#663 – Motors on PCBs with Carl Bugeja

The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

Welcome Carl Bugeja!

• Carl lives and works in Malta
• He got started with robotics at his university
• Carl recently announced he would be launching a new company
• The company is called Microbots and they will sell components and kits for building similar projects to what Carl shows on his channel
• BigHero6 reference
• https://microbots.io/products/flatflap
• Max PCB temp is 130C
• Driven by series resistance of coil
• Tg value of PCBs
• A circuit that can solder itself
• How hot can a Flex PCB get?
• Batch vs raster
• Do you math?
• Tryng to get the perfect temperatures and dealing with flex materials
• Dealing with manufacturing differnces
• Scanning PCB Coils with X-Rays
• Sending PCB specs
• Incoming inspection and testing
• Testing boards with resistance
• Time flap produce
• User testing
• Drive circuits – How do you evaluate?
• Don’t build your own H Bridge
• Optimizing for size
• Is Carl looking for other features?
• Building libraries for driver
• Foldable 4 wheeled robot , an all one PCB
• ESP32-C3, connected to playstation remote
• Boston Dynamics uncanny valley
• Gathering on social
• Top down vs bottom up (start at the top)
• Prior to YouTube, Carl worked at a startup
  • Drones – 2 prop
  • Bluetooth tags
• Later he moved to the automotive industry
  • Concept vehicles
  • Software
• What’s in Malta?
• Building a remote electronics business
• Remote actuators on a PCB
• Microbots Flexar Driver
• Driving down the price per cell
• Similar to how they drove down the cost of LCD displays
• Pixel, voxel, moxel, maxel?
• Flipdots
• PCB Actuation
• Find Carl on YouTube and Instagram, and check out his work on the new Microbots site!