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The Amp Hour

The Amp Hour is a weekly conversation about electronics and the people who design them.

The Amp Hour (Chris Gammell and David L Jones)

Dave and Chris catch up on the shift toward practical hands-on engineering education at universities, open-source robotics, calculator forensics, mentoring young engineers, AI-assisted PCB layout tools, reverse-engineering scope RF sections, and why Chris wants to be “the Walmart greeter of electronics”

The Walmart Greeter of Electronics

Andy Kong is creating Chargerless, a pre-seed wearable biometric device that runs on 1 minute of sunshine per day. He joins Chris to talk about low power design, unconventional power schemes, the weird signals of the human body, and more.

Perpetual Wearable Biosensing with Andy Kong

Kevin Cloutier is the North American Lead for Physical AI at a global engineering consulting firm and a computer engineer who is passionate about taking complex computations to the edge. He joins Chris to discuss the transition from legacy, statically programmed factory robotics to modern, imitation-learning-based “Physical AI,” building and calibrating the affordable $200 3D-printed SO101 robot arm using the LeRobot open-source framework or Intel’s Physical AI Studio, and orchestrating complex robotic systems entirely on local edge hardware.

Hands-on Physical AI with Kevin Cloutier

Robert Fennis joins Chris to demystify the black magic of RF and talk about his open-source, Python-based 3D electromagnetic solver, EMerge. They discuss why simulation is like building a pyramid of knowledge, how silk screen can completely de-tune a patch antenna, and Robert’s quest to build the “IKEA of FEM solvers” so hardware developers everywhere can simulate their designs without relying on insanely expensive proprietary software.

E&M Reality Emerges with Robert Fennis

Dave and Chris celebrate 16 years of the show (1st episode was August 10th, 2010) by launching a brand-new static website featuring searchable transcripts and a “pissed-old amber” SVG scope with a working focus knob–and links to merch!. They also discuss Dave’s new employee, 10 cent RISC-V debuggers, and why naming your startup after an un-Googleable Australian cryptid is a bad move

The Focus Knob Works

Dr Greg Charvat, CTO and co-founder of Teradar, joins Chris for a 5th appearance on The Amp Hour to talk about how terahertz frequency radar will revolutionize the automotive space and far outstrips the capabilities of LIDAR and Blobbology

The Terahertz Frontier with Greg Charvat of Teradar

Alex Haro, CEO of Hubble, joins Chris to talk about building a network of terrestrial and space (!) based Bluetooth infrastructure to track low power devices across the globe, without a data plan or a GPS module onboard.

Space Age Bluetooth with Alex Haro

Dave and Chris discuss a massive “boat anchor” warehouse clearance, 0201 board assembly, Texas Instruments’ stealthy datasheet updates for classic op-amps, the latest in local AI models, and paper-based electronics art

Boat Anchor Warehouse

Massimo Banzi is co-founder of Arduino, the worldwide project built upon easily accessible embedded hardware. He joins Chris to talk about the design, rise, struggles, and eventual exit of the company, and what he’s now doing with Supermoderno.

Arduino's Invisible Touch with Massimo Banzi

Michał Zalewski (lcamtuf) is a security researcher, author, electronics enthusiast, and calculator collector. He joins Chris to talk about his new book The Secret Life of Circuits and his interest in the field of electronics and explaining things to others.

The Secret Life of Circuits with lcamtuf / Michał Zalewski

Dave and Chris discuss the infrastructure and massive energy demands of AI data centers, injecting power through a programming header, Linux changes, and dogfooding your own projects.

All Heat, No Useful Work

Jason Kridner returns to The Amp Hour after his first appearance 15 years ago to talk about the BeagleBadge and Zepto boards that showcase new capabilities in the Linux and Zephyr space. The BeagleBoard.org project is still focused on building open source, affordable, and accessible Linux and embedded hardware.

BeagleBoard's Back with Jason Kridner

Past guests Matt Liberty (Joulescope) and Luke Beno (Werewolf.us) join Chris to talk through using AI tooling for small businesses in the hardware and firmware space. Both have built custom ERP systems, among many other tooling for their businesses, in a fast moving environment.

AI Tooling with Matt Liberty and Luke Beno

Julia Desmazes joins Chris to discuss designing chips for fun and getting an entire design done in 2 weeks to make a tapeout deadline. Julia built accerlators and has continued to dive deeper into on and off chip tooling for greater visibility into the silicon she gets back from the fab.

Chip Design for Fun (and Waffles) with Julia Desmazes

Dave and Chris discuss Golioth getting acquired by Canonical (makers of Ubuntu), trying out OpenClaw in the lab, changes to space plans, big new factories, Arm making chips, and more!

Hyper Growth and OpenClaw Interns

Alex 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.

Inventing the Power MOSFET with Alex Lidow

Zachariah Peterson joins Chris to discuss doing PCB layout and creating content for engineers looking to learn more about how to build their own PCBs

Layout Review with Zachariah Peterson

This week we talked about upcoming travel, solid state transformers, battery testing, new small circuit boards, and a bunch more.

Back on the road in '26

David Ray joins Dave to talk about the history of electronics manufacturing and how he has built a high mix manufacturing business while regularly educating the public about how electronics work.

Electronics Manufacturing History with David Ray

Founder of Pebble and CEO of CoreDevices, Eric Migicovsky, joins Chris to talk about the history of the Pebble Watch and resurrecting the hardware to serve a very loyal ecosystem. Along the way, Eric has continued to create new gadgets like the Index 01 ring.

Shiny New Pebble with Eric Migicovsky

Martin Rowe is a long time technical editor for publications like EE World, EDN, and Test and Measurement World. He stops by The Amp Hour to talk about the things he has seen and the people he has met in the electronics industry, and he’s still going strong!

The Measurement Blues with Martin Rowe

Dave and Chris discuss staying connected while traveling, building terminal interfaces for custom hardware, using coding tools, the Teensy and recent events surrounding the manufacture, Zephyr, Raspberry Pi PIOs, and more!

Rubber Duck Incarnate

Aaed is a YouTuber who builds a variety of robots and a mechanical engineering student at Purdue. He joins Chris to talk building robots and robotics components from the ground up, with a focus on lowering the cost and barrier to entry. They also discuss modern engineering education.

Robots Everywhere with Aaed Musa

Dr Mark Palmeri is a professor at Duke University in the Biomedical Engineering (BME) field. He joins Chris to talk about using open tools (KiCad, ngspice, Zephyr, Jupyter notebooks, Python) to build educational resources and how he shares those courses with the world outside of Duke. He also walks through the Tympanometer project, built with Duke BME Design Fellows.

Medical Electronics Education with Mark Palmeri

Dave and Chris are back after a long vacation absence to talk about high end events, new scopes, fast board assembly, and nerds nostalgic for the sci fi future that never was.

Tugging on the Nerd Heartstring

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.

Nobel Prize Winner Dr Barry Marshall

Davide Andrea is the author of The Electronic Connector Book and Principal of Elithion, a company that designs Battery Management System. He joins Chris to talk about the wide and wonderful world of connectors.

All the Connectors with Davide Andrea

This week Dave and Chris discuss test equipment, the Arduino acquisition, Zephyr, Altium pricing, private equity owning YouTube channels, audio circuits, and more!

Welding with an HDMI Cable

Joren Vaes is a design engineer at SOFICS working on simulating and delivering analog IP blocks on leading edge nodes like the 2 nm node from TSMC. Listen to how they bend physics to their will to make the chips that power our modern electronics.

Leading Edge Analog with Joren Vaes

This week Dave and Chris discuss DIN rail, IAC (featuring Space Lube), begging for Moonlanders, batteries, 10x-priced connectors, Gridfinity, concrete slabs, and more.

Psst...Hey buddy, wanna buy an Octopus?

Jerry Twomey, author of Applied Embedded Electronics, joins Chris to talk about how to build more reliable hardware when there are embedded components involved. And these days, there are almost always embedded components involved.

Applied Embedded Electronics with Jerry Twomey

Tim ‘Mithro’ Ansell returns to The Amp Hour to discuss his new Singapore based wafer sharing service called wafer.space. Now that Efabless is no more, this venture will aim to make silicon even more accessible to the masses, driving down the costs on a per chip basis. For $7K, you get 1000 chips delivered on a 180 nm process from Global Foundries.

Building wafer.space with Tim Ansell

Dave and Chris discuss solar, nuclear, making new injection molds from old ones (or not), and how to probe poorly placed test points with tiny needles.

Test Point Accupuncture

Todd Bailey has been busy in the 11 years since he was last on the show. He has designed submarine sonar and many different pieces of space electronics, the latest being a hall effect thruster that uses solid propellant for his now sold company Starlight Engines.

Electric Propulsion with Todd Bailey

Dave and Chris record after a long break between episodes together and discuss new electronics designs they’re working on, solar and battery installations, dealing with tariffs, and building at JLC.

Beware of the Overachievers

Andrew Seddon, founder and CEO of CircuitHub, joins Chris to talk about how CircuitHub has changed over the past 12 years as a startup and how they are continuing to push the boundaries of high mix domestic electronics manufacturing.

CircuitHub, 12 Years Later with Andrew Seddon

Matt Brown is a hardware and IoT security researcher. He joins Chris to talk about best practices for securing hardware that talks to the internet and share stories of products that didn’t pass muster.

Hardware Security with Matt Brown

Tim from Mitxela stops by the show to discuss his extensive portfolio of projects involving, hardware (tiny LEDs), firmware (ridiculously low power processing), software (emulating gameboy), and mechanical (machining jewelry grade objects)

LEDs Everywhere with Tim from Mitxela

This week Dave and Chris discuss solar optimization, short videos, useless products, cameras, energy monitors, Bluetooth, magnets, and more!

It Works With Option Number 5

Sam Aldhaher is a power engineer and 3D graphic artist, his Blender visualizations have helped many people understand how RF flows in a variety of circuits. Sam joins Chris to talk about how to get started in Blender and the variety of tools available once you do.

Making The Invisible, Visible with Sam Aldhaher

In this episode, Dave and Chris cover environmental monitoring, trade shows, manufacturing, tariffs, new test equipment, and AI coding.

Voltage, Vibes, and VOCs

Colin O’Flynn returns to The Amp Hour for a 3rd time to talk about recent developments in security, FPGAs, small scale electronics manufacturing, and the world of academia.

Small Scale Electronics Manufacturing with Colin O'Flynn

In this episode Dave and Chris discuss solar installs, wacky tariffs, peak power pricing, tiny electronics, oscilloscope triggering, and more.

Like a steam engine in your house

Michael Gielda returns to the show (for a third time) to talk about the work Antmicro is doing to extend hardware, firmware, and silicon design. Their new tool System Designer allows even more high level testing of full systems, in addition to their popular Renode tool.

System Designer Lets You Try Every Part with Michael Gielda

Dave and Chris discuss bluetooth boards, what happens when batteries leak, new cellular capabilities in iPhones, AC flicker, old oscilloscopes, and more!

Clap on, clap off, lights flicker

Kevin Cappuccio joins Chris to talk about the Jumperless Breadboard, an advanced platform for prototyping and interacting with circuits that you place onto the breadboard.

A Jumperless Breadboard with Kevin Cappuccio

Dave and Chris discuss the Tandy 200, test equipment cashflow, the return of the Pebble watch, GPT trying its hand at CAD, solar output…and more

The Tandy Train

CNLohr returns to The Amp Hour to talk about LoRa and implementing a solution using harmonics coming out of a standard microcontroller’s GPIO

Long Distance with CNLohr-a

This week Chris and Dave discuss EV charging, chip fabs, manufacturing, large airliners, power storage, and more!

Good Energy Citizen

Dave and Chris talk trade shows, demos, light up hardware, bluetooth, obsolete processors, sustaining engineering, and more

Really long needle nose pliers

This week Dave and Chris talk about upcoming demos, bluetooth, car troubles, new silicon, parts in the lab, and more!

Simulating doors falling off

Carl Bugeja joins Chris to talk about building PCB motors and actuators, starting a new business, documenting build processes on YouTube, manufacturing flexible circuits, and much more!

Motors on PCBs with Carl Bugeja

Dave and Chris discuss EVs, adapting power tool batteries for projects on the bench, robots, software updates, and more!

The non-Stinky Car

Pallav Aggarwal of CAPUF Embedded joins Chris to talk about blogging about learning electronics and helping others learn along the way! Pallav does teardowns, chip walkthroughs (like on the CH32V003), Linux projects, custom hardware, and more!

Blogging Electronics with Pallav Aggarwal

Chris and Dave discuss SPICE in CAD programs, new software releases, startup paperwork, crazy smarthome stuff, and toothbrushes that give away your data.

My Toothbrush Is Broadcasting

Dave and Chris talk through Renesas acquiring Altium and all its implications. Also Dave gives a history of Altium and they discuss how the industry might change (or not).

Altium...Acquired!

This week Chris and Dave discuss relativistic time differences, building with RISC V components, RF modules, silly consumer hardware, underwater electronics, and more!

Uncle Al's Eating Garbage Again

Keith Burzinski of Nabu Casa works on ESPhome and making it easier to attach custom hardware to the open source home assistant project. He joins Chris to talk about the realities of offline smart home setups and how you can get started building custom things.

Automating the Home with Keith Burzinski

Dave returns after a few weeks on holiday to chat with Chris about robots, maker companies merging, hyped up tech at CES (and beyond), trains, power grids…and more!

Pneumatic Tubes, Straight To The Home

Jeff Keyzer of Mightyohm.com joins Chris for a later-than-usual holiday episode, recording on what will be known as The Twelfth Day of Keyzermas

The Twelfth Day of Keyzermas

Dave and Chris discuss moon landings, oscilloscopes, design decisions for limited peripherals on microcontrollers, coding, smart home programs, and more!

Pseudo Code...Pseudo Good

Benjamin Cabé, developer advocate for the Zephyr Project, joins Chris to talk about the popular Ecosystem and Real Time Operating System (RTOS). Listen if you’d like to get started with an exciting firmware product that can really enhance your next project.

Benjamin Cabé Nose Zephyr

Chris and Dave return after a few guests shows and missed weeks when Chris was out with a new baby in the household. This week we talked about China, chip supply, RISC V, PCB tradeshows, LED factories, and more!

For a couple weeks there...

Jeff Geerling of the Jeff Geerling YouTube channel joins Chris to talk about how to explore the wide variety of computing devices, from an ESP32 monitor on your garage, all the way up to a multi-rack server.

Learning Computing with Jeff Geerling

Andreas Olofsson is the CEO of ZeroASIC, a company that will build you a custom ASIC using chiplets. He returns to The Amp Hour to talk about what has changed in the chip(let) industry in the last 8 years and how they will lower the cost for quasi custom designs for the masses.

Accessible ASICs with Andreas Olofsson

Kathy Joseph from Kathy Loves Physics joins Dave on The Amp Hour to discuss history and physics and we end up discussing the intricate history of the development of the Cathode Ray Tube.

History of the Cathode Ray Tube with Kathy Joseph

James Adams and Liam Fraser of the Raspberry Pi hardware team once again join Chris to talk about the RP1 custom silicon on the Raspberry Pi 5

The RP1 and beyond with the Raspberry Pi Hardware team

Dave hangs out with Fran Blanche for her 4th appearance on the show. Space, Youtubing, tube testing, storage nightmares, and oopsies.

Dave hanging with Fran Blanche

Chris and Dave discuss selling low volume hardware, old stock of chips, Intel’s weird investments, creating oddball PCBs, scopes without fans, and more!

Fan Fanboys

Scott Williams returns to The Amp Hour after 6 months to discuss the technical aspects of consulting, including some of the tools he reaches for when building a new product

Moving Down The Stack with Scott Williams

Dave and Chris discuss fitness trackers and smartwatches, boomboxes, buying off of eBay, design decisions, and contract manufacturing.

Garbage Ninjas

Dave and Ian Scott Johnston discuss the PDVS2mini DC Voltage Calibrator Source, production, China, CERN, ebay reselling, test gear, pick and place machines, assembly, automated test systems, and Youtube repair videos.

Calibration & Repair with Ian Johnston

Chris and Dave recount modems, handsets, trains, 2n2222 transistors, RISC V, and a complete lack of knowledge of how superconductors work.

Sad Violins for Superconductors

Fellow Aussie Toby Robb joins Dave to discuss everything related to mains power generation and transmission and his role as a linesman.

Power Transmission with Toby Robb

Werner Johansson of Qoitech has been working on controlling power supplies with software for a long time. He joins Chris to talk about building systems that can quickly respond to the world, including a heavy focus on battery characterization.

Software Defined Power Supplies with Werner Johansson

Chris and Dave discuss efficiencies of different types of power generation, building with new chips, new test equipment, building with chiplets and feeling very dumb. All that and more!

Daaaamn We're Duuuummmb

Aedan Cullen has built some amazingly compact electronics in order to create Augmented Reality (AR) headsets. He joins Chris to talk about hardware challenges and building the next (small) big thing.

Building AR Headsets with Aedan Cullen

CNLohr joins Chris to talk about doing more with small parts like the CH32V003. CN has been working on the publicly available CH32V003fun library, and recently implemented SW only USB!

CH32V003...fun! with CNLohr

Dave and Chris discuss a teardown of a prosumer recording product, choices around cable connectors, 3G cellular networks, and the end of the EAGLE era

Discovering Cursed Connectors

Andrea Longobardi from AL2tech joins Chris to talk about consulting, projects in the gas monitoring space, finding early clients, moving outside chip companies, and low power connected device design.

Low Power Connected Devices with Andrea Longobardi

Dr Ken Tindell joins Chris to explain the CAN bus, including the history and how CAN is used in modern day cars. Also car hacking, self-driving car questions, standards in the trucking industry, and what automotive computing will look like in the future.

The CAN bus can! with Dr Ken Tindell

This week Chris and Dave talk about the regular tasks engineers have in front of them when building a new hardware project: battery, data, features, etc. That plus low cost hardware, hacking devices, figuring out new projects, and more

Engineering Optimization

Dave talks with Steve Sanghi who was Microchip CEO for 31 years, now Executive Chair.

Steve Sanghi - Microchip CEO for 31 Years!

Chris and Dave discuss how CAN bus is in fact, a “noisy rude bus”. Also working with piezo speakers, strain gauges, manufacturing considerations, and getting your proto off the bench quickly.

A Noisy Rude Bus

Ari Gerstman from the Department of Energy SCEP Office joins Chris to talk through US Renewable Energy Policy. They discuss the impacts of growing electrication in the US and how spending is driving new industries.

Renewable Energy Policy with Ari Gerstman

Chris regales Dave with the story of his spooky electrical problems at his house (subject of the puzzler in 628). Also choosing new micros, recently announced micros, and blown up space toys.

At least my house isn't haunted

Dave Young joins Chris in-person to record about learning firmware, weird power issues, and encouraging engineering education.

Two Dads Puzzlin Things Out

Chris and Dave discuss compiling code in an automated way, as well as recent Aussie tech events, EE retirement, open source equipment, and more!

Works on my machine

Sergiy Nesterenko of Quilter.ai joins Chris to talk about automating board layout using learning algoritms and parallel cloud compute. Check out how the boards come back with unconventional looks, but well tested electrical characteristics.

Intelligent Routing with Sergiy Nesterenko

This week Chris and Dave get sucked into talking about AI…but question what happens when it’s broadly used. Who will understand the underlying systems? Who will be able to troubleshoot? Chris also brings up his learning plan for new tech.

Gremlins in the machine

Scott Williams from Xentronics in Melbourne joins Dave to discuss setting up and running a design and manufacturing consulting business.

Design & Manufacturing Consulting with Scott Williams from Xentronics

Dave and Chris discuss prototypes for trade shows, power supplies, current consumption, shipping logistics and much more.

Artisanal Crystals

Mike Szczys returns for a second time to talk about creating firmware and hardware for trade shows like the upcoming Embedded World conference in Nuremberg Germany.

Building Firmware and Hardware for Trade Shows with Mike Szczys

Dave and Chris discuss calipers, IoT devices, Git, eInk, new chip companies, and more!

The Magic of Calipers

Dr Don WIlcher is an engineer and an educator. He joins Chris to talk about working inside industrial facilities, designing electronics for autos, and inspiring the next generation of engineers through teaching.

Engineering Education with Dr Don Wilcher

This week Dave and Chris record during the Superbowl, but ignore sports and talk about finding bugs, creating prototypes, flash based microcontollers, carbon offsets, car wiring harnesses…and more!

Super Tecmo Bug

Amitabh Shrivastava is a physicist turned engineer and a prolific maker. He joins Chris to talk about projects with portable refrigeration and soft robotics.

Refrigerators and Robots with Amitabh Shrivastava

This week Dave and Chris discuss interesting PCB features, testing RISC V parts, better recording set-ups, layoffs in the tech industry, solar panels, and more!

Conference Room Innovation

Matthew Venn of the Zero To Asic course returns to The Amp Hour to talk about what has been happening in the world of Open Source Silicon, both the tools that make things go and the projects that people are creating.