If you’re making your own PCB with the toner transfer method, you might find that getting nice clean ground planes is difficult. John on twitter (@johngineer) realized a simple, but effective method.
Use a hatch pattern for your planes and then fill in the squares with a Sharpie. Simple, but effective. The paper detaches easier and the etch comes out cleaner.
For help on creating ground planes in EAGLE, check out this video tutorial I put together.
This is my first year attending CES. Apparently, nobody told anyone here about the death of the trade show. As an enginerd, here is my perspective. First, if you’ve never been, this show is huge. Huge. You aren’t just walking around 100 or so booths. This thing is spread across 3 different conference centers in downtown Las Vegas.
With over 160,000 attendees, CES was spread across three massive convention halls. Nearly every company offering electronic products were on display. From Televisions to Appliances to Computers to Automotive Electronics to Wearables. Broken down below are highlights and pictures from the show, based on industry or application area.
Bill Hammock’s “Engineer Guy” podcast series was one of my first video podcast subscriptions. His explanation videos hit the right balance between “high level’ and “low-level” details in a few short minutes, which was actually an inspiration for the format of AddOhms. With each of his videos, you will learn something and get a few laughs–which is rare for engineering related videos.
His book, with co authors, “Eight Amazing Engineering Stories“, was added to my Kindle App as soon as it became available. The book breaks down everyday objects and technologies down to their science and engineering fundamentals.
Let’s be honest, nothing here is something you can’t find on Wikipedia. However, what you won’t find is the awesome presentation style, a trademark of Hammock.
If you want to know how elements like Silicon, Cesium, and Tungsten have made their way into our lives. Or how Atomic Clocks, Microwaves, and Accelerators work–along with their back story, this book is for you.
Whenever I have a few minutes to fill, I find myself scrolling around the book to pick up new tidbits.
Overall, I give this effort a 5 LED review. It’s not an expensive buy and deserves a place on any enginerd’s shelf, virtual or otherwise.
Article I wrote on some innovations KEMET has implemented in their capacitors:
“There is no Moore’s Law for passive components like capacitors, but relentless development is delivering the kinds of devices engineers need to deliver cutting-edge new products for modern living. Capacitors have for many years enabled electronic designers to manage energy within circuits and fulfill basic functions like filtering noise or harmonics, correcting power factor, stabilizing feedback circuitry, coupling/decoupling, interfacing between voltage levels, and storing energy. But the demands placed on these components continue to increase, as electronic devices are expected to be smaller, longer lasting, more feature rich and more robust.”
Read “Capacitor Innovations Address Emerging Opportunities” on Power Systems Design.
Video is rendered on a PC and provide to the analog scope for X/Y graphing.
