Contextual Electronics highlights stories of people using electronics to solve their problems. Listeners will hear how to use electronics in their own projects, by learning about new technologies and techniques. Tune in each week to hear a different guest and how they are using electronics to solve a problem in their life. Contextual Electronics is also an online education program. Started in 2014, CE pairs theory and practice for learning electronics. In 2020, we started the podcast to highlight stories of using electronics in real world contexts.
https://contextualelectronics.com/category/podcast
CEP003 – A Hardware Design Review with Erik Larson
Today we’re talking with, Erik Larson, who is a firmware engineer with some interesting background! He joins Chris to review the Advanced BLE-Cell (ABC) board, which is also a new course on Contextual Electronics.
- Erik has worked at places like Honeywell Aerospace, Apriva and Hologram (where he and Chris met). Erik is now a full time consultant for his own company, Statropy Software LLC.
- Erik was the firmware engineer on the Hologram Dash, which was an embedded module that Hologram used to make for people to get started making cellular connected devices.
- During his career, he had to learn how to code remotely on a VAX! This meant being very careful with code check-ins
- Erik and Chris review some of the “Must check” sections of schematics, in order to get firmware and hardware talking properly:
- Pin selection on a microcontroller
- Programming elements, including the bootloader
- Understanding the peripherals of the specific chip you’re using
- The board we’re reviewing is the Advanced BLE-CELL (ABC) board, which is designed as part of a Contextual Electronics course. You can follow along and watch the entire design of this board if you’re a member of Contextual Electronics.
- Here is the schematic, as shown in the video (has since been updated for the course, as has the layout)
- Check out the nRF52840 Product Specification (datasheet)
- Erik recommends getting a development board and breakout boards before the hardware arrives.
- You can hire Erik to help with your next firmware project on his website, Statropy Software, LLC
That’s our third episode, which is the last in our initial release of shows!
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