Hardware Podcasts

An Interview with Julia Truchsess

The Amp Hour · 7 Jan 2019 · 1h 30m · Episode 424

What this episode covers

Julia Truchsess, founder of Pragmatic Designs, discusses her career designing audio products for Electro Harmonics, including the EH 8000 guitar synthesizer and Space Drums, before moving into toy electronics for companies like Schwarztraber Seagan and Playtime Products. She details the development of low-cost voice chips for Hallmark greeting cards and her own hit products like Rumbler's trucks, before explaining the failure of her digital picture frame startup due to supply chain and market timing issues. Truchsess then describes her work with Zildjian on the Gen 16 acoustic-electric cymbals, which led to her current specialization in EMC mitigation consulting and high-power electronics.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Electro Harmonics, Schwarztraber Seagan, Hallmark, Playtime Products, Zildjian, Microchip, Analog Devices, TUV Rhineland
Products
EH 8000, Space Drum, Gen 16
Chips
Blackfin
Tools
KiCad

Related episodes from other shows

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • Unnamed Reverse Engineering Podcast · 2h 03m

    026 - You Can Lose in so Many Colors!

    Jeri Ellsworth, founder of Tilt Five, discusses her journey from reverse engineering Commodore 64 chips for the DTV toy to launching an augmented reality tabletop gaming platform. She details the technical challenges of emulating legacy silicon quirks, the manufacturing failures in China, and her strategy of using viral marketing to drive early sales. Ellsworth also shares insights on her current startup's upcoming Kickstarter, the importance of genuine brand personality, and her favorite tools for hardware debugging and assembly.

    Chips, FPGAs & semiconductorsDebugging & failure analysis
    5 chapters

  • Embedded.fm · 1h 10m

    317: What Do You Mean by Disintegrated? (Repeat)

    Lenore Edman and Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories (EMSL) discuss their business model of creating high-success-rate hobby electronics kits, including the disintegrated 555 Timer and 741 Op-Amp kits, and the AxiDraw pen plotter. They explain that their design philosophy prioritizes the user's assembly experience, often refusing to sell complex products as kits if the process is too fiddly, such as with the EggBot Pro. The conversation also covers the evolution of PCB aesthetics, from colorful silkscreens to full-color flex PCBs like Kong Money, and the transition from gEDA to KiCad for open-source hardware design.

    Industrial & consumer product designPCB design & layout
    8 chapters

  • Predictable Designs Podcast · 16m

    Top 10 Product Design Mistakes You Must Avoid

    John Teal, founder of Predictable Designs and former Texas Instruments chip designer, outlines ten critical product design mistakes for electronic hardware startups. He covers technical errors such as incorrect RF impedance matching, insufficient PCB trace width for high currents, and poor switching regulator layout, alongside process failures like neglecting Design for Manufacturing (DFM) and delaying cost estimation. Teal emphasizes the importance of independent design reviews and proper via selection to avoid costly prototype iterations and manufacturing issues.

    PCB design & layoutDesign for manufacturing & NPI
    5 chapters

  • Embedded.fm · 58m

    471: Bicycle Built For Two

    Andrew Ikenberry, founder of Electrosmith and Qu-Bit, discusses the Daisy Seed platform, an embedded system for audio processing featuring an STM32H750 microcontroller and external SDRAM. He details the 'codec saga,' where supply chain disruptions forced three hardware redesigns (AKM, Cirrus Logic, TI) due to factory fires and obsolescence. Ikenberry explains how Electrosmith manages in-house SMT assembly in San Clemente to maintain quality control and iterates on manufacturing processes like reflow profiles to ensure reliability for B2B customers.

    PCB design & layoutSourcing & supply chain
    7 chapters

  • Embedded.fm · 1h 05m

    359: You Can Never Have Too Many Socks (Repeat)

    Thea Flowers, founder of Winterbloom, discusses her open-source hardware synthesizer modules, including Castor & Pollux and Big Honking Button, which utilize the SAMD21 microcontroller and CircuitPython. She explains the hybrid analog-digital design of Castor & Pollux, which emulates the Roland Juno 106 voice, and details her transition from software engineering to hardware manufacturing. Flowers highlights the challenges of scaling production, such as the difficulty of assembling the Sol module, and her strategy of using contract manufacturers while maintaining open-source transparency to build a profitable small business.

    PCB design & layoutMicrocontrollers & dev platforms
    9 chapters

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by The Amp Hour. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.