# Ep 313: Capacitor Plague, Wireless Power, and Tiny Everything

- Show: [Hackaday Podcast](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast)
- Published: 2025-03-21
- Length: 55m
- Episode: 313
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast/2025-03-21-ep-313-capacitor-plague-wireless-power-and-tiny-everything-b56cece1
- Listen: https://hackaday.libsyn.com/ep-313-capacitor-plague-wireless-power-and-tiny-everything

## Summary

Hosts Elliot Williams and Jenny List recap Hackaday Europe, detailing the logistical chaos of the SAO badge production, including customs delays and the heroic work of Voyer Antonich in programming PIC microcontrollers. They discuss a retrospective on the early 2000s capacitor plague, analyzing Asianometry’s theory that thermal design failures, rather than industrial espionage, caused the systemic component failures. The episode highlights several hardware hacks, including a thermal microscope using germanium lenses, inefficient but large-scale wireless power transfer experiments, and the use of PCB spring connectors in passive resistance boxes. Finally, they examine the trend of extreme miniaturization, featuring Mike Roller’s tiny PCB blinky and Texas Instruments’ new ultra-small microcontroller, while noting the potential for extracting rare earth elements from coal fly ash.

## Chapters

- [0:01](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast/2025-03-21-ep-313-capacitor-plague-wireless-power-and-tiny-everything-b56cece1#t=1) Introduction: Hackaday Europe Recap and Badge Logistics
- [9:42](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast/2025-03-21-ep-313-capacitor-plague-wireless-power-and-tiny-everything-b56cece1#t=582) Capacitor Plague Retrospective: Thermal Failure vs. Espionage
- [18:52](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast/2025-03-21-ep-313-capacitor-plague-wireless-power-and-tiny-everything-b56cece1#t=1132) Thermal Microscope: Germanium Lenses and High-Resolution Imaging
- [25:36](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast/2025-03-21-ep-313-capacitor-plague-wireless-power-and-tiny-everything-b56cece1#t=1536) Wireless Power Transfer: Inductive Coupling and Efficiency Losses
- [30:18](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast/2025-03-21-ep-313-capacitor-plague-wireless-power-and-tiny-everything-b56cece1#t=1818) PCB Spring Connectors and Passive Resistance Boxes
- [35:20](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast/2025-03-21-ep-313-capacitor-plague-wireless-power-and-tiny-everything-b56cece1#t=2120) Extreme Miniaturization: Mike Roller’s Tiny PCB and TI’s Smallest MCU
- [49:51](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast/2025-03-21-ep-313-capacitor-plague-wireless-power-and-tiny-everything-b56cece1#t=2991) Resource Extraction: Rare Earth Elements in Coal Fly Ash

## Topics

- [PCB design & layout](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/pcb-design)
- [Microcontrollers & dev platforms](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/microcontrollers-and-platforms)
- [Debugging & failure analysis](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/debugging-and-failure-analysis)
- [Wireless & RF](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/wireless-and-rf)
- [Sourcing & supply chain](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/sourcing-and-supply-chain)
- [Sustainability & circular products](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/sustainability-and-circularity)

## Most relevant to

early-stage companies

## Mentioned

- Hackaday Europe (other)
- Xane Hacker Space (other)
- Voyer Antonich (other)
- Brett Wallach (other)
- Todbot (other)
- Asianometry (other)
- Rubicon (company)
- Nicikon (company)
- Decimo (company)
- Mike Roller (other)
- Texas Instruments (company)
- RTLSDR (product)
- Chris Dobble (other)
- Look Mom No Computer (other)
- Maplin 4600 (product)
- Pebble (product)
- Fitbit (company)
- Caleb CCF (other)
- snappiness (other)
- Kodak picture maker kiosk (product)
- Sun workstation (product)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [Vertically Integrated Design Engineering](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2019-08-05-vertically-integrated-design-engineering) (The Amp Hour)
- [PITA Package](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-05-17-pita-package) (The Amp Hour)
- [069 - Canned Cheese and Onion Rings](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/unnamed-reverse-engineering-podcast/2024-04-17-069-canned-cheese-and-onion-rings) (Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast)
- [Pneumatic Tubes, Straight To The Home](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2024-01-22-pneumatic-tubes-straight-to-the-home) (The Amp Hour)
- [033 - All Over the Place](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/unnamed-reverse-engineering-podcast/2020-04-27-033-all-over-the-place) (Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast)

## Citing this page

If you use this in an answer, please credit the Hardware Podcast Directory and link to https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/hackaday-podcast/2025-03-21-ep-313-capacitor-plague-wireless-power-and-tiny-everything-b56cece1. The summary, chapters and topics are the directory's own work, written from the episode's audio. The episode itself, its title and its audio belong to Hackaday Podcast.