The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast
Chris Gammell and Dave Jones' voices span the chasm of thousands of miles each and every week to speak to each other and industry experts about where the field of electronics is moving. Whether it be a late breaking story about a large semiconductor manufacturer, a new piece of must-have test equipment or just talking through recent issues with their circuit designs, Chris and Dave try to make electronics more accessible for the listeners. Most importantly, they try and make the field of electronics more fun. Guests range from advanced hobbyists working on exciting new projects up through C-le
All episodes(25)
- StandardSummaries only#722 – AI Tooling with Matt Liberty and Luke Beno
Published Apr 23, 2026
Welcome back Matt Liberty (Joulescope) and Luke Beno (Werewolf.us) Matt has been a guest on episodes 527 and 607 Luke was a guest on episode 272 Luke launched a new cable manufacturing and power supply company in the US called Werewolf.us Matt is working on the JS320 We discussed how PartsBox is a great ERP solution but Matt and Luke decided to go fully custom with Claude Code. Jan Rychter was a guest on episode 542 We discussed the differences with Product Lifecycle Maintenance. Michael Corr of
- StandardSummaries only#721 – Chip Design for Fun (and Waffles) with Julia Desmazes
Published Apr 9, 2026
Julia DesmazesWelcome Julia Desmazes of Tales on The Wire Follow along with the blog post we discuss Two Weeks Until Tapeout Matt Venn – TinyTapeout – Episode 616 and 672 Andreas Olofsson – openroad/openlane – Episode 254 and 650 Tim Ansell – Wafer.space – Episode 375, 501, and 703 JTAG How do you know that tooling is or isn’t working? Accelerator Rabbithole with floating point (post updated after recording) BFloat16 Follow Julia on GitHubhttps://github.com/Essenceia Kapla (official website, not the much chea
- StandardSummaries only#720 – Hyper Growth and OpenClaw Interns
Published Apr 1, 2026
Canonical (the makers of Ubuntu) acquired Golioth, meaning Chris is moving from a 12-person startup to an organization of over 1,200 people Dave found this chart of Canonical products on wikipedia to be useful An increase in professional travel from zero weeks to six weeks per year following the acquisition, including “sprints” in cities like London The naming convention for Ubuntu releases (Year.Month) and the importance of Long Term Support (LTS) versions for backporting security vulnerabiliti
- StandardSummaries only#719 – Inventing the Power MOSFET with Alex Lidow
Published Mar 20, 2026
Alex LidowAlex is founder and CEO of Efficient Power Conversion, a leading manufacturer of GaN MOSFET’s. Alex is also the inventor of the original Power MOSFET and HEXFET at International Rectifier. Also, former CEO of International Rectifier (founded by his father!), https://epc-co.com We cover everything from inventing the power MOSFET on his first day on the job to silicon physics, AI data centres and humanoid robots. Enjoy.
- StandardSummaries only#718 – Layout Review with Zachariah Peterson
Published Mar 11, 2026
Zachariah PetersonWelcome Zachariah Peterson of Northwest Engineering Solutions! Zach listed the various places people can find his work, including The Altium YouTube channel Zach’s YouTube channel His personal technical blog The Altium Blog various industry conferences like PCB West 01:10 Zach mentions that he has been creating video content and seminars for several years, traveling to places like Denmark to teach high-speed design. 01:10 They discuss the recent acquisition of Altium by Renesas and how the compa
- StandardSummaries only#717 – Back on the road in ’26
Published Mar 4, 2026
Chris will be having a meetup in London March 8th, 2026 click here for more info. He will also be at Embedded World the following week at various events. Dave is also headed to a meetup in Sydney that he has presented at in the past. The “lazy man move” for meetup organizers: scheduling events within walking distance of home to simplify travel logistics. Chris provides details on his latest high-density hardware project, a 22mm circular board packed with 0201 components, Bluetooth, and a suite o
- StandardSummaries only#716 – Electronics Manufacturing History with David Ray
Published Feb 26, 2026
David RayThanks to our sponsor for this episode, SeaSats! Check out their open positions making autonomous ocean vehicles. Welcome David Ray of Cyber City Circuits • The “Retro Electro” Series: David explains his passion for writing historical articles for Digi Key, focusing on “giants” like Orstead whose contributions to electricity are often overlooked. • Career Background: David details his path from Marine Corps radio repair to cash register and Motorola radio repair. • Starting the Business: In late
- StandardSummaries only#715 – Shiny New Pebble with Eric Migicovsky
Published Feb 10, 2026
Eric MigicovskyWelcome Eric Migicovsky of Pebble! Pebble is back after Eric worked with Google to open source PebbleOS and he reaquired the naming rights Eric returns to the hardware space after 7 years, including working at yCombinator, a famous accelerator for early stage startups, and on Beeper, a cross platform app for messaging. While discussing the difficulties of hardware project, Chris brought up a recent post about a high wattage lamp project HN One thing Eric likes about hardware projects vs software
- StandardSummaries only#714 – The Measurement Blues with Martin Rowe
Published Feb 3, 2026
Martin RoweWelcome Martin Rowe of EE World! Martin is a long time journalist in the electronics space, having worked at magazines like EDN, Test and Measurement World, EE World, and more! Kenneth Wyatt Concentrated vs diffuse information Product reviews Unitrend scope video Tek 5 series B Wirecutter for test equipment / parts Skepticism Webinars – 3 levels Martin has an HP34401A early model Touring T&M companies Littelfuse Martin is in the Boston area Boxborough has multiple EMI labs Article on building an
- StandardSummaries only#713 – Rubber Duck Incarnate
Published Jan 26, 2026
Rubber Duck IncarnateDave is back from vacation. He should have bought a Starlink mini (not as cheap as we thought) because his coverage was very poor throughout the trip. Space twitter Artemis II is going up soon (early Feb 2026) Billy makes artemis go up Sparkfun and Adafruit are on the outs PJRC (and Paul Stoffregen) makes the Teensy and it is now produced exclusively by Sparfkun The pinout is open but the bootloader is proprietary and sold as the magic black box. Paul’s wrote about what was happening on the EEVb
- StandardSummaries only#712 – Robots Everywhere with Aaed Musa
Published Jan 20, 2026
Aaed MusaWelcome Aaed Musa! Aaed is a YouTuber who builds a variety of robots and a mechanical engineering student at Purdue. He just completed his undergrad degree and is now working on his Master’s degree. I believe he is the first Amp Hour guest who is still a full time student. His channel has a great variety of builds including designing all the way down to gearboxes. Aaed says the MIT “mini cheetah” launched many low(er) costs builds of robots, including his own. Boston Dynamics (and many others) a
- StandardSummaries only#711 – Medical Electronics Education with Mark Palmeri
Published Dec 22, 2025
Mark PalmeriWelcome Dr Mark Palmeri, professor at Duke University! Mark has been at Duke since 1996, and has completed undergraduate, graduate, medical, and PhD degrees here (!) He has focused on making medical devices and now teaches others to do the same in his Biomedical Engineering (BME) courses Verification and Validation (v&v) is a large constraint in getting a regulated medical device to market BME design fellows is a program that guides students towards real world use cases and design projects The c
- StandardSummaries only#710 – Tugging on the Nerd Heartstring
Published Dec 6, 2025
Chris got back from his honeymoon to the Galapagos, see photos on the updated version of his blog. Dave encountered a super secret podcast location Before leaving on vacation, Chris went to an event mentioned in episode 708 launching a new Tektronix scope. The parent company has been Danaher -> Fortive -> Ralliant (now based out of Raleigh) Large budget events Don Mcmillan is technically funny Open Circuit The Way Things Work Discman teardown Neo the home robot Humane AI pin ‘tugging on the nerd
- StandardSummaries only#709 – Nobel Prize Winner Dr Barry Marshall
Published Nov 10, 2025
Dr Barry Marshall won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease. But Barry is also an electronics hobbyist and vintage HP and Tek oscilloscope and vintage computer enthusiast. He visited the EEVBlog lab and sat down with Dave for an impromptu discussion about all sorts of things. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2005/marshall/facts/
- StandardSummaries only#708 – All the Connectors with Davide Andrea
Published Nov 3, 2025
Davide AndreaWelcome Davide Andrea, author or The Electronic Connector Book! And many thanks to Blues for sponsoring this episode of The Amp Hour! Get 10% off your next order in their online store for a development kit by using the code AMPHOUR. Davide is an engineer working on Battery Management Systems at Elithion He got into writing and editing books via a postcard sent to him after he gave a talk For many years he was an editor at Artech house He works on Lithium BMS systems for large setups How do young
- StandardSummaries only#707 – Welding with an HDMI Cable
Published Oct 28, 2025
Thanks to our sponsor Blues this week! Visit the Blues store and use the code AMPHOUR to get 10% off your first order of a kit. Capacitors go pop on Dave’s audio setup, the Presonus monitors Ground loops causing HDMI cable sparking Chris was watching Jetman videos and got an ‘Is that real?’ from the kid. We find ourselves asking the same with all the AI generated video these days. Fight between mehdi/electroboom and walter lewin about KVL Arduino bought by Qualcomm! They also released the Arduin
- StandardSummaries only#706 – Leading Edge Analog with Joren Vaes
Published Oct 18, 2025
Joren VaesWelcome Joren Vaes, design engineer at SOFICS Simulation is critical when designing analog devices based on a PDK from the fab Parasitics are significant, especially with new nodes having upwards of 16 metal layers Chris complained about a class where the professor made them draw planar structures with graph paper with colored pencils Large fabs on leading edge nodes have 1800 page textbook of rules Because the constraints get tighter, that book gets longer for each node 2 nm mass production on
- StandardSummaries only#705 – Psst…Hey buddy, wanna buy an Octopus?
Published Oct 9, 2025
Contextual Electronics is “still a thing”. Sydney hosted the International Astronautical Congress (IAC). The IAC is the “big space event of the year,” held annually in a different city. Chris noted that US space funding seems low, leading some friends to move from NASA to private industry. Dave recorded two walkaround videos: a 30-minute bird’s eye view using a GoPro on a pole and a physical hour-long walkaround. Large companies had private stands, while smaller, two-man companies had sub-booths
- StandardSummaries only#704 – Applied Embedded Electronics with Jerry Twomey
Published Oct 3, 2025
Jerry TwomeyWelcome Jerry Twomey (Effective Electrons) author of the book, Applied Embedded Electronics: Design Essentials for Robust Systems. Chris first heard Jerry on Embedded.fm last year. Jerry’s Background and Book Motivation: Jerry shares his quick history, moving from the Boston area to San Jose (Silicon Valley) and eventually to San Diego, where he has worked across diverse sectors including consumer electronics, aerospace, defense projects, DARPA research, and medical electronics. His book focuses
- StandardSummaries only#703 – Building wafer.space with Tim Ansell
Published Sep 25, 2025
Tim AnsellWelcome back Tim Ansell! Tim’s past appearances and previous work Discussing Tomu on 375 Discussing Fomu on 456.3 Discussing the open source PDK on 501 Tim’s previous work at Google involved releasing a manufacturable open-source PDK (Process Development Kit), which contains the fundamental information needed to create integrated circuits. Key open-source tools discussed include OpenROAD (a backend compiler for IC design) and Open Lane (an end-to-end suite turning chip descriptions (RTL) into ma
- StandardSummaries only#702 – Test Point Accupuncture
Published Sep 15, 2025
Test Point AccupunctureDave bought a lemon laptop Chris officially has solar that is installed, working, and is effectively an appliance at this point… Duke Energy and North Carolina nuclear mix The impact of batteries on the grid The Duck Curve is something Chris and Ari discussed on ep650 Open circuit voltage on panels Dave did a repair on a tennis ball machine Chris designed a board with test points too small Accupuncture jbc High cost vs low cost rework tweezers Nanofix YouTube Channel Tested Ugly multimeter revie
- StandardSummaries only#701 – Electric Propulsion with Todd Bailey
Published Aug 22, 2025
Todd BaileyWelcome back Todd Bailey of Starlight Engines, now Muon Space! (11 years later) Todd was on Episode 194 of The Amp Hour, when he was consulting in the art and design space and building instruments like Where the Party At (WTPA). He was designing ‘robot doors’ for Calvin Klein’s house, discussed last time. Through Andy Reitano, Todd learned about a role at Lockheed Martin (a US defence company) working on sonar for submarines. “What a good job is” Fun Lucrative Skills / teach you Todd, Andy, and
- StandardSummaries only#700 – Beware of the Overachievers
Published Aug 7, 2025
Beware of the OverachieversDave is starting a new project for a lab timer called the uTimer Timelapse Geerling videos about clocks Mitxela clock Transflective displays Dave is looking at LCDs like this one Dropping Rs vs Ls Font chip .5mm pin pitch on the connectors Chris is making a new breakout board that is effectively a sensors shield for a Bluetooth chip. It’s the first time he’s using the service and it was a pleasant completely hands-off experience. Mike Harrison USB C barrel jack JLC DFM plugin for KiCad Python sc
- StandardSummaries only#699 – CircuitHub, 12 Years Later with Andrew Seddon
Published Aug 1, 2025
Andrew SeddonWelcome Back, Andrew Seddon! Founder and CEO of CircuitHub. Andrew was first on episode 131 of The Amp Hour CircuitHub has a partnership with Worthington Assembly Worthington and CircuitHub host the Pick Place Podcast Mimicing silicon manufacturing Common parts library Setting the factory up to have only 50k SKUs in house for speed of loading / attrition Driving people to 2000 parts was the original intent, but didn’t hit the mark Level of production needs to be high Many parts need to work in c
- StandardSummaries only#698 – Hardware Security with Matt Brown
Published Jul 17, 2025
Matt BrownWelcome Matt Brown of Brown Fine Security! Matt has been reverse engineering a “smart” smoker controller that talks back to AWS IOT Jeff Geerling talking about his dishwasher Storing private keys on the device?? Threat models Key rotation What is the best case scenario for an IoT device? Secure boot / trust zone Keys encrypt flash storage Chris has designed in the ATECC608 before Replacing Certificate Authority (CA) cert in grill firmware Matt has a Linux hardware / reverse engineering backgroun