The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

AI Data Centers & Local LLMs: Dave discusses his noise concerns regarding a new AI data center and its diesel backup generators being built near his office. Chris shares his experience running local AI models like Gemma 4 on a laptop using the Hermes orchestrator for tasks like coding and internet research. USB Power Delivery Chips: Discussion of the CH224, a USB PD negotiation chip that works via DIP switches or pin strapping without requiring programming. They also touch on the CH32 X33/X35 series, which integrates similar PD functionality into a microcontroller. CH224 LCSC Product Page Dave’s Werewolf USB PD Review The Art of (Paper) Electronics: The hosts admire Manabu Kosaka, a Japanese artist who creates 1:1 paper replicas of retro gadgets, including meticulously hand-cut lettering on SMD components. Dave also recounts his success as a “sold modern artist” after selling a printer-glitch masterpiece on eBay. Manabu Kosaka on X Manabu Kosaka Portfolio Article Chris’s 0201 Project: Chris provides an update on his leveling project, which features an accelerometer and 16 LEDs. He is considering a move to a rigid-flex PCB design for future revisions to better manage the two-board sandwich construction . Social Media & Networking: Insights on using LinkedIn for professional outreach (such as contacting Massimo Banzi) versus dealing with “algorithm fatigue” . A recommendation for using chronological feeds on X and Reddit to improve the user experience . MacService Warehouse Clearance: A massive clearance at MacService in Melbourne features rows of vintage “boat anchor” test gear . Dave expresses concern that thousands of items may end up as e-waste if not sold by the pallet. MacService Clearance Forum Thread Bring a Trailer Hyundai EV Recall: Dave recounts the recall of his 2020 Hyundai EV due to a software error that could lead to battery fires. He notes an annoying, repetitive relay clicking sound coming from the dash following the service update. The TI Datasheet Controversy: Dave details how Texas Instruments updated process nodes and designs for classic parts like the NE5532 and OPA134 without changing part numbers. These changes led to reduced slew rates, lower maximum supply voltages (22V down to 18V), and the removal of features like trim pins. Dave’s Video: TI Screwed Up the NE5532 “It Happens” Segment: Dave shares a “repair fail” where he accidentally mangled the 5,000-turn drive coil of his Bulova Accutron 2 watch while attempting to change the battery. Industry and Legal News: Brief mentions of 3D printing regulations in New York, Bambu Lab’s “closed” ecosystem controversies, and Lewis Rossmann suing Samsung over warranty issues. They also discuss Battle Born Batteries suing a YouTuber after their product failed a test conducted to its own datasheet specifications. Battle Born Technical Note

Welcome, Massimo Banzi of SuperModerno and co-founder of Arduino Introduction and SuperModerno: Massimo introduces himself as a “friendly nerd” and discusses his new project, SuperModerno The project aims to explain the “behind the scenes” of technology to prevent people from becoming “slaves to the platform” The History of Technology: Massimo expresses his passion for technology’s history, emphasizing non-American innovators to show Europeans they can also lead in technology, citing the UK-based origins of the Arm processor The Legacy of Olivetti: He highlights Olivetti (founded in 1908), which moved from typewriters to creating the Programma 101, the first desktop computer used by NASA to compute orbits for the Apollo program Design as a Differentiator: Olivetti was the first tech company to apply design to everything (products, posters, and architecture) This inspired Massimo’s concept of the “invisible touch”, the idea that consistent, intentional design creates a unique connection with users and gives a company a competitive edge The Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII): Massimo’s path led him to IDII, located in the former Olivetti research building, where he transitioned from a two-week sabbatical to a four-year stay Learning by Making: To help students with no electronics background, Massimo drew on how he learned as a seven-year-old (“learning by making”) to remove the friction of interacting with technology The Founding Team: He met Tom Igoe (ITP) and David Cuartielles, and they realized students were afraid to be creative because they feared “blowing up” expensive tools like the Basic Stamp The “Pizza and a Beer” Price Point: Massimo aimed for a hardware cost of 20 Euros, roughly what a student would spend on a pizza and a beer, to encourage experimentation Building the Platform: Along with David Mellis, the team adapted Processing (a language for artists) by “surgically” replacing Java with C++ to create the Arduino IDE Ivrea Manufacturing: Leveraging the industrial base of Ivrea and Torino (the “Detroit of Italy”), Massimo was able to find local PCB manufacturers and assemblers just a short drive away From Hacking to AVR: Massimo’s early work involved hacking satellite TV PIC chips for soccer fans, but mentor Bill Verplank encouraged him to use AVR microcontrollers because they could be programmed simply in C Enabling Creators: Massimo shares stories of how Arduino enabled others, such as Josef Prusa, who started with Arduino as a teenager before building his global open-source 3D printer company The Innovation of Simplicity: Massimo argues that Arduino’s true innovation is the user experience This is measured by the “Time to First Blink”, the goal for a user to go from downloading software to blinking an LED in five minutes Standardization and “The Core”: Arduino became an ad-hoc standard by providing a compatibility layer across different microcontrollers Massimo believes in having a “small slice of a really large pie” by allowing other architectures to work within the ecosystem Hardware Architecture and the “Lasagna”: Inspired by the PC104 format, the board uses a layered approach where modules stack like a lasagna The “Shield of a King”: The name Arduino comes from King Arduino of Ivrea; David Cuartielles suggested that since the board was named after a king, the add-on modules should be called “Shields” Hardware Design Choices: The board fits a credit card size (to stay within the free version of Eagle software) and is blue because that color was thought to be less tiring for workers’ eyes Happy Accidents: The unique shape was chosen to be “ourselves instead of everyone else” During the design process, Massimo inadvertently moved a connector by half a step, creating an offset header that they kept for consistency after the first few thousand were made The Discovery of Auto-Reset: During a workshop in Germany, Massimo solved the frustration of manual resets by soldering a capacitor to the DTR pin, allowing the software to trigger the reset automatically The US Market and Legal Battles: Tom Igoe’s adoption of Arduino at NYU helped the US become the project’s single biggest market This growth led to a difficult legal battle for control of the brand against a former partner Support from Arm: Massimo credits Arm Ltd (and CEO Simon Segars) for providing the strategic support that allowed the founders to regain control of the company. Massimo believes this is the first time he has talked about the role of Arm in the difficult legal process. Industrial and AI Expansion: Partnerships with Intel and Microsoft (Windows 10 IoT) led to early forays into TinyML (AI on small boards) back in 2017 The Qualcomm Acquisition: In October 2025, Qualcomm acquired Arduino, which Massimo sees as essential for bringing “advanced silicon” into the family to handle the increasing complexity of technology The “Arduino Formula” and Layering: Massimo views Arduino as a formula for simplification that can be applied to anything, including complex Linux machines like the Uno Q This is achieved by building in layers, where beginners use high-level abstractions and experts can “strip away” layers to reach the bare metal The Future Vision: Massimo looks forward to the “Arduino Formula” being applied to new fields, stating he is waiting for someone to develop an “Arduino for biology” using CRISPR and DNA technology

Welcome Michał Zalewski, AKA lcamtuf! The lcamtuf Substack is where Michał is writing most these days Chris first found and geeked out about the CNC guide on the lcamtuf original site (discussed many times here) Michał is interested in the craft of teaching electronics He recently published The Secret Life of Circuits with No Starch Press Use the code AMPHOUR26 for 30% off The Secret Life of Circuits valid from June 1st through June 30th It was announced on his blog here Deriving fomulas from basic trigonometry sometimes bugs people who think electronics should only work with calculus Software geeks follow the site, often getting lots of attention on Hacker News Row hammer DRAM There were no Information Security degrees in the early days, so the field was made up of folks with backgrounds in math and EEs Fuzzing for security SMBC cartoon for blming humans Books American Fuzzy Lop The Tangled Web P0f v3 Silence on the Wire Security stuff (including books on the subject) ages over time, as opposed to electronics On the subjects of Calculators (and Michał’s collection) Calculators are a footnote in the history of computing, but still intriguing Dead ends in calculators CRT displays on calculators Nixie tubes Discrete moving into logic gates into processors Mechanical calculators are rare and get a high price online Working with transistors The Secret Life of Circuits start with FET based transistors vs BJT BJTs are often right after diode chapter because of the multiple junctions in an NPN, but that doesn’t make it easier to understand Projects A recent project involved making a clock out of current meters  Woodworking and AI example Want to see all lcamtuf articles in one place? Sokoban Sir box-a-lot

Chris just got back from a work trip to Madrid He also got to hang out with Matt Venn (and coworker Mike Szczys) in Valencia Dave has a new data center going in across the street Chris enjoyed this episode of Prof G Markets where they talked about the impact of data centers on power and the rise of “behind the meter” generation Dave without internet for a week. Chris has had multiday losses after fiber has been cut in his neighborhood. Humanoid robots…on a plane! Chris has been working on 0201 components on a tiny Bluetooth board The Iran War and subsequent rise in petroleum product sourcing issues is starting to impact the PCB industry PCBs we are used to ordering at low cost (JLC, PCBway, etc) are normally loss leaders to get larger business later Chris found his low cost microscope from Florin/Voltlog trinocular video  lcamtuf will be on the show soon, Chris bought a CNC mill because of a single webpage of his making TagMod board is a new breakout Chris made for injecting power through a 10 pin TagConnect cable. NXP devboards somehow have LEDs as bright as the sun Dave has been revisiting his solar analytics (update: he figured out he’s getting charged more too!) Chris has been working at Canonical (makers of Ubuntu, new owners of Golioth) for a few months now. That was the trip to Spain. Dogfooding your own product Chris created a backronym: “Application Level Program Optimization” or… ALPO Chris built a new vibe coded project for talking to Zephyr devices using Web Serial and passing firmware packages over SMP CI/CD Debian now requires “fully reproducable” builds to harden against supply chain attacks Veritasium video about Linux bug

Welcome back, Jason Kridner! Jason has previously been on the show Episode 59 (!) Episode 378 alongside Robert Nelson The BeagleY AI was the first board that mimic’ed the RPi form factor PocketBeagle 2 is still a small altoid tin form factor with a new processor The Zepto is a new product targeting a $1 price point for microcontrollers Many boards in the Beagle catalog now run Zephyr, and BeagleBoard.org recently joined The Zephyr Project as members and contributors Click Brand is the official bards from MikroElectronika that implement the open source Mikrobus Chris started using Mikrobus while designing early prototypes of the BeagleConnect Freedom The Freedom board talks over wireless to boards like the BeaglePlay Application spaces for different boards FPGA based board Cheeseburger robot? Well yes, but also Cheeseburger robot Mitchells vs the machine Krazam Click boarfds now have eeprom / ClickID as a 1-wire identifier with a uuid Beagleplay has 802.15.4 Project ARA popularized the idea of Greybus MotoMods from Motorola was another implementation that worked on the Moto Z Using Freedom for prototyping WebAssembly …on microcontrollers? Jason says he doesn’t really like MCUboot Entering the linux ecosystem bb-imager Techlab is a way to easily extend peripherals for the PocketBeagle Known working targets Michael Welling designed the baconbits mini cape as a learning platform The BeagleBadge is a new formfactor shown in the title image for this episode. It runs on a new low cost TI part running Linux and yes… it runs Doom The Badge can also talk on Meshtastic Working with the memory shortage Bao – Bunie and Xobs Bella / Gem Beagle5fire RISC V boards RV32 Claire Find Beagle and Jason online Schedule a meeting with Jason There is also a Discord And a Zulip instance You can get Beagle merch