Category: Tech talks

Are STEP files open-source?

An article came out on Hackaday about our recently-released Knob design. It’s a very generous take on our design (thanks to Matt Varian for his writeup!). The discussion in the comments was a bit less charitable. A question cropped up there that made me think. It boiled down to this: are STEP files actually open-source?… Continue reading Are STEP files open-source?

RP2040: The Little Engine that Could

Sitting at the heart of the Ploopy Headphones preamplifier is a chip called “RP2040”. It’s the microcontroller, or MCU, recently made and released by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It’s cheap, it’s available, and it punches way above its weight. This post will explain why we chose it for the Headphones preamp, as well as the… Continue reading RP2040: The Little Engine that Could

Using Spring Contact Principles with Chip-PCB Interfaces

This post answers a fairly simple question: how does a person electrically connect a very large number of chips to a very large number of PCBs in the shortest possible amount of time? Without the help of big fancy industrial equipment, that is. The question is simple, but the answer is far from it. I’ll… Continue reading Using Spring Contact Principles with Chip-PCB Interfaces

Unboxing Ploopies

If you get a kit from us, it is highly likely to arrive looking something like this: The box on the left is, indeed, a purpose-made box specifically chosen to ship our kits, and it’s wrapped in a tape that we’ve specifically chosen to inform the recipient that they’re about to receive a Ploopy. It’s… Continue reading Unboxing Ploopies

False positives on the filament sensor on your Prusa Mk3? Here’s how to fix it.

About two years ago, I started running into a problem with our print farm: the filament sensors on the printers began to fail. It was a very specific failure: the filament sensors started producing erroneous out-of-filament reports. That means that the printer would pause and beep, requesting new filament since it had run out. But… Continue reading False positives on the filament sensor on your Prusa Mk3? Here’s how to fix it.

Headphones and Headbands

We’ve been hard at work on the upcoming Ploopy Headphones, and we’re starting to see some results that are blog-worthy. Today’s episode is about headbands! Headbands, it turns out, are surprisingly tricky because they do a lot of different things. They need to be comfortable, but also stiff enough to create clamping force on the… Continue reading Headphones and Headbands

Defeating another hacking attempt.

Yesterday evening, I received a suspicious email. Someone has requested a password reset for the following account: Site Name: The Ploopy Blog Username: colin If this was a mistake, ignore this email and nothing will happen. This password reset request originated from the IP address 36.72.217.165. I actually received an email for each username on… Continue reading Defeating another hacking attempt.

Planar Magnetic Drivers: I can’t lower the critical frequency any more, Cap’n!

I’ve been working on headphones for a few months, with blocks of time concentrated around the receipt of new prototypes and flights of inspiration. I recently received my second set of prototypes. These are constructed by a manufacturer of flexible circuits, using copper for the traces and polyimide for the membrane. The total assembly thickness… Continue reading Planar Magnetic Drivers: I can’t lower the critical frequency any more, Cap’n!