1000 of followers,
they were just bots. And so itwas bots liking other bots, and,
yeah, it was just absolutelyridiculous. And this was years
ago. So, I mean, I can onlyimagine something like that is
considerably worse now. Yeah.
But when do we get to the pointwhere AI starts referencing AI,

(14:10):
which it probably already is.

It already does.

So but that's exactly my point with the
scientific paper. How do we evenprove that those papers are
created by a human now?

You do that by fact check like, actually
checking it, because you haveto, like the whole point with a
pay a paper like this is youshould be able to replicate it
in your own lab.

Yeah. But people have to actually go and do that.

Yeah. The there is a theory about AI referencing
other AI. What? It's another oneof those, like, conspiracy
theories. Sorry.
I'm trying to Google this realquick.

Yeah. I'm thinking you could pick a well,
pick pick a a really hot topic.Let's say you were to convince
an AI to write something aboutfusion is here and this one
company that you've never heardof had this breakthrough and
they're producing 10.6, youknow, gigawatts of power or
whatever. And, I wonder how fastit would be that articles would

(15:15):
just pop up without factchecking that. I mean,
instantly.

So I'm googling AI referencing AI conspiracy,
and the articles that arepopping up under that search
term are all AI. Right. Likethis article titled chatbots can
persuade conspiracy theoriststheir their view might be wrong
up to 20% of the time. Okay.Yeah.

(15:40):
So you can so chatbots can sochatbots are more persuasive in
changing people's mind on theInternet than normal people
talking to normal people.

Wow. Yikes. That's frightening. Yeah. Yikes.
So, I don't know. When do we bowdown to our supreme tech
overlords?

I don't know yet. Well, we already do. We
already have a phone that's wehave a computer that's glued to
us all the time. It's just notintegrated into our body yet.

Yet. Yeah.

So I'm gonna finish up this topic Yeah.

Yeah. And then

I wanna I don't wanna I want to branch onto what
I just said there, though. Sure.So this tech can make it I don't
it won't be able to make yoursmartphone battery better at
all. The use case is there, butit could make your EV battery
better, because of regenerativebraking. So the problem with

(16:33):
basically lifting batteries andregenerative braking is you put
a lot of wattage basically backinto your battery and charge it,
which causes a lot of charge anddischarge cycles.
Accelerating braking,accelerating braking. So you
have this surge, reversingsurge, and the batteries don't

(16:54):
really like that, and they heatup. And that's why you have to
have active cooling on yourbatteries, on EVs. If you don't,
you have really prematurebattery life. Look at the Nissan
LEAF.
Doesn't have that. Its batteriesdon't last as long as a Tesla,
because Tesla batteries have,like, industry leading battery
life because their theirrecharge and regenerative cycles
are really good, and they keepthe batteries cool. Anyways, so

(17:17):
what you could do is you couldhave this buffer of capacitors.
Now you could do that nowadays,but the problem with capacitors
now that it's actually supercaps because you might have a
super cap style battery tohandle the surge of input. The
charge back up is the leakagebecause you it rapidly
dissipates, and you might lose30% of your power just sitting

(17:39):
there at the red light.
Right? Mhmm. As the battery justself dissipates. Well, if you
have these batteries, now youcan have a super cap that has
much greater efficiency, and itcan retain its charge for a lot
longer. And now you can have thesuper cap taking up that buffer
spot of the charge and dischargerapid cycle and save your

(18:03):
lithium battery for continuouscharge and continuous
discharging.
So that could. Thing is thearticles that I've talk I'm
talking about don't even mentionthat at all. That's just
something I thought of.

Yeah. I I guess it's starting to blur the line a
little bit. Well, this kind ofthing blurs the line a little
between a capacitor and abattery. Right?

Yeah. It's getting there. I mean, they just
increased the density by 10 x.Just 10 x, guys. Just 10 more.

No. That's all.

10 more.

Thanks.

Just please, 10 more. Just 10 more. That's all
we need. Yeah.

I guess one of the big bigger differences is
batteries tend to clamp more avoltage. They maintain the
voltage, whereas the the thingabout a capacitor is that it it
tends to have more variation inin voltage as it discharges.

Yeah. But you can fix that with a, you know, a
buck boost. Like, you can Oh,sure. Yeah.

I mean, of course, there's there's ways to
adjust that. I'm just saying ona more inherent level Scale. The

I mean, you're always gonna have a a discharge
voltage rate, unlike a lithiumbattery, which will have a a
sharp drop, a really flat, longvoltage line, and then a sharp
drop off.

Right. But the but the fundamentals between
what a battery is and acapacitor is, they they they are
different physically. I'm sayingthe physics behind them is is is
different.

But One's one's chemically, and one is electro
well, it's not mechanical. Justlet it's just

just stored. Yeah. So but but but in terms of
their energy density, that isstarting to get blurred a little
bit, I guess.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Just just 10 more just shove 10
times more electrons in there,and we're good to go.

I mean, the the good the one of the main
benefits of a capacitor or maybenot main, but a big benefit of
them is that they can withstanda lot more charging discharging,
but they a lot of that has to dowith their construction and
their inherent resistance inthere Yep. Which batteries tend
to have much higher internalresistances. So, you know, if we

(20:12):
could just have a giantcapacitor in there, hey, why
not? But I don't know. Stillsounds like we're a bit off.

A little bit. But, I mean, what's the watt per
watt hours per liter of leadacid?

Oh, I don't Yeah. I'd have to look it up.

Lead acid ranges from 60 to 200 watt hours
per liter. So it's actuallynearing like the cheapy sealed
lead acid batteries. Yes. Yeah.Now those also have

a lot

longer discharge rate in terms of
voltage. They don't drop off ashard as a capacitor will, so
you're gonna need more circuitryto handle that.

Mhmm.

But you're getting close to, you know,
replacing low end lead acidbatteries with a capacitor,
really.

Is lit is lithium ion basically the best we have
right now in terms of energydensity?

Pretty close. I think there's lithium ion.
There's other formulas oflithium ion

Yeah.

That are more dense, but, yes, that that
family is the most dense.

I'm looking at a chart now that shows an area of
lithium that it just saysunsafe, as in just don't make
this kind of battery even thoughit it's theoretically possible.
Too unstable? Yeah. Something ofthat sort. And, yeah, let for
for these there's multiplecharts I'm seeing here that are
battery energy density charts.

(21:47):
And on one side, the the low endis lead acid, and on the high
end is just lithium ion. There'sa bunch of stuff in between, but
the that is So That's thespread. In

the 19 eighties, when GM made the EV 1,
which ran on lead acid I no.Actually, no. That's wrong. I
think it was a Nike ads,actually. But, anyways, your
golf cart

Yeah.

Can run off these capacitors. You could
start your car off thesecapacitors.

Yeah. Yeah. I wonder I wonder how they hold up
to temperature cycles though.Can Yeah. Would are these things
happy with starting up in Alaskaor starting up in the Sahara
Desert, you know, with the samethe exact same everything.

Well, you could go from you can start out in
Death Valley in the morningYeah. And then drive to 13,000
something feet in Colorado inone day. Will that battery still
work?

Right. Right. Yeah. You're changing a lot of
variables with that,

Which is the good thing about a sealed lead
acid battery is they're verymature and reliable technology.

That's that's the word. If it is negative 20
outside, you can turn your keyin. It will still turn that
starter over.

So I was talking about earlier about
smartphones being glued to us.Would you, if it was a 100% safe
and let's even say reversible,would you put a smartphone in
your head? No. I don't know howyou would interface with it, but

(23:35):
think of that. Think of,

like, Futurama where they stick it in their
eye. Right? The wasn't it theiPhone? Yeah.

The stuck in your eyeball. Because there was
that it it was the Neuralink.There's a person that they
actually hooked a Neuralink upto a person, and The person who
who has his he's he likes itright now. Of course, I think
that person's terminal. I meanwe all are but he's terminal on
a known scale, I guess.

(24:01):
Mhmm. The he's like controllingcomputers basically directly
with his the neurons in hisbrain, which is kind of exciting
to see. And what's reallyinteresting about that
technology, I think I said thisback when it first came out, but
the they had a release video.This is, like, their first
public demo, I think, ofNeuralink, and I think they had

(24:24):
it on pigs. The they had some,like, electrodes in the back of
the pit in the pig.
Right. And they had a the pigwas just, like, walking around,
and then they had a 3 d model ofthe pig in the same space that
was just reading the neurons.Right? And it was able to
basically simulate the pig in inthe virtual world. So the idea

(24:48):
would be you could let's say aprosthetic.
So let's say you get your armcut off. Right now, it's our
prosthetics are better materialwise, but they still don't
really have a good way to you tocontrol them. It's not like Star
Wars where getting your arm cutoff in Star Wars is just an
inconvenience. You just get arobot arm, and it's fine. No one

(25:09):
seems to really complain toomuch about it.
And so a Neuralink kindainterface would facilitate that
kinda technology. But let's justsay you have all your digits and
all your hands and legs andeverything. Would you connect
yourself to a cell phone viaBrainLink?

No. The answer's that that's not even in
question.

No. No. You would never do it?

No. I think we're still a generation, maybe a
generation and a half off ofpeople growing up with
technology so integrated intoyour life that you're willing to
make those kinds of changes. Ithink you and I are gonna be of
the generation where we'll bethe old people drinking a beer
out on our porch and justenjoying the sunset where

(26:00):
everyone else is, like, jackinginto the matrix. Right? Like, we
may be the last of that.

Oh, well, I might wanna jack into the
matrix. That sounds cool.

I mean, don't get me wrong. It sounds cool. I
don't I do not trust peopleenough to do that. And I'm not
saying to mess with my mind. Ijust think that that is rife
with potential for corruption,and I don't want someone
cracking open my skull andputting something in there.

But if it was fully reversible, so you could
take it out at any time?

I don't know. I'd have to think about that. That's
if it was well, once again, itwould it would sort of depend on
what fully reversible meant. Isit, like, you know, surgery plus
6 months of recovery? Or is it,like, I just go down to CVS and
they just take a hammer and puta spear into your

your They have a a Neuralink, like, you know,
on a a SIM card on a phone, youput the little paper clip in it,
it pops out?

Yeah.

It's that, but in your ear?

Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah.
I've you know, if it wassomething that was just
absolutely temporary. If youcould put a hat on and that hat
could somehow interface withyour mind and that would work So
I Yeah. I'd be open forsomething like that.

Yeah. So you would not be down if it was like
they installed neural ports. Sothat's what that that'd be a lot
like the matrix where they have

a Yeah. Where they have the thing where they
shove the spear up your neck.Yeah. Right?

Yeah. So you could disconnect, but you still
would have that port. Right.Right. Yeah.

What kind of connector is that? Because in
the matrix, that thing was likea 5 inch spike. That thing

I wonder if there's I wonder if there's a a
a I triple e or a jadex standardfor that.

Probably. So I some nerd out there has written
fan fiction about the protocolof how it connects to your
brain. Oh, it and here there's aWiki page about it. It's called
a head jack.

Oh, that's lame.

What what's lame about that?

No. It needs to be, like, I triple e 1483 or
something

like that. 1480 yeah.

Actually, I don't know what that is. That is

a It's way in the future. It has gone through
multiple letters of revision, soit's like USB xf or something
like that.

I triple e 1483, standard for verification
of vital functions and processorbased systems used in rail
transit control.

And you were just spitting out numbers. Right?

Yeah. Just spat out a number. I knew it was
gonna be a thing, though. Yeah.Alright.
Let us know in the comments ifyou would get a Neuralink or
like we have to come up with acool name for it. A breaker
port. So you can feed thepodcast right into your brain.

It's just the podcast. It's just the podcast.
Yeah. Gotta start somewhere.

Yep. Man. That'd be great. This is how you
know this is how you know thatwe're real and we're not AI.
We're not part of the deadInternet theory.
No. We believe in it, but we'renot part of it.

We're fighting back. Are we really, though?
Kind of.

We're not digital voices yet.

They I I'm sorry. I'm I'm still I'm still back on
this Matrix plug because like,this this is an actual, like,
interface that seems to cause,like, pretty severe pain when
when connecting to it. Neo wasin distress when they shoved
that thing in his head. Like,you think they would have

(29:50):
perhaps, I don't know, solvedthose issues?

They're in a post apocalyptic world. They
don't care. Yeah. A little bitof pain, puppies. Take a
Tylenol.

This thing is a massive spike. Oh, yeah. Okay.
Well, I'm on just some randomwebsite of people. This this
feels like a Star Wars.
There is This feels like a StarWars episode topic of is it
possible to connect to the brainbasically externally what
they're doing or what they'reYeah.

I mean, it'd just be like a connector that
disconnects the probes likeNeuralink is.

See, I wonder.

Those probes would be those probes would be
inside your brain, and thenthere would be interface to your
connector on the back of yourhead.

See, here's the thing. Do you have to because
the when the brain is developingat a young age, there's a lot of
malleability to it, and a lot ofthe actual neuron connections
have not fully been established.Like, you you and my sorry to
say this, Parker. You're in mybrains. They're done.

(30:52):
We're on the downhill slope atthis point. But if you were to
install some kind of neural linkconnection on a child and as
they grow, their brain isadapting to its position and
what it needs to send to. Itseems like that's the future
where it's okay. You know, youget you are born and the first

(31:13):
thing they do is, you know,crack the skull open, put a chip
in there, and there you go. Andyour brain will just figure it
out.
Right?

Yeah. Well, you say we're done. That's actually
not true too. There's a lot ofresearch in, like, stroke
rehabilitation, and it's proventhat our brains still remain not
as flexible, but it is stillpretty flexible, and

it does I will obviously, I was making a joke,
but I'm not saying that we'rejust purely degrading here.

I mean, that's true. We gotta fight entropy
every day.

Well yeah. No. The the brain is remarkable in
terms of being able to rewireitself when a serious thing has
changed. It might take a moment,but it can do that. It's just
the rate at which it does it isremarkable when you're young.
Oh. But then again, when you'reyoung, you're focusing on that

(32:09):
in a way. So regardless, thatdoesn't change the rate or it
doesn't change the how crazy itis that it does it so so
rapidly.

I think I'd get a port. Yeah? Yeah. As long as
you can disconnect it, that'sfine. Yeah.
Well, yeah. So so the port as Soit's it's it's more Ghost in the
Shell then. Yeah. I mean, Iguess in that show that they
have, like, full they're cyborgsand stuff, but there's still,
like, normal people that justhave a connector on them that

(32:41):
they can plug a phono jack intotheir a quarter inch plug Right.
And and connect in.
The one thing from that showthat

I would consider is the hands that break apart
into a bunch of fingers and typeit, like, a 1000000000 words a
second.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like you the fingers split
in 4 fingers each.

Right. Right. I love that there's so much
engineering behind that forsomething. Is that necessary?

Yeah. Because you could just connect to the
computer.

Right. Right. No. The whole purpose of that was a
a tactile interface like akeyboard. Yeah.
It was designed to be fast attyping. It's like, why not just
serial port in, and then youcould be even faster than

that. Yeah. I I guess it's kinda like air
gapping yourself, though.

Yeah. Right.

Right. Yeah. That's probably more it now
we're through crafting aboutghosts and shell.

I I think that's at the near the beginning of the
movie, and and that's just oneof those ones where first time I
saw that, I was like, okay.That's legit.

It's been a long time that I've seen that
movie. I need to rewatch thatthing. That that yeah. That's
the original one. Yeah.
That's, like, 1980 what?

No. I think that was that was in the nineties, I
believe.

Is it the nineties?

95. 95. Yeah. 95. Yeah.

Oh, I so, a couple nights ago, Steve and I
were chatting about Gundam, andthe first Gundam series is older
than you think. It's 79. Yeah.1979. When I found that out, I'm
like, oh, I I thought it wasalways, like like, mid eighties
or late eighties.
No. 1979. 1979. And it's stillgoing. I mean, Gundam itself

(34:19):
were not the original series.

Well, yeah. Just Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of
it. Wow.
There's a lot.

Yeah. What and the other one is, It's with the
shit. It's with the planes

Robo tech

yeah, is it Robo tech?

Well the planes that become mex

Yeah.

Yeah. That's Robotech. Is that Robotech? Or
are you thinking Macross?

Macross is Which

is Robotech. Okay.

Yep. You're right. I remember watching that
show too.

My my first girlfriend bought me all of the
Robo Tech DVDs. I don't havethat girlfriend anymore, but I
have the Robo Tech DVDs.

I will tell you, I would have married her.
Can you give me her contactnumber?

Yeah.

Okay. Let's let's move on. Kinda rambled a
bit about that. So I found outtoday via a tweet, the social
the social media toilet as perlast episode, that we have new
tariffs here in the UnitedStates. Oh, yay.
Yeah. Oh, yay. And this was atweet by well, it was on Biden's

(35:35):
account. Sure. So I don't knowif he actually controls or
tweets,

but I very much doubt that he does any of that.

Yeah. But he it was on his account. And, so we
have a 25% new tariff on steeland aluminum raw materials, 50%
on semiconductors, a 100% onEVs, and 50% on solar panels,
and these are from China. Yeah.

I was about to say this is tariffs specifically
on China.

Correct. So we were talking a little bit about
before the podcast about this50% on semiconductors, and
Steven was like, oh, that'sgonna jack up all the prices and
stuff, but not necessarily.

Yeah. Yeah. Well and then and and when you see
something like that and you see50% tariff on semiconductors
from China, there's this ideathat's, oh, wow. That's really
gonna hit me hard because, youknow, China is the land of
semiconductors, and we purchaseall of our cheap semiconductors
from them. But I did a littlebit of research and got some
information on the globalsemiconductor market share by

(36:40):
country.
And all said and done in 2024 orthe end of 23, China controlled
about 30%. I'm sorry. Not 30%.It's it's lower than that. It's
closer to 17%, which is not ait's not the the number that was
going through my head.
I thought it was way way higherthan that. Now and if we're

(37:03):
talking about inexpensive ICs,if there's a high likelihood
that necessarily And so this 17%number is not necessarily by
volume. I think it's by totalrevenue effectively. So, you

(37:24):
know, your more expensive stuffis most likely not going to be
there. So, yeah, your cheaperstuff is going to be increased
by 50% due to this tariff.

Yeah. I'd love to see a by unit Mhmm.
Percentage versus a by revenuepercentage. Right. Because it's
what, what United States was 40%as that article said of revenue.
Well, it just says Close to 4%.The actual wording? What's the
actual wording of thatpercentage?

Well, I mean, it it says market share

by Market share. So it is by it's and you
actually go in one paragraphabove, and it's talking about
revenue. Yeah. So that is thisby share is by revenue, not
component raw component numbers.Right.
So I'd love to see, like, a bycomponent numbers, because I
think you're right. I bet you alot of the very inexpensive

(38:21):
components, like themicrocontrollers that cost,
like, a quarter. I think,actually, there's a 10¢
microcontroller.

Or, like, your el cheapo op amps or transistors or
things like that.

Yeah. What we would consider a jelly bean part
nowadays.

You know, I always called them jelly bean
parts, but then I started thisjob and everyone my my newer job
about a year ago, and everyonethere calls them popcorn parts.
So now they're not jelly beansanymore. They're popcorn for me.
Popcorn parts? If they'rePringles, you

just couldn't stop adding them to your board.
No. That's it. Yep. That'sactually bypass capacitors.
Bypass capacitors are Pringles.

Yeah. For sure. Put them in a salt shaker and
just shake them over the board.Yeah. Soar more than land.

So, yeah, more tariffs. Woo hoo. That's all I'm
gonna say about that.

Yeah. I

Okay. You got something. Yeah. Oh, I we talked
we ranted too much last timeabout it, about this kind of
stuff.

So Yeah. Let's just leave it. It's just news.
We're just saying this is whathappened. So well, in in some
more fun news, earlier today wasannounced the Raspberry Pi
Foundation announced an m.2 hatis coming to the Raspberry Pi,
and that's an m.2, hat, which isreally cool if you ask me

(39:42):
because this is one of thethings that in my opinion the
Raspberry Pi has been lacking.
There's been mass storageoptions for Raspberry Pi, you
know, you can do flash drives,you can do, external SSDs, you
can do the SSD card, but there'sdownsides to all of those,
especially with the SSD cardswith this read write limits. But

(40:05):
now there's an official hat thatthe Raspberry Pi offers, which
is only $12, and that just sitsdirectly on top of the Pi and
gives you access to using m.2drives. And that kind of
completes the package in myopinion, because now you have
permanent long term storage thatis very fast and doesn't run the

(40:28):
risk of corruption due to justread write cycles. Existing.
Yeah.
Existing. Right? Operating.That's the thing. A lot of times
we have very pies are just ifyou're running it on SSD, it's a
ticking time bomb.
It will eventually fail andthat's kinda scary. Right? Like
I said, there's other optionsout there, but you always kinda
had to just figure it out.Whereas now, an m.2 hat slap it

(40:54):
on. Now, it's it's important tonote that $12 is just a hat.
You don't get an m dot 2 withthat $12. That'd be insane. So
so, you know, spend $12 on a hatand then whatever an m dot 2
cost nowadays $80 or somethinglike that. They're probably even
cheaper.

They're actually cheaper than that now.

Yeah. Well, I was looking for some just the other
week and and the ones I werelooking at was in that range.
But for not that much, you canget a pretty awesome little
computer now, especially with aPi 5 because the speed is there
and now you have storage that isthere, like, we've said that
every time a PI has come out,we're like, oh, it's there, but

(41:31):
like it really feels like itnow.

Yeah. It's a pretty cool product. It's $12,
which is not bad. Yeah. But Iwonder if it's made in China,
and it's gonna be under thattariff.

Did that tariff include PCBs and PC excuse me.
PCAs?

I don't know. Maybe Biden ran out of numbers
oh, not numbers. Ran out ofcharacters.

Couldn't type anymore. Or there's other
tariffs. They just didn'tweren't able to type them all
out.

Yeah. So anyways, that's a few clues. I'm
actually I have one on ordernow, so

Oh, really? You're already snagged it?

Yeah. Yeah.

Wait, do you have a pie 5?

I have a pie 4.

Oh, does this work with the pie 4?

I don't know. Do I need to order a pie 5 now?

I you know, we should look that

It looks like I do. I think I do.

I'm pretty sure that this is a pie 5 thing.

Only. Okay. Let me order a pie 5.

Yeah. Actually, okay. I would love when you get
your pie and get all this, Iwould love for you to just maybe
we can stream it just evenbetween the 2 of us. I would
love to see your thoughts on thefirst time it fires up and just
playing with it for the firsttime and see if it's really
snappy. Is it fast?
Does it feel different, or doesit just feel like another pie?

Yeah. Okay. We can do that one as I finally get
everything. Because the pie, Ican order right away, but the
hat is, like, back orderedeverywhere.

Yeah. And it just released.

I have it on order whenever SparkFun gets it
and and gets it back in stock.So alright. I have a personal
project update kind of thing. Along time ago, what episode was
that? Well, we we talked aboutreverse engineering tool sets,
and this was like reverseengineering physical things,
like measuring components andenclosures and figuring out how

(43:23):
to make stuff fit together.
This wasn't like reverseengineering electronics, I
should say.

I'm drawing a blanket about this.

Yeah. Let me see if I can find that real
quick. We talked about, like,dial indicators. It was like a
dial indicator, but I had a 3 dprinted end on it that you can
measure radiuses. Man, that wasthat was a long time ago.
Let me see if I can find it.Well, I have to go find it

(43:52):
later, but there's another thingyou should add to your toolbox
For reverse engineering stuff.

Oh, what That is a flat. It's a

flatbed scanner. Just like a classic
scanner? Classic old schoolscanner. So I've been scanning
PCBs and enclosures and also tobasically bring them into CAD so
I can measure stuff likelocating holes and stuff. So
it's like, enclosures that youdon't have a drawing for.
It's like, how do you know wherethat locating pin's at? And so

(44:20):
you can scan so I have a processon this is you can Google this
and people are like, yeah,that's normal. But maybe
electrical engineers don't knowabout this yet, but you can scan
stuff in. You can bring it in asa canvas into Autodesk, and then
there's a calibrate function. Sowhat you do is you scan it you
scan in, let's say, yourenclosure, and you also put in a

(44:41):
ruler next to it.
I like to use a PCB ruler. Youscan that in, and then you can
go in and measure you basicallydraw 2 dots and tell the
software how far those dotsactually are apart, and it
scales your image correctly. Andthen you can go trace your image
or yeah. You trace your imagefor your your outlines and that
kind of stuff, but and thendimension them out so you can

(45:05):
constrain the dimensions of thedrawing, but then go back and
measure some of those things onyour actual physical one, the
diameters of the holes. Gomeasure those and see if they
match your scan that you did.
Make sure everything lines upand that kind of stuff. But I've
been mostly using this to thisconcept to scan in, like,

(45:26):
gaskets for my the engine I'mworking on. So this is gonna be,
like, a new project. I've beenworking on it for a while, but
it's gonna be a new feature seton the podcast. I have a really
well, we talked about thechecker, the 1965 Checker
Marathon a long time ago.
It kinda went on hiatus for abit while I was working on other
cars, but I've been working onit again. And more importantly,

(45:49):
I'm working on the engine forit. And the engine, I'm at it's
an old school Chevy, inline 6.292 cubic inch displacement.
It's, like, 4.9 liters, bigengine.
Originally, it was a carburetedwith points ignition, really old
school stuff. We're are goingfull on digital control with

(46:11):
EFI, with multi point injectionEFI, and so I have a I'm not
doing the whole, like, opensource controller or anything
like that right now. Speeduinois like a engine controller
that's open source. I have aMegaSquirt 3 Mhmm. Which is,
like, one of the d I premium DIYcontrollers you can get
nowadays.
So I'm using that because it's,like, off shelf, and this is my

(46:33):
first project of controlling anengine this way. But I'll I'm
gonna do a podcast. We're gonnado a podcast episode in the
future about all the differentsensor but, basically, I talk
about sensors and stuff and howyou actually use those sensors.
And we'll talk about it inkinda, like, the terms of, like,
engine functionality and thatkind of stuff. Should be a lot
of fun.
Nice. But I'm scanning ingaskets get back to this.

(46:58):
Scanning in gaskets so I candraw brackets and stuff. So I'm
like, oh, I need it to mount onthis surface, and so I'll take a
piece of paper and do a theIndiana Jones rubbing. The
crayon rub?
Yeah. The crayon yeah. So I'm,like, so that way I can get the
pattern of the bolt holes on apiece of paper

Yeah.

Scan that in, and now I can draw that into,
CAD and 3 d print out thebracket to test it out, and then
I go send it off to getmachined. Nice. So I'll say the
3 d 3 d printing engine partslike that has revolutionized
that whole custom custombracketry game, because it used
to be, like, you'd have to goand find a machinist to machine

(47:41):
your first prototype, and thatcosts just as much as your final
one. Right?

Yeah. And there's also the potential that you get
it wrong.

Oh, that that's the whole thing is you will get
it wrong because there's gonnabe something some clearance
problem that you didn't thinkabout when you start assembling
the whole package. And so you 3d print everything out, and you
can't use it, but you so you canget all the fitment correct.
Right. And then you can justturn it into aluminum or steel

(48:09):
once, and it will work. That'slike a superpower.
I went through a coupledifferent iterations of I'll
post some pictures of it, ofside covers for the engine. So
it has this whole area where youcan take the cover off to access
the lifters that that's the partof the engine that, like,
maneuver the valves off thecamshaft. And the original ones

(48:31):
are just sheet metal snap sheetmetal with a gasket. I scanned
in the gasket and scanned in thecover, and then I was able to
make my own, basically, templateof that. And that way I can make
machine amount of aluminum andthicker aluminum so I can mount
my ignition coils that I need torun the engine.
And so because we're not doingold school ignition. We're doing

(48:54):
modern one ignition coil perspark plug style, which is like
a modern engine. Right. And Icouldn't do that any other way
because I think I got it righton the second print I did where
I don't wanna know if I wastrying to measure that up myself
and then transcribe it into CADdirectly that way. I don't know
how many prints I would have togo through to get that right.

(49:17):
Let alone if it was the oldschool way and I had to go tell
a machinist to make me my firstprototype, and you're talking,
like, a couple $100 a shot easy?

Oh, yeah.

Actually, probably more than that. It's
probably, like, a $150 for amaterial, and then, you know, 4
hours on the CNC machine. So the

the next step is how do you get those without
having to go buy the metal orbuy or pay a machinist? Like,
how do you do that at home?

Actually, there is a I haven't watched it yet,
but there's a YouTube videoabout that process. Basically,
like, 3 d printing metal to makeexhaust manifolds, custom
exhaust manifolds.

I've seen just the other day, it was a filament
that had metal in it that youwould print and then you would
center it yourself.

I've seen that too.

And it looks it doesn't look fantastic, but it
does end up giving you a anactual metal piece that you
printed yourself.

I don't know about that part yet. It's mostly
the prototyping that's the mostexpensive part.

Yeah.

Because actually getting it machined
like, the final time, I'm okaypaying, you know, machinist to
run that. It's the prototypingbecause I I would've had gone
through 4 or 5 differentrevisions of the side cover
Mhmm. And literally justthrowing away all that aluminum.
Right. Right.
Now they do you can get awaywith machining it out of Duralin
or something like that Mhmm. Aswell, which is a lot less

(50:50):
expensive than, aluminum, butand it's faster machine, but
still not as fast as your 3 dprinter on your desk. Sure.
Right. So so, yeah, add aflatbed scanner.
I have to find that old articleor old podcast that we talked
about it. Handful of PCBs,especially with 2 layer boards
that you wanna reverse engineer.Man, just throw them in a

(51:10):
flatbed scanner, scan them, andthen just trace everything out.
It's so, so easy. Yeah.
Yeah. You I've done that beforetoo, but I think the superpower
is actually, like, reverseengineering enclosures and

Yeah.

Finding Bolt patterns.

Patterns. Bolt patterns. That's huge for that.

Yeah. I think that's gonna wrap up this
podcast episode.

Yeah. I think

so. So let us know about would you glue a cell
phone to your brain, or do youhave a flatbed scanner that you
use to would you glue a flatbedscanner to your brain?

You just put items on top of your head, and
then they just appear in yourmind.

Can can Neo is sitting in that chair, and he's
just got a flatbed scanner ontop of his head, and he just he
has a a book of, like, how to dokung fu Yeah. And he's just
scanning page at a page at atime.

I know bolt patterns. Woah.

Woah. I know kung fu. Show me. And with that,
thank you for listening tocircuit break from MacFab. We
are your hosts, Parker Doman andSteven Craig.
Later, everyone. Take it easy.Breaker for downloading our
podcast. Tell your friends andcoworkers about the circuit

(52:25):
break podcast for Macra Fab.And, actually, we have a new
review.
It's like the first review we'vehad in, all forever. I'm looking
up right now. Hold on. I wish Iput this in the notes. Why can't
they see the reviews?
Ah, here it is. It's I thinkit's lkj741 Electronics

(52:50):
Engineering. As a retiredtechnician, Parker and Steven
have kept me up to date withelectronic design industry. We
get bonus material includinghomebrewing autos and shop work.
So thank you so much, Eld, foryour 5 star review, and please
give us a review.
That's the first review we'vehad in 2 years, so that meant a
lot when I finally saw that comeup. So you have a cool idea,

(53:13):
project, or topic you want us todiscuss, let Steven and I and
the community of Breakers know.Our community where you can find
personal projects, discussionsabout the podcast, and
engineering topics and news islocated atform.macfab.com.

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