#184 – Chris Becomes Self Employed - Quixotic Quitting Quaere

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Recorded February 10th, 2014. Episode 184. Quixotic. Quitting. Query.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV Blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics.

Dave Jones: And only Contextual Electronics.

Chris Gammell: And nothing else.

Dave Jones: Do tell. Do tell. Share the big news.

Chris Gammell: As of, not tomorrow, but as of Friday the 14th, I will be officially self-employed.

Dave Jones: Woo! Woo! Sticking it to the man, huh?

Chris Gammell: Uh, I suppose. I mean, I don't think the man really has much... Doesn't have me on his radar, so... Right. But doing my own thing, that's for sure. Yeah. So I went to my boss and I asked to go part-time. And it wasn't... And I was talking to Dave at the time. This Dave here. And he's like, I bet you they'll never let you do it. And I said, oh, you're full of crap.

Dave Jones: And was I right?

Chris Gammell: He was right. Yes, he was right.

Dave Jones: He came back an hour later, folks. I could, even though I'm on the other side of the wall, I could see his head down and tail between his legs. And he came back and said, yep, you're right. They didn't want a bar of it.

Chris Gammell: Right. It wasn't the fact that I didn't have a job anymore. It was the fact that Dave was right. That's the real thing. Yeah, exactly. That's the real reason for being downtrodden. Dude, I've been working for...

Dave Jones: I've been in the industry too long. I've seen it happen. I just... Nah. Nah. Companies do not like... As a general rule, they do not like people, you know, working less hours than somebody else. Because, you know, they think, oh, you're a slacker. You're not fully committed to the company and all that sort of, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right. Blah, blah.

Dave Jones: So, they would rather let you go. Even if you're an important employee, they'd rather let you go than have you slack off in quote marks and work part-time.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. Because I know people who've tried that before too, where they want to go part-time. I think sometimes it's, you know, under special situations it's allowed, but not necessarily when it's just, you know, young, healthy bucks such as myself. No, exactly.

Dave Jones: It's like, bugger off. You know, here's the... Yeah. And that's okay. Hard time? Here's the boot up your ass. How'd you get? Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, and, you know, I went in knowing that too. Like, so basically this is all based around the fact that, you know, enough people signed up for Contextual Electronics that is doing well enough that I feel confident, you know, about it. And some consulting work in the pipeline and everything like that. So, basically I said, okay, I know going into this meeting that, you know, if it doesn't work out, that's kind of the known outcome. And so that was it. And so it wasn't a huge surprise, but it was... Right. Right. But yeah, so it is what it is. And now I'm on my own and I get to do whatever I want to do until the money runs out.

Speaker ?: That's it.

Dave Jones: But Contextual Electronics, just like me, it wasn't... It's not bringing in enough. You still have to work on the side.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Contract jobs and things. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I think really it's just about confidence intervals, right? It's like... Right. Of course. Yeah. You know, there's no way to know if people will sign up again or, you know, if I'll be able to get enough stuff done to get more stuff out there, you know? And so basically, yeah, consulting is definitely a thing. But it's interesting stuff too. I mean, like it's stuff that I've been working on part-time anyways, you know, some small jobs here and there. So it's really just a good mix and it's like you do with, you know, when you're out on your own, when you don't just have a corporate job, you need multiple income streams, right? That's just how you do it. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Dave Jones: That's the... Yeah. To cover your bases because, you know, you don't want to be suddenly left holding an empty bag.

Chris Gammell: Right. Exactly. And I think, you know, I think that's even a good idea. I mean, technically, I guess I had multiple income streams before just from smaller consulting jobs and stuff like that. And I think it is a good idea to have that. You know, it's nice as a feedback mechanism, you know, that if you're making money, you might be doing some stuff right. Not that that's the only way of measuring, but it can be a nice measure. And then, you know, if something does happen, if this was under worse pretenses, you know, like how you basically Altium, you know, packed up and left. Yeah, packed up. Yeah. That wasn't a choice.

Dave Jones: No job is secure these days. You know, you can bang. Just, you know, you could be out of work tomorrow.

Chris Gammell: Right. You know, that's interesting, too, because, you know, I can't really say that's what ultimately did it, because I've thought about this stuff for a long time, but none of this would have happened if it wasn't for Contextual Electronics doing okay. Of course. Yeah. But, you know, I think about that, though, like thinking about, you know, moving, like seeing all these cases of ageism and everything else in the industry as well, you know, thinking about that going forwards and seeing, is it really realistic to think that a company will take care of you and won't drop you like a bad habit at a moment's notice, right? They always will. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Even the safest company on earth, right? Safest tech company on earth used to be IBM, right? Yeah. Until they started, you know, they're huge slashes. Now they're going down the toilet and they're just slashing and burning. They're in their death throes, you know? Yeah. No, you know, it ultimately happens to every company. No job is safe. And if you, you know, if you absolutely rely on that, then, well, you know, yeah, you're living life on the edge. Yeah. You know what they say? If you're living life on the edge, if you're not living life on the edge, you're taking up too much room.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, I mean, and so there's, you know, I have a lot of good role models too, right? Like, I look to you, right? You've got good revenue streams.

Dave Jones: Multiple income sources. Yeah. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: But also you're frugal, right? I mean, I think that's a big key. You know, I read a lot of personal finance stuff too. And it's like, you know, if you've got high spending habits, you're screwed from the beginning because, you know, you're taking on debt and everything else. And so it's all about having balance in your personal finance and, you know, having multiple income streams, all that other stuff. Because, you know, like even if you're an engineer earning, you know, $120,000 a year, if you're spending $130,000, you're 10K in the hole each year, right? I mean, like, that's screwed. It's just screwed. So, yeah, you've got to have those good bases in the first place. And, you know, like other people too, like I talked to Jack Gansel about this stuff and, you know, talked about, talked to some other friends who are consulting full time. And so I really do appreciate everyone, you know, giving me advice because I was freaking out there for a while.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, he was, folks. I can verify.

Chris Gammell: But, yeah, it'll be fine. It'll be fine.

Dave Jones: She'll be right, mate. No worries. Yeah. That's right. Freaking oath. Yeah. And she who must be obeyed, how was she supportive? Because if she's anything like my she who must be obeyed, you know, she married a professional engineer and she expected me to bring home professional engineering wages, you know. That's correct. Right.

Chris Gammell: And much like when you made the jump.

Dave Jones: I had to still do consulting work, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, but I believe your she who must be obeyed was not working at the time, correct?

Dave Jones: That's right. Because she had been off work for a month or two because, you know, it was like four weeks before Sagan was born, I think. That's right. It was only weeks. Yeah. It was a matter of weeks. So, yeah, she was unemployed and, yeah, and here I was just getting, you know, the ass from Altium and my only income source was, yeah, the blog.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah. Right. And so, my wife is in school right now. She's back in school and, you know, she's being frugal with the school stuff. She's going to community college and everything to finish up that stuff. But, you know, that's one less income stream as well. So, yeah. Of course, yeah. It's a very similar situation. But, yeah, she was totally behind me. Once I explained myself, of course.

Dave Jones: Right. My she who must be obeyed was only behind me once the, you know, the proof is in the pudding, the proof is in the paycheck. So, once she realized I was earned enough, oh, yes, I support you working on this blog full time now. Yeah. Right. It's like, well, and you can't really blame her because, you know, look, we've got a new baby on the way, you know, mortgage and everything else, you know, bills to be paid and, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, no, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I don't have any kids yet, but, you know, we're talking about, you know, maybe in a couple of years having some kids and stuff. And, you know, I think about two.

Dave Jones: You heard it here on the Amp Hour First.

Chris Gammell: Yes, it is possible. I may procreate, folks. Watch out, world.

Dave Jones: That's all we need, more yanks.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, seriously, right? Ugh, they keep multiplying. They're huge carbon footprints. They're dumb accents. Well, you know, so, like, my dad's a salesman, and so he was away a lot when I was a kid, and I think about that, you know, like, wanting to be around. Yeah. And even, you know, even just work schedules, you know, I look at coworkers and stuff like that, work schedules these days. That's another thing that's very unpredictable. You know, you might have a job that, you know, you're working, you know, you're secure in your job, but you're secure because you're working 50 or 60 hours a week. Yeah, exactly. You know, and that's another thing. It's not like I expect to work any less. I mean, technically, I work, like, 16-hour days right now because I go to work for 9 to 10 hours, and I come home and work for 4 to 5 hours, but... 9 to 10?

Dave Jones: You're doing it wrong, dude.

Chris Gammell: Well, you know, there's... Travel. Travel. I won't be doing it for long. No. But, you know, like, I just work a lot. You know, I work when I'm at work, and I work when I'm at home. Yeah, yeah. So, I don't expect that to change at all, but I want to have some freedom there eventually as well, so got to kind of start working towards that.

Dave Jones: Yep. And you'll wonder how you had the time to do it before.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure I will. Yep.

Dave Jones: In two weeks' time, when we get back on, and you can talk about how, jeez, I wonder

Chris Gammell: how I had any time to do all this before. I thought I was going to do all these other projects and everything.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's right.

Chris Gammell: No, I remember you making that transition. That was... I remember you talking about that. Yeah. So, yeah, we'll see how I survive that, too, because I got, like, you know, I have two dogs, well, three dogs at home right now, and I don't know how I'll survive being at home all day. I'm going to have to follow suit.

Dave Jones: Well, you might find you'll get some of your life back, which isn't a bad thing, you know, because burnout, you know, working hard is overrated, I'm telling you.

Chris Gammell: Well, and I've written about burnout a couple... I've definitely had a couple cases of burnout so far.

Dave Jones: This is on your old blog, is it? The old...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I wrote about it a couple times on engineer blogs and everything else. All those other blogs that I used to write with all that free spare time. Yeah, you didn't have time to keep it up anymore. Yeah, right, right, yeah. That I prioritized away, honestly, for contextual electronics, so...

Dave Jones: Right, yep. Yeah, because you worked bloody hard on that. I mean, you know, if you don't know listeners, he was, you know, he'd be messaging me at, like, I know it's, like, 2 a.m. over there, you know, 2 or 3 a.m., and he's still going and sending me bloody messages, and I'm going, go to bed. Jeez. You know? Yeah, right. Dude.

Chris Gammell: Right, yeah. So, well, and... But that's what excites me, though, too, is, like, so... So, you know, another reason... You know, the real reason I did this, decided to finally go talk to my boss and, you know, see if this is a possibility, is, one, because I have, you know, a potential... You know, I'm working on some stuff with a friend, and that's... I think I mentioned on here with the motor stuff. That's a potential thing that I'm really excited about. But then also, you know, like, not being able... You know, I have these people that... These great people in contextual electronics, and it's, like, I just didn't feel like I was, you know, there enough. Giving them enough right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I'm caught up with everything, but it feels like I'm kind of drowning, starting to drown a little bit, and I have to start making videos for the future, too. And so I am excited, though, about the prospect of being able to make videos, like, all day long, you know? Like, assume... You know, I know the other stuff will get in the way. Yeah, of course. But I just think about, you know, what else is possible when I'm not, you know, at work doing work, right? I was doing work at work, and, you know, just having an extra chunk of time to do my work. And so that's actually really exciting.

Dave Jones: Well, as I said back when you, Toby, you were marching off to see the boss, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right.

Dave Jones: And I said, I hope they don't let you stay on. And I meant that sincerely, because go in half-ass and, oh, let's hedge in your bets. Oh, look, I'll work part-time here. No, no. Trust me. That would not have been a good thing. So I'm glad they gave you the arse. Right. There you go. In the sincerest way.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, no, I agree. You know, looking back now, I agree. But it's tough for the time, right? I mean, like, even still, I still can kind of feel that.

Dave Jones: Of course, of course. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I'm still shaky about it, right? I mean, it's just, it's not an easy thing to do.

Dave Jones: Well, it's easier when the decisions are made for you, right? When you walk in there and, you know, as you said, you weren't really unhappy, right? You sort of expect, right? Oh, they've, okay, they've sacked me. You know, the decision's easy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right.

Dave Jones: It's done. It's made. Right? End of story.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, at that point. Yeah, but getting that first step into the office is kind of tough, you know?

Dave Jones: Oh, the first step. Yeah, yeah. That's, yeah. Exactly. But no, I bet after that, right? You know, the decision, it's easier when the decision's made, you know? So, you know, people cry their eyes out when they get, you know, the ask from their job, you know? They get made redundant or whatever. And, you know, they bawl their eyes out for a week. And it's like, no, it's, why? It's an opportunity. For you to move on and, you know, change direction or, you know, change is as good as a holiday.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, yep. Never look back. Change is as good as a holiday. I have heard that a couple times. You have?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And? Yeah, you say it all the time. So, yeah. So, don't cry for you to lose your job, folks, because it's, really, your next job will be better. Trust me, they're doing you a favor. Well, no, I can't say that because what's happening in, let's go to some local news. Just straight off the teletype here in Australia. As of 2017, we no longer have any car manufacturing industry here. Gone. Completely gone. Holden. Wow. Yep. Holden, who's the traditional Australian, you know, company. Ford and now Toyota just yesterday announced that they're pulling out. So, yep. So, they're the three companies who are manufacturing cars here in Australia and they've all pulled out. They've all pulled out. Really? There will not be a single car made in Australia after 2017. Yep. And that's shit. So, what, they'll just be made in Asia or what? Yeah, they'll be, every car will be imported wherever, Europe, Asia, wherever, you know. Yeah, because the government refused to step in and stop it happening. And, you know, a lot of people will say, well, you know, can't have that, can't have the government interfering. Well, you know, look, something like car manufacturing is big, heavy, automated industry, right? There's lots of flow-ons. The Toyota announcement, for example, I'm not sure how many people worked at Toyota, but all the other industries which then were supplying parts and services and everything else to Toyota, there's, like, overall, it's like 50,000 jobs gone, at least, you know. Yeah. It's huge. For a company, for a country that's only got, you know, I'm not sure how many workers in Australia, probably 10 million or something, you know. That's quite a big chunk. Yeah, 20 million people, right? And I think, actually, between all three companies, it's probably like 100,000 plus people who will be out of work in some way, shape or form because the auto industry's gone.

Chris Gammell: And it's just, oh, man. So, well, so this is an interesting comparison, too, because this is something that the U.S. did intervene on during the financial crisis. Yes. Where they, you know, they stepped in, they took over GM.

Dave Jones: Well, so did our previous government, actually. Yep, they did.

Chris Gammell: Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: They did. Our previous government did actually put some money in. Holden, at the time, were the first to announce that they were, I think it was Holden, maybe Ford, I don't know, but they announced that they were, you know, they're going to have to shut their doors, we're in financial trouble, and the government did step in and help them out in some way. But ultimately, no, they're gone now. Yeah. And the current government, of course, doesn't want to borrow it. Yep. Yeah. Because there are, you know.

Chris Gammell: So, living in Ohio, right, this is a very big deal, at least in Ohio, when car stuff gets affected. And, you know, you talk about the add-on stuff. That stuff is really apparent. Well, first off, you know, I still have shells of these huge manufacturing plants around where I live. I mean, like, that's a big deal when they shut down.

Dave Jones: Right, these big empty factories, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. But then all the machine shops, everything else that adds on, it can really ripple through. And so, what was their stated reason? It was like they didn't want to give concessions, or what was it?

Dave Jones: There were four reasons, I think. I'm going from memory here. Tariffs, import tariffs. So, that's, you know, government stuff, right? So, they weren't, I don't know exactly how it all worked, but yeah, something to do with import tariffs. And something else, and the cost of, the current weak Australian dollar was a problem.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Or something like that, you know. Yep. So, the Australian, you know, higher than average wages. But that's never been an excuse, you know, higher than average wages here at Australia, because we do pay pretty well here. Yeah. In Australia. You know, that's never the main excuse. The main excuse is that, you know, the government weren't really, you know, supporting, you know, they just couldn't compete with the imports, basically. That's what they're, you know, that's what they're saying. Right. And so, yeah, it pretty much comes down to, you know, the government not helping them out. That's, you know, not supporting the auto industry.

Chris Gammell: Well, I think it's a bigger question, too, about, you know, this is increasingly interesting to me, because automotive manufacturing is, like, a really good example of local manufacturing that can really have a big impact because of the shipping costs and everything like that, right? I mean, like, you're still shipping in raw components, but these days, I mean, we saw that Tesla video a while back. These car manufacturing plants are so incredibly roboticized that it's just, like, why wouldn't you? You know, like, this is, like, it's, sure, it's heavy industry, but it's heavy robotic industries these days. So, I don't quite understand that. It seems like that's more, obviously, there's lots of politics.

Dave Jones: And there's not a huge difference between setting up an automotive factory locally or in Japan or Europe or wherever, right? You know, it's a similar cost to set up a factory anywhere in the world. So, you know, hey, why not do it local and save all that, you know, stuff? And we've been manufacturing cars here for, like, 60 years, you know, nonstop for 60 years. And it's all going to end 2017 because of our, you know, our short-sighted government, you know? That is quite short-sighted. You know, there's a lot of people out there that said, oh, you know, no company should be too big to fail. And, well, yeah, I, you know, I agree. Like, I thought those banks should have collapsed, right? I shouldn't have let them freaking collapse, right? Shouldn't have given them money.

Chris Gammell: I don't know if I agree with that.

Dave Jones: You know, because that's not industry. You know, industry is a different thing. There's so many, you know, keeping people's skill bases and everything else, so many ancillary jobs and markets that tie into it. You know, it's, you know, you can't let whole industries fail. You know, it's just wrong.

Chris Gammell: Well, no, I don't know if I agree with that either, though. But I think, you know, I think that's an interesting point about the skill side of things, though, too. Like, because you think about that stuff going away, right? You have a 50-year-old machinist who then goes and retrains for some other industry. He's never coming back, right? So that means this is a very, very long-term decision because we've seen this in manufacturing across the states as well. You know, you start to lose that base of knowledgeable people. Yeah, sure, you might have some people that are still specialized. Like, in the states, a lot of people are specialized still with, you know, like electronics, right? A lot of the high-end stuff sticks around for military-type stuff. It needs to be stateside. But that doesn't scale then. Like, you can't just go and bring stuff back. Like, you know, people talk about, like, the Shenzhen markets, right? And, like, all of the how much concentration of the skills that are there now, right? And the marketplaces that are there. That's going to be, you know, like, that is a resource in itself. It's not like you could just go and say, oh, well, we're going to start a market in Cleveland tomorrow. You know, it's not like there's just not that skill set there. There's not that critical mass of people and or materials and or, you know, like, need.

Dave Jones: And another classic example is the space industry, right? You know how America's pretty much, you know, shut down its manned space program, you know? And it's like, yeah, no, fail, you know? That's just the absolute wrong thing to do. And, yeah, while I don't support, you know, propping up private companies and that, to let entire industries fail is just, you know, in smallish countries like ours, right, it's just suicidal. It really is.

Chris Gammell: It's just dumb. It's tough. It's tough when it's these big decisions, too, that, you know, hit such visible things that can affect all of us outside of it like that, right? I mean, like, think about, like, I mean, I think about your old job where you were doing, like, test jigs and stuff like that, right? I mean, like, how is someone designing test jigs, you know, affected by that? You know, it's like, it's, there's just no control over that kind of thing with these high-level decisions. So that is, that is, that is tough. That stinks.

Dave Jones: It does.

Chris Gammell: Speaking of Shenzhen, though, if people are interested in going there, before the Maker Faire Shenzhen, which is coming up in April, Ian from Dangerous Prototypes, and I think Bunny, and I think Zach Hoken-Smith, and a couple other people are doing, they're doing a really, really awesome workshop. Did you see this thing?

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's, I've heard about it, yeah. I love it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so, so basically you get over there, you, you get tours around and stuff, but then you actually sit with people at the, the ones who, like, can, like, do reflow on cell phones and, like, do, like, this high, high-precision soldering stuff. They'll actually, they're actually going to have classes with these, with these people, and, obviously, you know, you get all the cultural side of things, too, you get all the good food and everything like that, but this is, this looks like a really interesting thing, actually going and sitting with people and learning how to, you know, like, reballing FPGAs, right? Not FPGAs, but PGA parts.

Dave Jones: I'd love to go there, yes. I know, that would be really cool. And it's probably not going to be mil-spec training, folks, it's going to be Shenzhen market training, you know? Just get the job done with, with the lowest cost tool possible, you know? Yeah, right. And just a buttload of experience, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, it'll be, it might be grunty, but it'll be, you know, like, that'll be, it'll be, like, guerrilla training effectively, you know? Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: And it's, what does it cost, 250 bucks for three days or something? It's worth every cent. Man. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 250 for the, for the, the workshop itself. And then, you know, the rest of the low cost stuff. And you get goodies and PCBs. You'll probably spend more money. Yeah, I was going to say, you're going to spend more money at that market itself, probably. At the market itself, yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: No, that's, that's a bargain. Have you been there? Or no? No, no, I've only been to, um, uh, Shanghai markets. Shanghai. And the, uh, Singapore markets.

Chris Gammell: Hmm. So, I've been thinking, so I, so now that I'm, uh, you know, on my own too, I've been thinking about travel more and maybe doing, like, uh, touring and doing classes around the area, like, in different, different areas.

Dave Jones: Blowing all that money you don't have, huh?

Chris Gammell: Well, you know, uh, I would be teaching, so, you know, there would be a reason to go. Uh, but I was thinking, you know, somewhere maybe like in Shenzhen, maybe we can meet up there and, you know, breathe in pollution and go tour on the market, you know? Yeah, right. But yeah, travel, oh, travel is expensive these days. Yeah, travel is not cheap. Oh, man, is it ever.

Dave Jones: It's not cheap at all.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But if you can get there, folks, yeah, do it. Do it. That's an absolute bargain.

Chris Gammell: It does seem like a good one. And I'm glad too. That'd be terrific. Ian seemed like he went dark on Dangerous Prototypes for a while, but, uh, I got an email from a while back, so he does, he is alive and well, and, uh, so I was glad to see that too. Uh, but yeah, so Dangerous Prototypes is picking back up now.

Dave Jones: So, yeah. And the other thing that, uh, talking about, uh, how shutting up an industry in a country can, you know, cause issues. How about shutting down one company in one small town? If that ever happened.

Chris Gammell: I know you're trying to do a, uh. I'm not saying it is.

Dave Jones: This is, this is not news here. I'm trying to do an awful segue into DigiKey.

Chris Gammell: I was going to say, I know you're doing a segue. I just can't tell what it is. I'm looking at the list here.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Because, yeah, DigiKey. Oh, DigiKey.

Dave Jones: DigiKey. Dude, in Feith River Falls.

Chris Gammell: Uh-huh.

Dave Jones: Tiny little tin pot town.

Chris Gammell: That's where they are. Have you seen this? Yes, that's correct. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: It's a town of 10,000, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And two and a half thousand people work at DigiKey.

Chris Gammell: Really? Wow. Yeah. I know. That's ridiculous. Wow.

Dave Jones: Yeah, and they're desperately shorter people. They would hire hundreds or more overnight, bang, like that, if they could. They just can't get enough people. But why? Anyway, there's a great... Yeah, I know. Because they're in the middle of bloody nowhere. They have to bus them in from nearby towns. They've got, like, they run their own shuttle buses to bring people in. Yeah, exactly. Because they can't get enough people.

Chris Gammell: Wow.

Dave Jones: And anyway, there's this excellent article and photo, behind the scenes photo tour of what happens inside DigiKey. And it's just great. Huh.

Chris Gammell: You know, it's just terrific. I didn't actually get a chance to look at this yet. Oh, it's on Spectrum. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to look at this yet. But man, that is...

Dave Jones: It's great. The photos are excellent. And, yeah, and they talked to the CEO. And the CEO said, yeah, you know, if we were going to build a company like DigiKey, this is the worst possible place to put it because there's no major airport. There's no transport infrastructure. We're miles from bloody anywhere, you know. And they have to have their own fleet of, you know, DHL and FedEx and all the other trucks and everything else to come in. And it's just, yeah, from, you know, from a hub point of view and the amount of business that they do shipping stuff, it's just nuts. And it's a horrible place to build a company. But that's where they started and all they just made do, you know.

Chris Gammell: Origins do have a way of holding on there. So that's...

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And that's interesting. You know, like, it's interesting when you look at, like, the whole spectrum of electronics companies that are out there, too. You know, a lot of them are just straight logistics companies to start with. You know, eventually as they start moving, like, you know, they start to get their logistics all sorted out. Then they move in other stuff. Like DigiKey these days, you know, they have training modules. They have lots of good resources for people in addition to just selling a crap ton of parts. But, you know, like, first and foremost, they and many others are logistics companies. So, yeah, it's kind of shocking that it's... Yeah, that's a nightmare. It's in the middle of bloody nowhere.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. But, hey, they managed to make it work.

Chris Gammell: I know. I wish they would, like, sign... I wish they would, like, put in, like, little stickers so I knew who was, like, had to cut off a single part off a reel.

Dave Jones: Yeah, a little sticker of, like, a little person's photo, right? A photo of the person who actually packed it. They could have a reel of their own little head, you know, and they could stick their little head on it. Their smiling face. That would be great. That would be great. I'm going to suggest this. Right after this, I'm going on Twitter and I'm going to suggest it.

Chris Gammell: Okay, there we go. DigiKey face stickers. Yeah. I would gladly pay 0.0005% or 5 cent more per resistor in order to get a face sticker.

Dave Jones: A face sticker, yeah, of the person who actually packed it. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's funny.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's great. And, like, it's not as automated as you think. There's people, like, sitting there at desks and they're manually, you know, doing all this stuff. It's, you know... Yeah, that would be terrible. Yeah, like, there's some automation in terms of, like, they have these, you know, carts which go around the factory. They actually call them mouse carts. I think that's a cheap shot at mouser, you know. Yeah. But, you know, it's not as automated. You know, I pictured, you know, big automated pick-and-place machines, you know, in huge, big, you know, aisles of... And these automated robots go up and pull the box down for you. But no, no, they're just shelves. People walk down the aisles and, you know, pull them out. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I don't know. I think about, like, the... So, like, those... That Kiva systems, the one that Amazon bought. Did you ever see those robots?

Dave Jones: No? What's that?

Chris Gammell: So, that's, like... So, basically, like, they're these... It's actually, like, logistics is actually a great... A great platform for robotics. I think that's going to be... Oh, yeah, yeah, it is. You know, like... Well, like you were just talking about, automation is... It seems to fit in there really well. Yeah. So, Kiva, they have these little orange robots that are actually pretty strong. But, basically, they're pretty squat. They're only, like, maybe, like, half a meter, like, a foot and a half off the ground at total height. But they're pretty wide. And what they do is they get underneath, like, a shelf. And then they spin. Oh, right. And then they basically... They kind of, like, jack themselves up. And they basically pick up the shelf like that. But they have a low enough center of gravity that they... And then they take the entire shelf over to someone standing in place. Yeah. And it says, okay, here's... You know, here's your shelf. It's shelf one of this. You know, grab it off there. And then it takes the shelf back. It has a queuing system. It has a recharge system. And Amazon...

Dave Jones: That's what I expected. A digi-key. Right? That's the same thing. Like, I expected them to... At least a robot to go and pull a box off the shelf that had that part. You know? And then it comes back to the operator. But no, the packer goes to the shelf and gets them.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's not an easy problem. I mean, like... Man, humans are very, very advanced robots. I mean, like... Oh, yeah. It is hard to... Like, for what you need to pay someone in, like, ham sandwiches in the cafeteria and, like, you know, a decent living wage. Like, it is hard to replicate that ability. Right? I mean, it's just not easy. And, you know, like we were talking last week, right? Meat controllers, right? It's like, that is a hard thing to do.

Dave Jones: That's right.

Chris Gammell: And, yeah. And so, like, getting that kind of sophistication of a robot, you really do need to have a pretty large outlay of initial cash in order to build something that crazy. I mean, you think about, like, even the stuff that, like, Boston Dynamics, now Google is doing, right? I mean, like, with, like, super tactile robots. Like, that... First off, it's overkill. And second off, but it's like, there's some weird middle ground between, you know, do you need a hand to grab a reel of resistors? Exactly. Or can you use a claw? And if you can use a claw, what are you trading off? And do you need vision and all these other weird things?

Dave Jones: That's why it's like, I expected, you know, it would be much simpler, just bring the box over and then the human, you know, takes it out of the box, kind of, you know. Because otherwise it's too tricky, you know, to a claw to get in there and pull out that, no, it's easier just to, like the Amazon thing, just transport the whole thing, you know, and then sort of, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, I think Kiva was brilliant in that regard, because you basically, you know, you're going piecemeal at that point, and eventually it'll have a robot that just sits there and just picks things off. But for now, it's, you know, the meat controller does pretty well. Get that meat controller pair of Google Glass. Right.

Dave Jones: So anyway, I don't think there's a single unemployed person in the town of Feath River Falls. You just, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right. And add to that.

Dave Jones: You would have to do it by choice, because DigiKey will just hire anyone. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, and right next to the, I mean, so Leith Thief River is right near North Dakota, and North Dakota has, like, near zero unemployment because of the shale gas boom, basically. Oh, really? Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like, basically, you go to, like, a Walmart, and, like, they're sold out on shelves and stuff. It's kind of insane. So, like, there's, like, a gold rush going on in the upper plains of the states.

Dave Jones: In their hills. In their hills. In their hills. There's no hills at all. I guarantee you that. Oh, right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, man. Yeah. Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: Crazy times we're living in here, man. Crazy times.

Dave Jones: What's this about Texas Instruments are laying off people?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Basically, it's not just TI. Basically, Intel, TI, or IBM. IBM, of course, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: IBM's no surprise. Yeah. But TI? Yeah, that's a bit. Well, not really, though. I mean... What type of people are they laying off?

Chris Gammell: Well, remember, they merged with, like, National, so they had, like, a lot of overlap there. Yeah. I don't really know too many of the details. I forgot about that. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: But, I mean, it's just, you know, big companies are big, right? That's kind of the message there. And it's tough when you have bean counters that are also, you know, going over the numbers and being like, oh, we have too many people and we can just make people do other people's jobs. So, I think that's how I'm reading, at least. It's probably much more intricate than that. But, yeah. I don't think TI is, like, going out of the toilet or anything like that. No, no, no.

Dave Jones: They're just consolidating because there was huge overlap there with National. So, you know.

Chris Gammell: I guarantee you one thing, though. They're probably not letting go many of the chip designers. Right. Like, talk about high-demand stuff. I mean, like, no. They don't let them go unless they have to, unless they absolutely have to. Because you talk about a skill that doesn't come back. Yeah. Right. This is chip design. There you go. What about your stuff from this week? I saw you were doing some precision current source stuff. Tell me about that.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I'm doing precision current source stuff. There's another video which, it's like a three-parter, really. Three-parter. Three-part miniseries. Yeah. I've done another one which I'm just about to upload. And, yeah, I did a precision one-amp current source and a precision one milliamp and one micro-amp current source as well. So I've done a couple of videos on those. And guess what they're used for?

Chris Gammell: Are they used for testing something?

Dave Jones: Perhaps. Yes. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Is this going to be a future purchasable item?

Dave Jones: Well, I had ideas about, you know, doing a little micro-reference. I was, you know, a little micro-reference, I was going to call it. And, yeah, it was going to be like a universal, you know, multi-meter reference thing. You know, voltage current resistance, that kind of thing. But, no, you know, I thought, oh, well, look, I've got to do these test jigs anyway. Why not make it universal and then make it for sale? And, no, there's just too many trade-offs and things like that, you know. You've got to design the right tool for the job, you know. So if I spend all that effort trying to design, like, a universal tool, you know, universal useful gadget that I could sell, then, you know, it's not really optimized for my use on testing, you know. Right. So, yeah, no. And it takes too long, you know. And I want something now, so I just want to slap something together for use for my testing. Right. And then, you know, I can take my time to develop something properly for, you know, a saleable product.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's a good point because you don't necessarily, you don't need to think about all of the different variables input then. Exactly. You just need to think about that one very specific application. That one very specific thing. That's right. Overvoltage events or anything crazy like that. You just have to crank out an amp or whatever it is at the time.

Dave Jones: Exactly. And then you don't have to worry about range switching and all the other stuff. Oh, yeah. And it's like user interface stuff which goes in, oh, dude, can I just have jumper links or do I need some fancy digital switch?

Chris Gammell: I was going to say, what's the user interface on the microcurrent? The switch?

Dave Jones: Plug-in battery. It works. That's the user interface. Lead comes on. All right. Yes. I've got to spring for a fancy low battery detect lead, you know. Nice. Yeah. Woo-ee. Yeah. You know, but that's, yeah, that's the extent of it. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, no, because I noticed your video. I was like looking at it. I'm like, oh, well, geez. So, this is actually what I put on the BenchBuddy to do current output. That's right.

Dave Jones: You mentioned it was very similar, right? Yeah. Well, it is. It's just a standard low side current sync. Exactly. Right.

Chris Gammell: And another thing is, it's actually so like a lot of people that like your videos like the dynamic load or the, not the, is it precision load? The current load, yeah. The current load, yeah. The current load, yeah.

Chris Gammell: The current load, yeah. Right. And I guess it's adjustable, right? So, I mean, it's basically, it's a revision on that. You know, you basically pull off different points. You kind of push it out to the field and you can put a resistor out there. But then, yeah, that's basically now you're just creating your own current versus accepting someone else's current. And, okay, yeah, that's good. So, yeah, that's actually on the BenchBuddy as well. Right.

Dave Jones: Did you go into details on how to, you know, optimize for loop stability and stuff like that? Did you go that deep? No.

Chris Gammell: Because that's a tricky subject. It is a really tricky subject. No, we're going to, so basically, that's going to be the empirical side of things. Right. Here's a space for a cap and let's try some different caps. Because, I mean, that's a realistic thing, right? I mean, it's not. It is. It's not a perfect thing, right? And you can definitely get burned by that because if you have a magical cap value where you, you know, lick your finger and you put another finger in your ear and you touch the board in a certain spot and it works, that's a bad situation. That's it. But, you know, the other option is just to slow everything way the hell down, right? And that's more than likely going to be the result there. Okay.

Dave Jones: Well, that's the thing. That's another reason why the difference between designing my one-off test jig and designing a universal product, right? With the universal product, I don't know what the load's going to be. Exactly. You know, what the user, it could be massively inductive, could be massively capacitive, right? Oh, yeah. You just don't know. It's got to work over a massive range. Whereas my one, just for my test, I know what my load of my device under test is going to be.

Chris Gammell: Exactly.

Dave Jones: So I can just pick a value, whack it in, make it work and be 100% confident that it's going to work.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, because I've only got, you know, it's a limited load, you know, designed for one specific application. That's it.

Chris Gammell: Right. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, so back in Keithley days, that's like one of the big things when you're doing like source meter stuff. I mean, that stuff is really, really important, especially with current, right? Because the thing that a lot of people don't realize is like, oh, okay, current is really straightforward. It's like, no, actually it's not. No, no, no. Because, you know, if you have, if you're using like a voltage sense feedback, then, you know, you have basically, there can be these huge delays based on inductive and capacitive loads like you're talking about. And basically that starts throwing everything into crazy town. So you need to have different modes and different, it is a total mess. So. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, you know, and people keep asking, oh, why don't I just do a video on how to stabilize a loop like that? Well, it ain't that easy. Yeah, exactly. You, you have a, I would have, if I could think of a nice sort of universal and sort of way, easy way to sort of explain it and make it come across. But even then it's going to be application specific, you know? And like, so what do you do? I, you know, it always goes into the too hard basket. I'm afraid, just like you found, you know, you were going, you're going to do it empirically. So, you know, because, well, you know, because it's a valid way to do it and, and it's the easy way to do it as well.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I think it's realistic. I mean, that's, that's just how it happens sometimes. It is realistic. Yeah. You just, you just tune it up and you see, well, what do you want to support? And then you say, you say, okay, well, this thing works out to 10K. And if you use it past that, you're on your own, buddy.

Dave Jones: And even, even the best in the industry do that, you know, your Bob Peases and your, you know, and, and whatnot, right? They're all, you know, they will sit there, you know, they'll build up a circuit and they'll go, oh, it's not, it's oscillating. Damn it. You know? So Jim Williams will go through his big pile of crap on the back. Oh, he's a 10 nanofaric cap. I'll whack that in there. That'll fix it. Right. And that's the solution. Right. Yep. That's exactly right. And the best guys in the industry do that.

Chris Gammell: Yep. You know, it's not. And that's a reason to have a reel of through a whole 10 nanofaric caps around too, actually.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Because you're not allowed to cut your finger off and just duct tape it to the board.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Your, yeah, your wet finger, you know. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You only get to do that 10 times. Yep. Maybe another 10, depending how stable you are on your feet.

Dave Jones: Oh, I love it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Empirical engineering. Can we call this episode empirical engineering?

Chris Gammell: Maybe. Yeah. I like that.

Dave Jones: Yep. Well, it's E and E, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. There you go. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Empirical engineering exploits.

Chris Gammell: There you go. I'll write that down. Empirical. I might, I might ignore it, but.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Well.

Chris Gammell: I don't let Dave, I don't let Dave name episodes that often very much anymore. You see, it's like.

Dave Jones: No, I haven't. We used to always, you know, at the end of the show, we'd sit around for like an hour trying to figure out a name. An hour and a half, yeah. I know. And it's ridiculous. And now it's like, no, I just leave it up to Chris. He picks some name. And I, I don't even know what the name is, you know, I don't even listen to the episode after it's put together, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a dictatorship here, right? So. Right. So speaking of test equipment, do we want to, are we allowed to talk about that? No? Yes? Oh, what?

Dave Jones: Oh, the new.

Chris Gammell: The little slip up, a little slip slip.

Dave Jones: Little slip up? What? Yeah. Are we talking about the new tech thing?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Tech are releasing a new scope.

Chris Gammell: Yay. Hallelujah.

Dave Jones: Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Oh, and yes, I'm, no, I've announced. I am getting one. I'm allowed to say that I'm getting one before it's released. It comes out on what, the 28th of February or something? I don't know. End of, end of 24th or something? Yeah. And, yeah, it's a new, it's a new, um, mixed domain, MDO 3000.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, uh, yeah. I don't know. I don't know much about it. I don't know a huge, a lot. And so, but it's building spectrum analyzer. It's like they're 4,000, but it's cut back. So, yeah. So I hope it's not as slow as the 4,000. I hope it still has the same, but there's a few things that make me a bit concerned about it, but I'll reserve my judgment until I actually play with it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I guess that's best to have that in hand and everything.

Dave Jones: So, and I, I found the info like they, you know, they, if they want to keep their secrets, they're, uh, they should hide their info better because people ask me, oh, how did I find this pre-release info? Like this was before that they emailed me and said, oh, look, we'll, we'll send you one for, for review, you know? And, uh, you know, I, I, I got an, I saw it on Twitter, their feed, somebody posted it on Twitter and like, oh, big announcement. Here's this, you know, countdown 30 days until this new oscilloscope comes out. And, uh, I thought, oh, it looks like a mixed domain oscilloscope. It looks like the 4,000. Hmm. How can I find some info on this? Well, companies, big ass companies like this usually are pretty predictable. So they'll stick with their, you know, their, their model number sequencing. So, hmm, it looks like it's, it looks like it's a lower price bracket. They did an MDO 4,000. Huh. I think it's going to be called the MDO 3,000. And so I typed that into Google and the first hit was their confidential marketing, uh, document in Google's case. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: You know what, though? And it's like. I think, I was thinking about this, right? And I was thinking, at first I was like, ah, you know, I bet they're pissed about this. And then I thought more about it and I'm like, they're, they're, you couldn't buy better, uh, marketing than that, right? Yeah, exactly. You know, like, they have a contest going, but like, yeah. Okay. So maybe the secret slipped out a little bit. Who cares? I mean, it's coming out eventually. And it's like, and it's like people are talking about it before you even released what the hell it is. That's a good sign. And so, yeah. I mean, I, I think that's, I thought that was better, to be honest. But, you know.

Dave Jones: And well, from their photo, it was obvious. It's an obvious, it was, it had a spectrum analyzer built in. You, you knew it had six instruments in one, which is a wank, by the way. Ah, that's total wank. Oh, my God. Yeah, because one, one's a protocol analyzer. Woohoo, SBID code.

Dave Jones: They call that an instrument in one, you know, give me a break.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Anyway, it does have the, it was obvious it had the spectrum analyzer in it. It was obvious it was made for a lower price point market. So, obviously, it was replacing the, you know, the DPO 3000. Yeah. So, it was like, you knew what, you knew pretty much all you wanted to know about it, you know.

Chris Gammell: So, did you know that the old tech scopes were actually 61 as well? So, the 465, it's actually, so it's a scope. It's also a paperweight. It's a paperweight. It's a, it's a, it's a space heater.

Dave Jones: It's a piece of pornography.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. It's also, if you stare at the screen long enough, it's a persistence vision eyeball modifier, right? Yeah. What else? And it's a, it's a reliable lead source. Was that six? I don't know. But, yeah, six in one is, is, is a bit of a wank. Yeah. But who cares? The exciting thing about it, I think, I, I really do like that idea, though, about the, the 4000. I, so I, I was, I was out at tech.

Dave Jones: Oh, the 4000's very impressive.

Chris Gammell: It, oh, it's.

Dave Jones: It's, it's the, how it integrates all the.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: All the spectrum analyzer capability. It's really powerful.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: It's incredibly powerful. But that's my concern, is that I've sort of, I, from reading into this, I don't think the 3000 has nearly the same capability as the 4000. Right. In terms of cross, you know, you know, triggering, you know, sampling. Yeah. Well, it says it doesn't sample at the same time, you know. Oh. Oh, yeah. So that, that, that concerns me, you know. Yeah. So, but anyway, I'll reserve judgment until I actually get one and test it. Well, we'll see. Yeah, I just thought it was funny. Yeah, we'll see. Thought I'd. Yeah, but.

Chris Gammell: Bring it up.

Dave Jones: Boy. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's good to see tech back into the, back into the business. Yeah. But they obviously do think that, I mean, this is not going to be, this is not a, you know, prices have been revealed and this is not a low cost scope, you know. No. It's cheaper than the 4000, but it's not a sub thousand dollar entry level or, you know, it's, it's a real mid-level scope, you know, and it's a mid-level price to match. And, uh. Yeah. One thing I didn't like that they're doing is that, right. The spectrum analyzer's built in, right, it's software upgradable. So it's capable of doing, you know, the one and a half gig or whatever built in or three gig. Yeah. Sorry. And, uh, and if you, so if you buy the hundred megahertz model, your spectrum analyzer is only a hundred megahertz. Which is. Software limited. Worthless. Right. It's like. Well, no, you can use it for switch mode power supply stuff, right. It'll be handy for that. But for doing RF stuff, nah. You know, unless you happen to be working at RF below a hundred megahertz, you know.

Chris Gammell: And how often do you pull out a spectrum analyzer when you're doing switch mode stuff? I mean, like, unless you're really in a bind, I don't know. Oh, no.

Dave Jones: That can be handy for, you know. No doubt.

Chris Gammell: But I'm just saying, like, you're not going to buy it just, like, if you're just, if you're just a power supply designer, you're not going to have that just for that.

Dave Jones: Oh, EMC compliance stuff. EMC compliance. Definitely for EMC. I agree with that. Yep. Yeah. EMC, because you've got a switch mode in there, it's going to be spewing out the stuff. Right.

Chris Gammell: But do you need that, like, time domain correlated at that point either, though? I mean, like, I don't think that...

Dave Jones: I... Well...

Chris Gammell: Maybe. Maybe.

Dave Jones: No, no. No, it could. It could certainly be, because your processor could be switching into a different mode that causes, you know, increased current or whatever on your PSU, and that translates to more conducted emissions, and you fail the requirement. So, you know. See what they think. Yeah, maybe. I think it could be.

Chris Gammell: I don't know.

Dave Jones: I think it could be. I think you're not imaginative enough there. I think it could be.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's the story of my life, man.

Dave Jones: But no, but it's certainly... The point I'm making is that it's not RF, you know. It's like... But, you know, RF to the RF, folks, is like gigahertz range, right?

Chris Gammell: Right, right, right.

Dave Jones: And that's what you sort of expect a Spectrum Analyser to be, you know. You expect it to be into the gigahertz, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, yeah, software limited to 100 megahertz. I don't know. I think that was a marketing... A bad marketing choice, personally. Yeah, they can always revise it, right? Well, see, but the thing is, the thing... Tektronix's advantage is that nobody else on the market has mixed domain, right?

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: It's purely... Pun coming. It's purely the domain of Tektronix. Okay? Yeah. So, yeah. And, you know, so they've got a big... You know, that's a huge advantage in their favor. And whether or not the other manufacturers think that mixed domain is important enough to, you know, go down that route, yeah, only time will tell.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, yeah. You mean Agilent? I mean, Keysight?

Dave Jones: Agilent, yeah. Who the hell are they this week? Bloody Keysight. Oh, Keysight. Oh, dearie, dearie. Yeah. Nah. Fail.

Chris Gammell: So, how about a little Kickstarter update here? How's that all going? Since you're...

Dave Jones: Oh, just before the show, actually, just before the show, I shot a little video, a screen capture video, sort of like behind the scenes of how I manage the Kickstarter project. So, I show you what options are available to a Kickstarter project creator. So, I actually go to my login and I make it... I actually made a survey, you know, sent out the survey to my backers asking for their addresses and stuff like that. So, I actually did a video showing behind the scenes that you wouldn't ordinarily get to see unless you've actually done a Kickstarter project, unless you've actually started one and then you have access to the behind the scenes stuff. Right, yeah, because if you don't know anyone who's already done one, right? Well, I don't... I haven't checked if anyone's already done a video like that. I don't know. Maybe there's 10,000 videos out there. Who knows, but, you know. Well, it's still good, though.

Chris Gammell: It's good to have the Jones spin on it. No.

Dave Jones: Yeah, no, I just got my board... I've got 200 boards back from my assembler. And also, sitting at home right now are the... Well, the rest of the parts for at least another 1,000 units, so I can ship those off to the assembler and... And, yeah, go ahead and do that. The assembler had a few hiccups, you know, because they... Just by coincidence, they just got a brand new machine, you know. Right.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that's going to have all the usual stuff, yeah.

Dave Jones: It's going to have all the usual learning curve and everything. And, of course, the Maxim parts, I have the little six-pin SOT 23s, right? Because they're six-pin. You can put them in either orientation and you don't realise, right? And the markings are real, almost impossible to show unless you'll check under a microscope. And so their machine had, you know, a rotational setting something for that SOT 23, right, part. And they used it and it turned out to be backwards because Maxim apparently put them in the reels different to what other manufacturers do or something like that. I don't know the exact details. And, sure enough, the chips went in backwards and they had to... But they spotted the problem and they fixed it and, you know. So, yeah. Yeah, there are a few little issues like that. Take that robot.

Chris Gammell: You didn't figure that out on your own.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. So, anyway. Yes. Yeah. You know, but generally, you know, it's got the few little hiccups that you expect because I haven't used this assembler before and they haven't done the product before. And they're using a brand new machine. So, we expect all these hiccups. But now they've ironed it out in this first small run of 200 boards. Then now when they go run the 1,800 boards through, right, we shouldn't have any problems because the machine's already set up, you know. So, as long as they don't put the wrong reel in the wrong location, it's, yeah, everything should be sweet.

Chris Gammell: That's good. Yeah. So, that's a pilot run. Generally happy. You said that was 200 boards?

Dave Jones: It was a small pilot run, the 200 boards for the 200 backers. Yep. So.

Chris Gammell: Huh. That's good.

Dave Jones: Yes. There you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Manufacturing. Oh, that never gets any easier.

Dave Jones: Right. No, it doesn't. Well, maybe eventually. It's tricky business. We'll see. Well, I am now, well, almost, almost. I passed all the hurdles. I am now my own mailing house. What does that mean? You may ask how. Well, I now have, I went through all the hoops with, with the Australia Post. I went through all the hoops to get a, you know, a proper shipping business account with them. And there were a lot of hoops. Let me tell you. Oh, the bureaucracy was incredible. But now I get access to the same shipping prices and the same systems that my big mailing house had. So now, yeah, look out. I'm going into the mail order business.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You're a logistics guy now.

Dave Jones: I'm a logistics guy. But, you know, there you go. But no, see, see, but the thing is, right, I can now, so I can skip the mailing house altogether. Right. I can either pack and ship them myself or I can get my assembler, who's, who we're going to talk to, to get them to test and pack everything. Right. Because I'm going to ship them the test jigs and the procedures and everything else. This is the plan anyway.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And then they will test them. Then they will pack them. And then they will, you know, stuff them in the padded envelopes. And then I will print out, because I have access to the Australia Post system, I will just print out the labels, you know, the shipping labels. And I'll ship those to the assembler. And the assembler will whack on the labels and, you know, out it goes. So I can avoid. Wow.

Chris Gammell: So you're basically turning them into like a drop shipper at that point, right? I mean, that's effectively what they're going to do.

Dave Jones: Almost like a drop shipper. Yeah. And, you know, if I, let's, you know, I mean, I'm not going to sell another 2,000 of these micro, I'm not going to manufacture another 2,000 anytime soon. But if I did, right, I would get all the parts shipped directly to them instead of to me. There's no double handling, you know. And, you know, all I've got to do is print out the mailing labels. Or I could get them to do that as well if I gave them access to my account. Yeah, right.

Chris Gammell: You give them the account number.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. No, but I, you know. But I like making sure all the address data is all okay. And it doesn't, you know, it doesn't take much time at all to suck in, you know, the address data into a database and then, you know, print some labels out. It's, you know, it's pretty easy. So, yeah. I just do like to make sure that part of it's right. Yeah. No, I like it. So. But I still don't have access to the system. I might ask. Ask away.

Chris Gammell: Okay. So, what about the, so this is what I wonder about, you know, now that I'm, you know, looking at going into business for myself, right? So, how do you handle, like, the capital, the capital outlay? Because, like, that's a lot of parts, right? I mean, like, so. Oh, well, yeah. Could you give me a range of how much that was? I know that you got paid up front from the Kickstarter stuff, but I'm just, I'm always curious about that kind of stuff. It's like, you know, if I was bootstrapping without Kickstarter.

Dave Jones: No, you're, you're, you know, we're talking $40,000 plus here. It's not, you know, it's a lot of money. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: Right. Oh, well, because I'm making more. People talk about cash flow. Well, yeah. Right. I'm making 2,000. Right. Whereas I, I only had 12,000, 200, 1200 backers. Right. So, technically I only have to make, but then, you know, I've been through this before and I'm smart enough to know that people are going to want these after the campaign. Right. Now I'm going to, you know, ship a couple of hundred to Artifruit. Right. They've ordered in 200 quantities before. Right. So, I know I'm going to easily ship, you know, 200 to Artifruit and my other distributors and some myself to sell. So, I thought 2,000, nice round number. Right. So, hey, you know, I got enough money from the campaign. I'll make 2,000 units. And yeah, it costs, yeah, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. These parts aren't cheap. I'm not buying these from the Shenzhen market.

Chris Gammell: It's 40% less, right? Right. Yeah. I mean, like you said, 40 grand. I mean, even at 40% less off of that, that's, yeah, that's still 24,000 bucks or 25,000 bucks. No, well. That's a lot of dough. No.

Dave Jones: No, it's a lot of dough. And I had to start ordering parts before the Kickstarter because the disadvantage with Kickstarter as opposed to Possible, the Australian one, right, with Possible when I did the ruler, as soon as I met my target, the money started rolling into my PayPal account, right? This is before the campaign even ended. Yeah. Right? So I had the money. Before the campaign even ended, I had the money to start manufacturing the boards and buying the envelopes and everything else, right? But not with Kickstarter. No, you've got to wait until the campaign ends. Then you've got to wait two weeks. They put the money on hold for two weeks and then it comes through. So, you know, but, you know, that's why all these projects are late because some people can't afford to buy parts up front, you know, and sort of take that risk. Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, I think about the ones where they, like, have, they end up sending parts to some, you know, assembler in China and then they disappear into the night, you know, like those kind of situations. Oh, yeah. That's what gives me the cold sweats. You know, that's just bad business in the first place, but.

Dave Jones: Well, you know, no, that's, well, I made the commitment to, you know, use all genuine parts and have them assembled here in Australia, you know. Yeah. Cost more. Right. I could have gone to the deepest, darkest parts of Alibaba. Right. And, and, and tried to, you know, but you end up with fake parts. And when you're talking about precision parts like this, it just doesn't cut it. You know. Yeah. It doesn't cut. Right. Right. So. Yeah. And you get those dodgy connectors.

Chris Gammell: You don't want to pay C grade prices and think you're getting A grade and then you're. Yep. You're actually getting a different part entirely.

Dave Jones: I went through at least half a dozen different manufacturers of those gold binding posts. Right. You know, I ordered these things. Yeah. From everywhere. Trying to find the right one that I liked. That was decent quality. That worked. Right. And, you know, took a lot of effort to find that. Yeah. But yeah. Anyway. So yeah, I didn't. This is why I am probably the only Kickstarter hardware campaign in history that has shipped on the very first day that the money came through. The money came through on the 15th of December. I shipped my first units on the 15th of December to my backers. Yes. You know, because I made the commitment to, you know, I bought, you know, several hundred parts at least. Some of them were full reels of like, you know, three, four thousand parts. Um, but yeah, I, I spent a lot of money before the money ever came into my account. So. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, man.

Dave Jones: So that, that, that money came out of my home loan. You know, I mean, it's. Yeah. Right. Yeah. People was like, this house folks. Yeah. Like, you know, but I, but I knew, you know, I'd already met my goal on Kickstarter, right? I knew the money was coming, coming through. Yeah. So yeah, it was zero risk basically unless Kickstarter folded. Right. So. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Even then Amazon would probably give you the money. Maybe.

Dave Jones: Well, it wasn't Amazon. It's some, because I'm in Australia, it's not Amazon payments. It's some other third party. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, there you go.

Chris Gammell: You know, I was, so I was talking to a coworker the other day about this and, you know, we were, we were talking kind of about, you know, like manufacturing in the States and everything else. And I think I said it on here before, but it's like, you know, I have to get past all the romanticization of, of, you know, oh, well making stuff and, you know, oh, it's great to have local manufacturing. Manufacturing is shitty. Like as much as I enjoy it. Oh, it is. And as much as it is, as provided me, you know, food on my table and, and work and everything else, and it will continue to, it is a bad process. Like it is not fun.

Dave Jones: And, uh, that's why you give it to someone else.

Chris Gammell: That if you can. Yeah. And the ones who do it well, that's why you pay more. Right. I mean, that's why you pay premiums for, for good, fast service and, and, you know, and that's why you pay your engineers to double and triple check their work, you know, like that is just, cause it is, oh man, especially hardware. Ugh. Yep. Exactly.

Dave Jones: But that doesn't mean you have to go to China. I mean, you know.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I agree. I agree. And I think even less so, you know, we talked about car stuff at the top of this show, but you know, like I think with pick and place machines, like that is, that is a very common robot, right? People don't think about pick and place machines as robots, but they are, they're, they're robots. Oh yeah. Totally. They're vacuum robots. Uh, and, and they are probably one of the more common ones that are available to, to, to lay people like you and I. And, uh.

Dave Jones: You can buy one on eBay for 10 grand, five, 10 grand. You can buy a second hour.

Chris Gammell: I mean, look at Ryan, Ryan O'Hara. I mean, he bought, he bought one and there's other people, like a lot of companies have bought them, um, you know, like, and a lot, a lot of maker companies that is. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's totally.

Dave Jones: I still think that is a mugs game. I still think owning and operating your own pick and place machine is a real mugs game.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. We'll mark this day down again.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Guys like Mike from Mike's electric stuff. Like he's in the business where like he's in the, you know, he has his own consulting company. He designs products and he, hi, Mike, he's listening. I'm sure he's a regular listener. Right. And, uh, and you know, he does, you know, runs of like a couple of hundred boards and, you know, he's, you know, made the claim that yeah, he's invested all the time and effort into getting this thing. And it does pay dividends for him, but he admits that that's a very narrow window where it's applicable.

Chris Gammell: Yep. You know? Yep.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, I think it all comes down to control too. I mean like that, that's a really big knob that you have to decide where you're going to set it to when you're doing manufacturing. Right. Because, you know, we talked last week, it was the last week or two weeks ago about, about like the circuit hub style of things where you kind of push it all off. That's very little control and you're kind of trusting the process. And then there's super amounts of control where you own the entire process and you're doing it in house. And that, but they all have their own risks and their own benefits.

Dave Jones: But, uh, I think is, for the one man band, for the one man band midnight engineer to have you operate their own pick and place machine. No, no, it's almost certainly not going to be worth the effort. My new assembler, for example, their, their new machine, I think it's a Juki or something. It can, uh, it can take a loose tape, right? So you can order those digi-key parts in the exact quantity we want and they, they can just lay them down and it'll handle those loose tapes. They don't have to re-reel them.

Chris Gammell: That's great. Right? Because that's an expense, a big expense sometimes if you're doing a full run.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Or, or they've got the autumn, or they've got one of those, uh, sort of manual pick and place machines that, you know, you put the parts in the rotatable tray, you know, but, but, you know, and you've got the foot pedal and boom, boom. So they can prototype, you know, like 10 boards really quickly, you know, just using that cut tape from digi-key and, you know, to, it's just not worth it to do it yourself. Really?

Chris Gammell: Well, I think, but I think, I think you bring up a good point there and this is, um, so I'm, I'm doing a talk coming up in Iowa in March and it's going to be called- Cornfields of Iowa. Yeah, that's right. Engineers are human beings is the title of the talk. Yes, yes. Doing banjos. Thank you. But, but, but that's like, that's like the real thing there. I think, I think when you are the one man band, it's all about like, you don't have control at that point. So then it, all you have left is your relationship, right? Because if you didn't know that assembler that you're working with, you know, and if you don't know the people you're working with directly, that's, that's where you really get screwed because you can hand all this stuff off to, you know, someone on, on, in China.

Dave Jones: Somebody who's, uh, spanned you, you know, someone from China who's spammed you, right? Right, right. But then you have no relationship there. We are a one hung, happy, low assembly co.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's always Bluetooth speakers for me. That's what I always get. They always want to, they always want to make me Bluetooth speakers. Right. So hot right now. But yeah, so it's all about the relationships then. And, you know, and even, even when you go over to, you know, at least from what I hear, you know, even when you go over to China, a lot of that is, you know, building relationships with factories. Of course. They want to work with you and stuff. And, and, uh, yeah, but yeah, if you're doing that remotely and you're a one man band, you're, if you don't have the relationship, you're, you're screwed every time.

Dave Jones: That's why I just go local because I want to keep the jobs here in Australia, unlike our government. And, uh, and, you know, and because if anything goes wrong, I can just drive, drive there. Well, granted my, my, my assembler's two and a half hours drive away now, but Hey, you know, it's doable. I can drive up there and back in a day, you know, if I really have to.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Um, so yeah, you know, it's not, nothing beats bums on the ground and having a personal, personal relationship. Yep. Yeah. In fact, my, my assembler is a backer. Yeah. You told that last time, uh, two times ago, I think. Yep. Oh, okay. Which is good. That's really good. I mean, like that's great. Exactly. Invested interest, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Uh, it's fantastic. So you mentioned Mike, I have to mention this picture he posted on, uh, on Twitter the other day and I'll send it to you real quick. Basically, I don't think he's doing this one in house. Uh, but it's, it's a picture we got to have him back on soon too. Cause we haven't talked to him in a while and, uh, actually a benefit of, uh, you know, me not having a proper job anymore. We can start to do, uh, weirder times as well. Right. That was always a restriction. Yeah, of course. Yes. Things open up when you, when you quit, you got, you got the, the ass from your job, but, uh, yeah, that opened up times for us. But then the same kind of thing will happen now where we can kind of play more games to try and get more Europeans and that kind of time zone over there. Send me the link.

Dave Jones: Send me the link.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. There you go. Um, so basically that's this huge, I don't know what the hell he's doing, but it's some kind of huge strip of LEDs and it looks like a manufacturing nightmare. It's like one entire, like, I think it's like a meter long or something like that.

Dave Jones: It's a meter long board. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, it's a mess.

Dave Jones: And it's curved like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's curved. So obviously they're going together in some, like a big Stargate thing. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Like that, that project you did.

Dave Jones: Obviously. Yeah. There's like a 10, it's going to be like a 10 meter radius flashy lead thing. That's my guess from my first look at the scene. Yeah. That's, that sounds right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of power too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Crazy. So, uh, we'll, we'll, we'll post that picture too. Uh, cause.

Dave Jones: That's great. And he's, yeah, he's had to put that on one big square panel. So he's got these big curved radius, uh, uh, you know, strips, uh, tabbed out on this, on this big square panel. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Very interesting. Very interesting. Yep. Yep.

Chris Gammell: So, uh, what else we got this week? Anything else? We're kind of running, running down here.

Dave Jones: Nah. Well, over time, over time. I'm busy, dude.

Chris Gammell: You did post the same, uh, chip of the week that I posted two weeks ago. So maybe we should talk about that real quick before we.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Okay.

Chris Gammell: It looks pretty cool. I mean, it's, uh.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So it's, it's, uh, it's, it's from, uh, analog devices. It's this, uh, combo, like analog front end and, um, uh, micro built in basically like a Cortex M3. And then does it do, it doesn't have Y, it doesn't have RF. I don't think.

Dave Jones: Um, no, but it's got, um, uh, you know, but it's got, you know, programmable gain amps all built in and it's got other DSP filtering built in. So you can filter the signal in real time.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Like at the front end, it's designed for like medical, uh, you know, gadgets, you know, the tricorder kind of. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Which is still going on, I think.

Chris Gammell: Right. The tricorder project. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

Dave Jones: Haven't heard about that for ages. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, that, I just think it's a neat chip. So.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's a, it's a real system on chip integration for, you know, it just kills that market. You know, if you're, if you want to develop an application in the market, this chip is like the Holy Grail.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, you know, you look at this too. I look at this as an analog designer, right? And it's like, how the hell do I compete with this? Just from a size standpoint. Right. I mean, like. No, you can't. And it's got, you know, like, size, power, everything else. Delta Sigma converters. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, you know, and nah. It's just, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So, I mean, this is, I don't even know what the package is on it. It's probably some kind of, not BGA, but something small. It's a BGA, yeah. It's a little piece. Oh, there it is. It's a 8x8 BGA, yeah. So, I mean, it's a BGA. It's all on, uh, you know, it's, it's low power because it's on single, single silicon, that kind of thing. Yeah. I think it's single silicon. And it might be, it might be die bonded, but, um, but yeah, it's just got everything in there. So, how do you compete with that when you're trying to put down, you're just like, oh, I need to put down an AFE, I need to put down a micro, I need to put down, uh, you know, all these other things. A DSP to do real time. Yeah, exactly. You can't. You can't compete. This is the future, folks.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Learn, learn to code. That's not my to-do list.

Dave Jones: And it'd be a piece of cake to, it'd be a piece of cake to print one of those on your chip printing machine.

Chris Gammell: Oh, low blow, man.

Dave Jones: They should release it open source.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Well, low.

Dave Jones: All right. No, we've got to finish on this. We've got to mention it because it's, it's, uh, it's topical. Um, Bill Nye, the science guy debated, I'm sorry, a batshit crazy Australian. No, not me. Oh, he's Australian? I didn't know that. Yeah. Yes. Yes. That guy was crazy. Yes, unfortunately. I won't even mention his name because he's such a dickhead. Anyway, he, he's, he's quote was, we, you know, he's plead, uh, we need scientists. You know, he went into the heart of the idiot Bible Belt at the Creation Museum in the U.S. where they actually, you know, nutters, right? Right.

Chris Gammell: And it's interesting too. So he, so this whole debate, right? A lot of people will say, oh, why did Bill Nye do this debate? And really it was like Bill Nye is using it as a commercial for why you should have science education. That was basically it. And, and there was this great quote from it. You were about, you were about to read it. Sorry.

Dave Jones: Well, and, and, oh, one more thing I wanted to say there on why he did it is because like normally you'd ignore these batshit crazy creationists, right? But the fact is this creation museum gets in like 400,000 people a year, most of them school kids, right? And that's just, no, right? That's just, you know, you, when you've got to step in and do something about that. And so I can understand why, you know, every, you know, atheist and scientist out there is, you know, never debated this guy because it's just pointless.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: But when it gets to that sort of level, yeah, you've got to step in and do something and did a really good job and not as good as I hoped he would do.

Chris Gammell: He wasn't as aggressive as you had hoped. That's what you really hoped for.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The Dave Jones method. He was so nice. He was so, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, Bill Nye is a nice guy, right? I mean.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but he just didn't call out bullshit when it was clearly bullshit. You know, he was too nice, you know. But anyway, his quote was, we need scientists and especially engineers for the future. Engineers use science to solve problems and make things. And that was his big plea. Yep. And his bang on, you know. Definitely. Yeah. And, yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, politics aside, that's, you know, that's what we're here for. We're here to make more engineers or, you know.

Dave Jones: Yep, get people interested. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. And, oh, I guess there is one thing you wanted to talk about, what might be coming out at some point in the future here, some kind of app. You were very excited about pre-show.

Dave Jones: Yes, yes, because we just realized before the show that we never got around to doing our Libsyn Ampower app. And Chris, we just went, oh, why do we want to do that shit? And I went, well, I think it'll be cool. So after this, I'm going to jump on the Libsyn website and try and create our Ampower, our own Ampower app for Android. That's right. You said there was one for iPhones as well or something?

Chris Gammell: I think it's like a through someone else, but yeah, it'll pull it in.

Dave Jones: But I can't test that anyway.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But hopefully, by the time the show comes out, you will be able to download your own Ampower app for Android and use that to listen to the show. And you can rate it too. You can give it a star rating or a thumbs up or something like that. You think this is just a complete fail of an idea, don't you?

Chris Gammell: No, I'm sure it'll be fine. I just, I don't do apps, so it's...

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: If it helps people listen and they enjoy it, and that's great. That's all that matters to me.

Dave Jones: All right. That's it. So I'll try and get that done after the show. Yeah. And I don't know how good it'll be, but hey, hopefully there will be an app available.

Chris Gammell: It's worth trying. All right. All right, man. Well, I'll be starting Monday. I'm a free man. Well, I guess Friday afternoon. I'm a free man.

Dave Jones: You're a free man. Yeah. You are. Catch you next time.

Chris Gammell: See ya. The prisoner wishes to say a word.

Speaker ?: Freedom! Freedom!

Chris Gammell: And I'll tune reviews.