#216 – Last Minute Decisions - Obdurate Onepercenter Obstacles

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Recorded September 15th, 2014. Episode 216. Obdurate. One Percenter. Obstacles.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the AEV blog.

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

Dave Jones: It's just us again. Yeah, man.

Chris Gammell: A couple of weeks in a row. Yeah. With all our guests dried up. Yeah. Yeah, right. You and I travel so much these days. Well, more these days. It's hard to remember to schedule guests.

Dave Jones: Me? Travel much?

Chris Gammell: Well, no, you weren't traveling. I guess you were at electronics. Well, I was on holiday, which is good enough.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Speaking of which, my mum just went on a holiday. She was going on one of those cruise boats. Oh, yeah. Right? And she was over in Perth, over in the other side of Australia there, the West Coast. And she was on the boat, you know, all checked in, ready to depart. It was like four hours away from departure. And the captain comes on, attention, please. The boat is going to have to go to dry dock in Sydney because our propeller shaft is broken.

Chris Gammell: That's fine.

Dave Jones: Sorry, but your holiday is canceled and ruined. We'll fly you home. Whoa. And 2,000 people got off the boat and flew home.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oops.

Chris Gammell: Before it even started. Yeah. As you say, don't they check that kind of thing before you get on the boat? I don't know.

Dave Jones: Well, because like a month ago, well, I don't know, three weeks ago or something, before the cruise, they sent us an email update saying, the ship, you know, we're canceling this port and this one because the ship is going slower than usual because of, you know, one of the, I don't know, how many engines do they have? I don't know. But anyway, so some engine failed or something. So they were going to go slower. So, okay, the trip's still on. Everything's fine. Then we get another email saying that, oh, there's been a, on the current cruise, there's been an outbreak of a stomach flu and the ship's been quarantined and has to be, has to be thoroughly, uh, you know, thoroughly disinfected before we get on. So there'll be a delay in getting on. So, and they finally get on and they're about to depart and wah.

Chris Gammell: Wow.

Dave Jones: Wah, wah, wah, wah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I've never, I've never done one of those. I've always thought about doing a cruise, but lately there's been so many of those things. I mean, like they're amazing logistically, right? I mean, like they have entire power plants on board and like the amount of like engine control they need and they have all those stabilizers and crazy stuff.

Dave Jones: It's a self-contained city and it's amazing. And my mom got back this morning, called me up and said, oh, you know, somebody on board the ship was complaining. One of the, you know, people on board, one of the guests was complaining that, oh, they're, you know, roof was leaking water or something like that. And, you know, and, and, and then I went, oh, geez. And then I thought about it for an amendment. I went, there's probably 2000 cabins on that ship over like 13 decks. Imagine how much plumbing is on that ship. Yeah. Right. Exactly. How many plumbers they have running around full time and, you know, sparkies, electricians, you know, just running around fixing stuff.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's crazy.

Dave Jones: The amount of wiring and plumbing and, and infrastructure on those ships must be insane.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Especially like the one, I forgot that one, it's like the seven seas or something like that. My friend actually went on it.

Dave Jones: Were they, I mean. Is that the world's biggest one or something? Yeah. I think it's a little close to them.

Chris Gammell: It's like a pair of them and they, they're like super big. Yep. But I don't, I don't understand that scale, you know. Yeah. Do you really need an ice skating rink when you're going on a cruise ship to a tropical location?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Because it's boring as bad shit. So you've got to have all this stuff. You've got to have water slides and theme parks and casinos. I guess so. To keep you entertained and spending your money while you're stuck on this boring boat with nothing to look at but bloody ocean.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So. Well.

Chris Gammell: At least she didn't get on the sick boat. That's good.

Dave Jones: No. Or she, or they didn't take off. They didn't take off and then, yeah. So. Yeah. But apparently they have to tow it back to Sydney to Garden Island. The dry dock. I used to work at Garden Island.

Chris Gammell: What's that? Oh, is that where you worked at the.

Dave Jones: For a very short stint. Australian Defence Industries. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Garden Island. That one didn't even make my resume. Has anyone else out there got jobs that they just didn't put, didn't. Didn't, don't bother putting on their resume because they didn't stay there long enough?

Chris Gammell: Me. Hand up. You chose, you chose to leave or something else happened?

Chris Gammell: I chose to leave.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I chose to leave. Didn't like it. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Sometimes those things happen but I think that's the way to do it. You know, just say, oh, yeah. No, it was between jobs for a month. Sorry. Yeah, exactly. Don't need to talk about that.

Dave Jones: I think I stayed there like two months or something. Yeah. I don't know. I can't remember exactly how long. Maybe three or something. But, yeah, it wasn't that long. And it's not long enough to put on your resume. Yeah. You know, because people might ultimately ask, why did you leave? You know. Right. It sucked. You know.

Chris Gammell: I hate boring, stupid work. Is that an acceptable answer?

Dave Jones: So, you know, anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time. But, yeah, it was a great place to work though because Garden Island is a fantastic facility. Is that outside Sydney? Apart from that, no. No, that's in the center of Sydney. Okay. So, it's back in the middle of the Sydney CBD. And it's all surrounded by park and it's all secluded. And, you know, it's just, you know, it was nice walking there from the train. And, you know. So, you know, I got to walk through the botanical gardens, walk along the harbor foreshore every morning. You know. It was great.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I bet your walk's terrible now. So, how was electronics? How did that go?

Dave Jones: Electronics. It was excellent. Thank you for everyone who turned up. Quite a few people said they listened to the Amp Hour and they liked it. They didn't watch my blog, but they listened to the Amp Hour, which is fine.

Chris Gammell: Really?

Dave Jones: Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, you know, I understand because, like, they don't have time to watch video. Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: So, just the format difference.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. The format difference. That's, you know, why we started this thing. Because it's, you know, it's just, it's a different format. Right. Yeah. So.

Chris Gammell: And I saw you put that on the booth as well. I saw that the Amp Hour made the booth.

Dave Jones: The Amp Hour was on the booth. Yep. There you go. Very nice. So, you can brag that the Amp Hour had a booth.

Chris Gammell: That's right.

Dave Jones: No, but it was good fun. And a long, long day, you know. Have you manned a booth before?

Chris Gammell: Not at a trade show like that. I've walked a lot of trade shows, but I've never, I've done a man booths that had, like, career fairs, but never, never had a trade show. Oh, right. At the fairs. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, yeah. That's probably a similar, very similar thing. And you're just standing up all day and you don't get a chance to eat or drink and you're just shaking hands and, yep. And.

Chris Gammell: Did you get any of the ones who, like, kind of, like, walk by and they're just like, oh. So, what is this? Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. Like, and I get that in certain things, but, like, my one example, because I really like pointing this one out. So, after Keithley got bought by, by Danaher, I got to go recruit with, with Tektronix at MIT and I'd never done that before and I was really excited about it. It was awesome. Right. Right, getting to go to MIT.

Dave Jones: Yeah, we talked about that on the show, I think.

Chris Gammell: Oh, did we? Did we? Did I mention how the person walked up and said, so, what are these things? And they're looking at an oscilloscope and I'm like, you're at MIT and you don't want

Dave Jones: what an oscilloscope is? What were they? Even if you're, like, a physics major or something, you're going to know what an oscilloscope is,

Speaker ?: surely.

Chris Gammell: I'm guessing it was a software person, you know.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. A computer science software. Yeah, something like that.

Chris Gammell: But, you know, it's just. Right. Oh, illusion shattered. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: No, the big hits for the show was my microscope and the 1970 vintage core memory. That was. Oh, I didn't know you took that. So many people, yeah, yeah, yeah. I took it as just a, you know, a thing to show off with my scope, you know. Yeah. So, yeah, and that was very popular.

Chris Gammell: Definitely. So, have you done videos about the core memory before? I don't remember seeing that.

Dave Jones: Yes, I've done a video on core memory.

Chris Gammell: Okay, I'll look those up afterwards then.

Dave Jones: And, spoiler, spoiler, I might have another one, a bigger, a badder. Yeah. More awesome one in my mailbag. This one needs a forklift. I haven't seen it yet, but yeah. Speaking of forklifts.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I am contemplating, like, you know how we talked about this like six months ago, I was thinking about moving the lab, right, to a bigger lab, you know, primarily so that I can, you know, have somewhere to just bring big stuff, you know, and maybe do some big stuff tear down.

Chris Gammell: That's right, because you had mentioned maybe getting a milling machine and stuff like that at some point as well.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. All that sort of stuff. So, you know, and I looked around, it was very expensive to move office, you know. It was, you know, it was crazy expensive.

Speaker ?: Yeah, Sydney.

Dave Jones: Right, yep, Sydney. Yeah, Sydney. It was like $360,000, $370,000 to buy, you know, something suitable, right? Right. Seriously. Yeah. Right. And that's like 100 and, you know.

Chris Gammell: That's like well over twice what my house costs. So, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Exactly, right. Well, that's half the cost of a house here. I know.

Chris Gammell: I know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but, you know, this is a fairly upmarket, you know, business park area. It's not, you know, I could get, you know, five times the size for, you know, half that if I, you know, had to drive 30 minutes.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right, right.

Dave Jones: Out west somewhere, right. But, yeah, so I thought about getting, you know, something like that. And then I thought I've already, I'm already renting this storage space, right? Because I've got so much crap and from home, you know, from this and from home as well. Because our house isn't very big and the wife doesn't want to move. So, you know, so, yeah, I've got this, I'm paying this. And I thought, well, why don't I just pay for a bigger storage space? One that actually has, you know, you can drive up to, you can bring a footlight after, you have a roller door and everything else. And I'm like, yeah, you know. So, I don't know.

Chris Gammell: I think this is a terrible idea, by the way. I don't, I don't know. Why? I think expansion in general is good, but I don't know about you, but my, if my junk fills the space that I have.

Dave Jones: Yes, our storage room is already full on the floor area. So, we have to go racking now. Yeah, right. And then once that's full. Yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: And it's just like, you know, as you buy more things, like, you know, you have other space. I could fit it. You know, and like, I have, like, even just in my basement, I just have, it's stupid stuff, right? It's like old boxes from like, you know, when I buy equipment.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. It just breeds this level of laziness. Oh, yeah, I might have to reship that one day, you know, so I'll keep the original box. Exactly. It's so nice, you know, and it's got the correct molded foam and everything. That is exactly the thought I had, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: I can't do that. I can't buy a bag and fill it up with like, expanding foam and just form it around this thing that it's the exact same thing they did. Yeah, I just have to save it. No, dear. I can't burn that. Oh, boy. So, yeah, that's the only thing I would worry about is that kind of thing.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. I know. Because, like, I can probably afford like a single car garage kind of, you know, shape. Yeah, like a U-storey kind of place. And it's about the same depth. Yeah, yeah. It's like, yeah, it's one of those things. So, you know, so you could actually drive a car in there. So, it's kind of that big, you know, which is probably big enough. But it doesn't, the killer, the place I'm at at the moment, doesn't have power in there. Oh, right. Right. That's, yeah, you know, that's almost a showstopper, you know.

Chris Gammell: Be absolutely terrified of, it's like not heated or cooled either, right? I'm guessing that.

Dave Jones: No, no, no, that's right.

Chris Gammell: In my mind, you know, I'm thinking of Dave going to the storage space to go pick up a meter that he needs to do for some teardown thing and then like open it up and it's just full of spiders from Australia, you know, just like ceiling to floor, just spiders.

Dave Jones: Oh, goodness.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yikes. Take that big knife with you, your big mail-opening knife. Yeah, that's right.

Dave Jones: And the other thing is, is that, you know, it's kind of hard to justify the extra money because like, you know, there's a, yeah, I might use it a couple of times a year for a big teardown, but apart from that, you know, it's an expensive storage space, right? You know, it's.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, why don't it just.

Dave Jones: Yeah, so it's hard, like if I think about just the one video, okay, or two videos, you know, I'm going to do a couple of videos a year where I use this thing and I shoot the video in there and all that sort of jazz. Right. And yeah. And how much does that cost me per video? Well, you know, quite a lot. Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, maybe this brings up a better question of why don't you just get rid of more crap in your current space? I mean, like what is.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, no. See, the problem with the current space is I am in a corporate office tower. Right.

Chris Gammell: Oh, so you want the dirty, loud, grungy areas, you're saying.

Dave Jones: And a big roller door and somewhere where I can get stuff delivered and then the forklift. You know, if I get some big piece of machinery that I want to tear down, right, it'd be nice to have it delivered and there's a guy there with the forklift, you can, you know, he'll lift it off for you and just dump it inside your roller door. Right.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that sounds like that's a pipe dream.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, it's not. I just have to pay for it, right? It's just a matter of forking over money and I'm a natural tyler. No, I know.

Chris Gammell: I'm just thinking of like, so you'd have to then maintain a space where you could then dump the next big thing and how would you then move the next thing over, you know what I mean?

Dave Jones: Well, once it's torn down, I throw it away in pieces, right? That'd be the, I guess that'd be the idea. Okay.

Chris Gammell: So this is mostly for big teardowns, you're saying.

Dave Jones: It'd be mostly for big teardowns, you know. I see. Yeah. So if the opportunity comes up, you know, I would, yeah, maybe.

Chris Gammell: The junk garage.

Dave Jones: I don't know. I'd end up getting it and then never using it, you know, so I'm forking out like, you know, two and a half times more for this big space.

Chris Gammell: You know, that would be really great. You know those shows where they like bid on like abandoned storage spaces like that, like Storage Wars?

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, I've seen that.

Chris Gammell: I have to say, if you ever abandoned yours and you left all that crap in there, they would be like way surprised. Like, what the hell is this? Yeah, it's like, I bought all this stuff and it looks technical. But we're going to call this a wash. We lost all our money. Yeah. Exactly.

Dave Jones: Oh, goodness. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know what I'm going to do there. Sigh.

Chris Gammell: I, what about like, I'm sure that there'd be like a ready and willing reader or listener, watcher, whatever you have. What do you call your, your fans? Viewers. I don't know what I'm calling them. Viewers. Who'd be willing to, you know, donate some garage space out in the sticks somewhere in Sydney. I don't know. If you're going to just do it once or twice a year, maybe, maybe that's the way to do it.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, see, that's the other thing that, um, also, right. If I'm only going to do it a couple of times a year, why don't I go like 30 minutes drive away? Yeah. Right. And get somewhere huge and dirt cheap or just plain dirt cheap. Right. And then just, yeah. And then just use that. Right. Why does it have to be, you know, five minutes away?

Chris Gammell: I think that's the way to do it. Then you keep all your everyday stuff close by and you're, you make some jaunts out to the country.

Dave Jones: To the country. So, yeah, so I should keep my little storage unit here because that's nice.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: See, and the other thing I like about it is that it's got a concierge service. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: Which means somebody signs for things, right? Right. Right. So you can have stuff delivered and there's always, always someone there to sign for it, you know? And then I get a little thing on my phone saying, you know, you have, you have a package, you know? And I just.

Chris Gammell: That's always magical. I mean, no matter. Yeah. How you get a new package.

Dave Jones: Well, it was great for our holiday because we, we're all of a sudden we were like, we had to buy like 10 things because I was ordering stuff for the trade show and everything. Oh, yeah, yeah. And, and the wife was ordering stuff and yeah, we got like 10 packages, you know, sent there and it was like, it was so handy.

Chris Gammell: Nice.

Dave Jones: And that's one of the things I've missed since I've started working for myself is that having somebody there to actually sign for bloody packages.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. You ever had it where they, they say that they, they left it or that they rang and they left a note and then it's like, I've been here the whole time. Like, you guys are just straight up lying now. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You know, we didn't even knock. We just sort of walked by. Right.

Chris Gammell: And, you know, yeah, they do that at my house cause there's dogs. So sometimes they'll just, you know, drop and run and be like, I don't want to knock on the door.

Dave Jones: I think I'm a wimp. Yeah. Don't want to knock on the door. In America, someone might open the door and shoot you.

Dave Jones: Seriously.

Chris Gammell: Guns. Murca.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That's a total risk. Just like giant spiders here. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right. Kill you.

Dave Jones: Yeah. The spiders shoot people there. Jesus.

Chris Gammell: They're worse than I thought.

Dave Jones: No, they just, no, no. They walk around big knives. Oh, goodness. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Well, I just got back from the land of the hipsters where they don't knife you, but they tell you about their vinyl collection and the different flavors of espresso.

Dave Jones: And they show you the new gold Apple iPod watch thing.

Chris Gammell: Oh, God. Yeah. We didn't even think to talk about that crap.

Dave Jones: No, let's not.

Chris Gammell: Blah, blah, blah. Everybody saw it coming. Yes. End of story. All right. Cool.

Dave Jones: I don't think anyone saw the last. Sorry. No, I'm talking about it.

Chris Gammell: We can talk about it a little bit. A little bit. Just a little.

Dave Jones: Well, the gold, I'm talking about like the gold version, which costs like $2,000 or something. I think. There's like a gold version. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're trying to like take on Rolex and, you know, all those, which is like a billion dollar industry, right?

Chris Gammell: That's stupid.

Dave Jones: It's a it's. It's that, you know, that high end luxury watch industry is, you know, it's huge. It's worth a lot of money. So, it really doesn't surprise me that Apple went after that.

Chris Gammell: You know, my only real exposure to that kind of like high end stuff is listening to hip hop songs about talking about fancy watches. And not a great reference point, but all I can think is like, I can't believe people wear that much money like on their body. I know it's status symbol, blah, blah, blah. But like. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I just get so. I get titchy when I have my phone in my pocket, you know, or like wear Google Glass. I was like, oh, Jesus, why did I do this?

Dave Jones: I've seen so many things fall. Well, yes. Speaking of yuppie walking around with your Google Glass. Yeah, well. Hipster.

Chris Gammell: Hipster, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: No, I don't know. I do have like a luxury kind of watch, you know. It's a high end, you know, chrome plated that the wife got me as a present, you know. So, I wear it to special, you know, she makes me wear it to special occasions, you know.

Chris Gammell: I'm going to try and work the 1% into the title this week somehow, Dave. You're talking about how, oh, I have to buy this fancy real estate in my Rolex watches, blah, blah, blah.

Dave Jones: Right, for the 1% of occasion that I use it. Yeah, right.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, isn't our lab fill, isn't everyone's lab filled with test gear that they're only going to use 1% of the time? Yeah. You know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's everyone, I'm sure.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's right. So, we, I think we live in the land of 1%.

Chris Gammell: Maybe. So, you're a watch person, though, so you actually give a crap about this. I love watches. I don't care. I'm never going to wear a smart watch.

Dave Jones: Although, I hate smart, like, well, I don't mind the concept of a smart watch, but I do not absolutely want a watch that I've got to charge every day.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right.

Dave Jones: I'm sick of charging my goddamn phone.

Chris Gammell: I know.

Dave Jones: Very exactly. Not a smart watch. Not a smart watch. No. It's, you know, so, it's, like, okay, if it was, maybe if it got three month battery, you know, or month or something, maybe I might be happy with that. But, you know, they don't, because they're bloody connected to everything, including your bloody kitchen sink and toilet. And, no, it just, it's horrid.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Who the hell wants to charge their watch?

Chris Gammell: It's just stupid. Well, some people will, I guess. I don't know. It'll be interesting to see. I mean, the sensors are always the interesting stuff, I think, because, really, the commoditization of certain types and, like, how they worked in that sport thing. That was the one thing I was interested in, how they had, like, the, I think it was, was it IR sensing? I mean, for, for. Oh, for heart rate. Yeah, like. Yeah. Blood oximetry and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Pulse oximeter.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, thank you.

Dave Jones: Pulse oximeter or whatever. Yeah. Sure.

Chris Gammell: I thought they had something like that. And so that's, I mean, that's interesting seeing how that's going to work. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Meh.

Chris Gammell: But, yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, in general, it's meh, right?

Dave Jones: No, I can stay, if I want my heartbeat, I can stick my finger up to my neck, you know? It's not bloody rocket science.

Chris Gammell: It will be interesting when they start syncing up your phone to your watch and then Facebook displays an ad and then they measure how much your heartbeat increases. Like, if you get excited.

Dave Jones: Oh, don't give a, well, they're going to be a good one. They've probably already thought about that, right?

Chris Gammell: Probably. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Actually, I had an idea about that for. Metrics. It's all about metrics.

Chris Gammell: Maybe I mentioned on the show before, but it was like, you ever used Spotify, the music service? No. Yeah. So, it's like an actual thing. You download your computer and you play it off. Kind of like iTunes, you know, basically, but it's all streaming audio. But the interesting thing was that if you, when it was playing an ad, if you hit mute, it could sense that and then it would pause the ad, right? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Ah!

Chris Gammell: And then you had to listen to it, but then you could turn your speakers down manually, that kind of thing, if you really wanted to. All right. But then I was thinking about the next level of abstraction, or not abstraction, but the next level of creepiness with that would be like, you could use it, but you have to use then connected headphones, which can then sense if they're actually on your ears, right? So, or sense like skin connection, like through capacitive sensing. And then it has to be on top of your head and the volume has to be up, you know, in order to actually hear the advertisement. You know, that's like the ads of the future where they are sure that you're going to be...

Dave Jones: Oh, goodness.

Chris Gammell: I know. Either that or people will just start paying for music again. That'll make it really, really useful or a really, really sure way of people...

Dave Jones: I thought people are paying for music again. Isn't that the whole reason iTunes is worth a billion dollars or something? Because there are all these people out there who don't mind paying like a dollar per song or something?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I do other stuff. I don't know.

Dave Jones: I don't really listen to music. I don't buy it. Don't listen to it. Yep.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah. I was at the hardware workshop last weekend, or last... Yeah.

Dave Jones: And you gave a presentation or something?

Chris Gammell: Uh, not... No, not really. We... So, my company helps sponsor it. Supply Frame helps sponsor it. So, I got to talk for that. But I was mostly there just kind of watching and interacting with people.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: It was...

Dave Jones: So, they fly you around the country to interact with people.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's part of it. But, yeah. It was interesting. I don't know if it was interesting, actually. Like, the part that was different for me was, like, I was, like, going and expecting, like, talking circuits with people and everything else. And it, like... Out of, like, probably 80 to 100 people there, maybe 10 built their own electronics. Like, it was, you know...

Dave Jones: Oh, really? Yeah. Well, I expected, like, hardware... Who the hell was there? Well, like, a lot of software people. It's a hardware conference. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, people that are building... Maybe building hardware companies or interested in starting to build hardware companies. Well, I hope not. What?

Dave Jones: I hope they're not building hardware companies and have no interest in hardware.

Chris Gammell: Well, no, no, no. I didn't say they weren't interested in hardware. They just hadn't... They don't build it themselves, right? You know, I expected, like, hardware engineers, right? People that were...

Dave Jones: Yep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'd expect at a hardware seminar.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. But... Silly us. Well, yeah, and this is more about, like... You know, this was a lot of the mechanics behind starting companies and stuff like that. And, you know, a lot of the questions about getting funding. Yeah, yeah. Right. But, yeah, it was an interesting mix of people. And there were some people there that had done electronics, but it just was not... You know, I guess I always just kind of have my view on the world, like, oh, why wouldn't everyone do electronics? Yeah, exactly. Apparently, though, that's why our listenership isn't the entire world. Yeah. There you go. So, I did get to meet the Bolt guys. I had met Chris before, one of the guys, but Ben Einstein... Bolt guys? The other Bolt. They're a hardware accelerator out of Boston. I think we mentioned that here before. Oh, right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, right. Yes. Okay.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah, it's... It was cool. It was good getting to meet a lot of people and, you know, seeing a lot of perspectives, but ultimately different than I would have thought, so... I don't know.

Speaker ?: All right.

Chris Gammell: Are you going to make a fare? I am not going to make a fare. Are you going to make a fare?

Dave Jones: Well, no, because it's 15,000 kilometers, 16,000 kilometers away, but...

Chris Gammell: And?

Dave Jones: For you, it's only like 400 Ks or something. I wonder if I could get a ticket.

Chris Gammell: I could probably get a ticket for the weekend, huh? Hmm.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: No, I got stuff going on this weekend. I can't go. But you're all pumped because there's some news about that, huh?

Dave Jones: Well, yes and no.

Chris Gammell: Sort of pumped? Oh, Altium in the...

Dave Jones: Okay, yes. Altium have a booth there. Okay. And yes, I have announced, yes, they will be showing their new Maker PCB package there.

Chris Gammell: So, have they announced anything officially with this, or is it all just through the day of Grapevine?

Dave Jones: No, it's through the day of Grapevine at the moment, but in the coming days before Maker Faire, obviously, they will be making an official announcement of some description. You realize this makes you like a PR agent, right? Yeah, I know. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Oh, dude. We've changed so much. We've changed. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: No, but, you know, I like, you know... And Altium's like, you know, keeping up with what Altium's doing is just a perverse hobby, you know, for not only me, but for many people in the industry who are...

Chris Gammell: Some men just want to watch the world burn. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, see, anyone who's been using Altium from day, you know, from day one, same as me, right? They all think the same way, and they all have the same morbid fascination with what Altium is going to do or screw up next. Right? Yeah. And it was all sounding really good, but, of course, in true Altium fashion, at the 11th hour, they may have screwed the pooch.

Chris Gammell: Well, let's have it. You have a list of stuff, and this is... There's a list of stuff, but the only one that matters. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, in my opinion, the only one that matters, and as I told them on my call with them yesterday, is that this will make or break. Yeah. The... Whether or not this thing, you know, is a success at all. It's cloud... It's a Windows program. It operates on your machine, but you can't store your files locally. They have to be stored in the cloud. And so they've gone whole hog. You know, they've gone... You know, they've really taken this whole cloud maker thing to heart, and... Yep. What's your opinion on that? Is it going to sink or swim?

Chris Gammell: Dude, sink. Come on. You know it, too. You know it in your heart. Come on. Now, it doesn't mean they can't turn around and turn that off. They can always change it in the future, but if that's the case... Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: No, no, no. See, well, see, this is not the final thing, right? Right. Like, it's basically alpha at the moment, right? Yeah. They're going into beta testing, right? At the fair, they're going to sign up beta testers. Right. Right. And the program... And I have every confidence that they're genuine about their... You know, they want the community to give them feedback on this, and they're going to shape the program to what the community wants, as long as it doesn't... You know, as long as it's not bad for Altium, of course. Right, of course. Oh, everything's totally free. There you go. You know, like, yeah. Right. There are limits. But, yeah, they want feedback. So, nothing is set in stone at the moment. But, as it stands, no, you cannot save your files, and no, there is no, at the moment, paid option to, you know, add that feature, to be able to work locally and save your files locally. So, it's all in the cloud. And, yeah, I can't help but think it's more likely to fail than not. Let's put it that way. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: If, yeah, in the current form, I would say so. Based on that.

Dave Jones: But, I mean, you know, there's going to be a lot of people who don't care, right? There's going to be a lot of non-diehards like us who just, what, stored in the cloud? Yeah. So, that's, you know, normal. Yeah, that's how it's done these days, right. What's the problem? You know? Yeah, exactly. Oh, man. So, yeah. But, I don't know how many people they're going to pick up. But, if they want that core crowd like they really want, they can't have this. You know? They've got to, you know. And, I've put in a suggestion as to, you know, they can actually compromise in this area. There's two ways they can compromise. And, I've suggested that. But, whether or not they, you know, take it on board is another thing. Because, you can simply have, like, a paid option, right? Just like everything else in the program is going to be, like, a paid app model, right? If you need extra layers, okay, you can pay, you know, X amount of money for three months and, bang. You get, you know, your extra features. And, so, they could do the same thing. If you're really paranoid and you want to save your files locally or work offline, okay. That can be extra. Ah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's, yeah, that's a way to do it, I suppose.

Dave Jones: Why not take people's money, you know? Like, yeah. Oh, man. Well. So, yeah. Anyway. But, for me, that's actually the most innovative thing about this new software is this app model of renting the features. I do agree.

Chris Gammell: No, I definitely agree about that. Yep. So, here's my question, though. The question that, of course, I'm going to ask. Okay, so, you said doesn't have push and shove, multi-channel. It has, doesn't have size restrictions, but it does, or doesn't have total, or doesn't have layer restrictions, but it does have something else or whatever else.

Dave Jones: Well, I'll tell you their thinking there, right? Their thinking is that they have to differentiate their high-end product, right? This is a one-product company. Is that right? They've got, well.

Chris Gammell: We can't cannibalize from one to, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, you can't cannibalize, right? Right, that's the innovator's dilemma. This is a one-product company, right? 70 million bucks in sales. They have one product, basically, right? And they have to protect that. So, they've got to differentiate it in some way. And the way they're going to differentiate it is that they will take out some of the things that make Altium Designer more productive for your professional design layout person, right? So, yeah, this new one, this new maker software will be easier to use, but it won't be as efficient to do things as Altium Designer. So, if your job every day is laying out boards, you're probably going to want to fork out the extra. That's their thinking. And, you know, I have no major problem with that. You know, it isn't a bad way to go. So, anyway, your question was, you had a...

Chris Gammell: Well, I guess my sales pitch is, you know, for like, what, like a week or two, you can use KiCad forever and ever and free. And, I mean, it's not hard. It's not great and it's not perfect, but it's like, it also sure as hell ain't this. So, I will not be switching. I don't think that there was any hope for them in the first place on that one.

Dave Jones: No, I probably wouldn't. I probably, like, I'll try it because I'm totally curious about how it works, you know, and try and shape it. See, but that's the thing. I mean, if you don't like it, but you really want, you know, a low-cost version of Altium, then get in the beta program and you may be able to, you know, change Altium's mind on this.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, you know, but I think that's the only showstopper. The only showstopper is that you can't work offline and save local, right? It needs to be connected to the cloud.

Chris Gammell: Pretty big, Dave. I know. That's pretty big.

Dave Jones: I know, it sucks. It sucks. And it'll sink or swim them. Odds on, sink. Sink. It's so weird.

Chris Gammell: So, we mentioned this a little bit before the show. We've started recording, but, like, this is kind of, like, the opposite of Upverter, right, where the tools are in the cloud and then you can actually, I mean, they keep the designs in the cloud too, but you can pull the files local if you want to.

Dave Jones: You can pull the files local and it's in an open file format or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yeah. It's silly. Why have a local program, you know, that has all the advantages of being a local program, you know, the speed, the availability, everything else, right? And then tie it to the cloud. Absolutely insist that, you know, you can't use it unless it's plugged in and you have to continually save the files to the cloud. So, you need that reliable internet connection in order to keep saving.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I know why. Because China. Why?

Dave Jones: What?

Chris Gammell: Right? So, that they actually. No? So, I mean, like, Altium has, like, a huge footprint in China, right? Using, like, pirated tools, you now give them a better option and then you try and pull people in towards that, you know, towards the ecosystem. Whereas before, it's all decoupled.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but they just continue to use their pirated version of Altium Designer. So, nothing changes there.

Chris Gammell: Well, maybe if you offer other stuff though too, you know, like updates. No.

Dave Jones: No, they'll just continue to use the pirated version of Altium Designer. Yeah, maybe. I can assure you. Yeah, no. I can't see anyone in China switch into this.

Chris Gammell: Well, maybe Altium raised $60 million to make a better decision.

Dave Jones: They had to pay some consultant. That's right. Yeah, they're paying me. Dave's available. Give me the $60 million and I'll tell you exactly what to do to save you.

Chris Gammell: To hire Dave as CEO of Altium. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

Dave Jones: Oh, goodness.

Chris Gammell: Free beer for everyone. You know, I was just thinking about it. I actually have something going on next weekend. Maybe I can try and squeeze in a trip to New York and go bug them. Right. I'm going to check my calendar. We'll see. We'll see.

Dave Jones: Anyway, yeah. So, anyway, yeah, they'll be announcing this in the next couple of days or something. And there'll be a site. There'll be a website. Right. And as soon as that's up, I will let everyone know. And, yep, then you'll be able to go and see and play with it at, yeah, they stand at the fair. So, go to the World Maker Fair if you want to check it out.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, the other reason I'm thinking is, so I'm like, I'm thinking about it now and I'm like, oh, shit. So, the thing I've been doing, so the thing that I've been talking about but not talking about in the past couple of months, it's actually, so it's in alpha now as well. So, this Altium stuff's in alpha, beta.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's basically in alpha, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so my thing's in alpha now as well and I'm looking for people to help test. So, maybe I'll announce it here. Is that cool? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, no, that's cool. Sound too commercial.

Dave Jones: This is a supply frame thing. It's not your thing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, this is my part-time supply frame. But I'm really excited about it because, well, because I'm a nerd. But it's basically a brand new search engine. The world needs another search engine. Hey, Chris, 1998 called. They want their idea back. I did a presentation with that in it this week. It just sounds so dumb, right?

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And it's going to be called AltaVista. Yeah, right? AltaVista 2 or something.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: AltaVista Electric Boogaloo. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Like, Electronics Components 2 Electric Boogaloo. There we go. Or no, it would be Google 2. Google 2 Electric Boogaloo. Have you ever seen that movie? Do you know what that is?

Dave Jones: Yeah, I've seen it. I own it.

Chris Gammell: I own Breaking and Breaking 2.

Dave Jones: You own, you own, well, it wasn't called Breaking here. It was called Breakdance. It was called Breakdance. So, in the U.S. market, it's called it. Because they often rename movies in different areas.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, they do, like, market testing and crap like that.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they rename it. Breakdance. No, it's Breaking. It's one of the most amazing...

Chris Gammell: If people have never seen it, we might have mentioned it, because I think you've told me that before.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've mentioned it before. It's very cool.

Chris Gammell: Again, it is amazing.

Dave Jones: It's a very cool 80s movie.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, it's like... And right...

Chris Gammell: Go ahead, yeah.

Dave Jones: Near the start, look for a cameo by Jean-Claude Van Damme. That's right. In a onesie. In a onesie.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, we definitely brought this up before, but it's still worth mentioning every... Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can mention this every episode. It's still worth it. I know. It's great. Cult classic.

Dave Jones: Anyway, there is a... So, the first one's, like, really, actually quite good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. In a kind of 80s cheesy kind of way. It's, you know, it's really, you know... I mean, yeah, fantastic dancing and all the rest of it. Not that I'm into dancing, but I can certainly appreciate the skill, right? Yeah. And then they did breakdance to Electric Boogaloo.

Chris Gammell: Breakdance. Break into. The sequel. Break into.

Dave Jones: Break into. Yeah. Electric Boogaloo. And...

Chris Gammell: Adolfo Shabadoo Quinones and Michael Boogaloo Shrimp Chambers. Those are the two main actors.

Dave Jones: Who have gone on to fame and fortune, you know?

Chris Gammell: They actually were... They taught MJ how to dance. They taught Michael Jackson a bunch of moves.

Dave Jones: All right. There you go. Hmm. Anywho. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So, I'm working on a search engine. Yeah. It's basically built for engineers, though. That's kind of the thing. It's a new, like, parametric search engine. Lots of graphs for kind of comparing data.

Dave Jones: What? Sorry. Sorry. I just woke up. I know. Snoozefest. Right? But no.

Chris Gammell: It's great, man. It's like all of the stuff that I've bitched about for, like, years and years. It's like... I get to fix it now. Sort of. So...

Dave Jones: Right. So, was this your idea? Is this your baby?

Chris Gammell: Or... It's... It was not my initial idea, but this is what I've kind of... Right. ...moved into based on my initial ideas. So...

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. So, it kind of is your... A bit of your baby. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean... Right. So, yeah. I mean, the first thing that we craft... The first experience that we crafted to say, do she a software type stuff. But basically, like, the first thing that's optimized is op amps. I'm like, we got to fix op amps.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Because finding op amps sucks, right? I mean, so...

Dave Jones: Yep. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yep. So, there's alpha, and, you know, I'll be demoing it and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: I've signed up, but nothing's happened. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You can see... If people go to parts.io, it's parts.io slash alpha. You can see some screenshots and stuff like that. And... And there's sign up on there. So... It's pretty good. I like it. And... Excellent. I'll talk about it, but not too much on the show in the future. Just because... Right. It's for engineers. That's... I mean, that's what I'm really excited about it for, you know? It's like... To be honest, it sounds like Altium didn't really consult too many people doing layout when they did their tool. If I may be so bold.

Dave Jones: Well, they did. I think it's going to be, like, an excellent tool. I like pretty much everything else in there.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right? It's, you know, yeah. Especially the community aspect stuff to it. It's very... Yeah. I think they're probably going to lead the pack there.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: In that sort of area. Yeah. The only thing that's going to sink it is this lack of ability to work offline and save locally. That's it. I mean, you know. Yeah. And, of course, the fact that it does actually work. Right. Well, you know. Yeah. Well, free is powerful, right?

Chris Gammell: I mean, that alone. Free is powerful.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, no. Free. You know. They'll have thousands sign up, right? Even if they do keep this silly restriction in. Oh, you know. They'll get thousands signing up. But I hope that, you know. But whether or not they stick around and actually, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Actually contribute stuff. See, because people are just going to look out of sheer morbid curiosity. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right, right, right.

Dave Jones: And, you know, they don't actually have any intention because they know that it's, you know, they can't work locally or something. Right. They've got some...

Chris Gammell: Well, there's always just big switching costs. Even if it's useful and a good tool. Yeah, yeah. If you're using something else, you know, like, that's a big deal. So, like, even, you know, like, the Eagle to KiCad folks, like, I, you know, people say they use Eagle and I'm like, well, you know, if you get sick of it, come talk to me. Otherwise, it's like, I don't have time to explain to people why it's better. And, you know, it's like people just kind of have to make that decision on their own. So, usually, it's best to go after the newest users first.

Dave Jones: Every tool is usable if you put the effort into, you know, to learn it.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Right? Yeah, I agree. I mean, you know, no tool is necessarily, you know, hugely better. Well, it can be. It can be hugely better than another. But if you're used to something then and you're productive in it, then, well, you know, why change? Yeah. Right? Yeah. No, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. They have to offer compelling stuff, you know, to get you to change over.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah. So, I actually, when I was out in San Francisco, I also got to meet the Seed Studio folks. I had never met them before. Oh, right. Yeah. They were great. I mean, they were just kind of in the U.S. torn around. I thought they were in China. That's where they are. They're in China. But I think they might be opening a U.S. office soon. But they were, you know, just came by and I got to talk with them. But the thing that was interesting to me is that they started an open parts library. Have you ever heard about that? Right.

Dave Jones: I've got it open here somewhere.

Chris Gammell: Okay. So, you've heard about it now. So, but the idea is basically... Yeah, I've heard about it now. Yeah. So, the idea is kind of like they can optimize cost if you start to use certain parts, basically, because they have them on the shelf. They have them, you know, maybe even on loaders. And then basically, if you push a design to them, you can kind of save cost that way because you're not, you know, because it's hard when you're finding new components.

Dave Jones: And they don't have to order new parts because they're always going to restock these, right? Right. Exactly. They're always going to restock these parts. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And that's what a lot of loading costs are, right? So, if you look at like a circuit hub, right? So, that was the same kind of idea that Andy talked about when he was on the show. Yeah. But basically, to try and optimize for certain parts. Now, this is kind of on the other end coming in from the design side. If you use these parts, and, you know, for a lot of designs, it's what you need, right? I mean, like, you know, one microfarad, 25-volt, X7R caps, right? 0805.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right? It's just generic. They probably get good deals on it, and it works, and it's proven. And that's, I mean, that's a good way to do it. And this is how a lot of companies do it, too, right? Where you're going to have, you know, like if you were at a company, you have a parts library already set to go. You know what's on the shelves. You're trying to minimize overhead, because it's also about, you know, thinking about that same thing. It's also about how many times you have to put it through a pick-and-place, right? You know, pick-and-place can be anywhere from 20 to 40 reels, you know, or more, right? But, you know, there is a limited number of loaders you can put onto a single pick-and-place machine. And so if you have a machine that can do 40 different loaders, even if you pay that setup cost for a brand new design, and then you put 41 different parts on the board, no matter what, you just jumped over that gap to the next loader. And then you have another bunch of setup costs there. And that really stinks. So this is great.

Dave Jones: Do they have associated libraries with these? I thought I saw something about that. So you can just pull them straight into Eagle or KeyCat or something like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, they have the OPL Eagle library, so.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay, so, yeah. So it's Eagle only.

Chris Gammell: Right, which is great, too, for people that, you know, because they're really targeting makers and stuff and bringing that stuff in. I did hear rumor that in New Versus of KeyCat, you can just drop stuff from Eagle into it, which I was a little skeptical of.

Speaker ?: Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: Right. Maybe. Interesting. I don't know. But, yeah, I think this is a great idea, especially because they do target the same kind of market. And, you know, if you don't, you know, it's, obviously, I work on component stuff now, too. And it's, but, like, you know, unless you're doing something with, like, resistors and capacitors and stuff like that, like, most of the time, you don't really give a crap, right? You know, it's like, oh, I really love AVX over Yagi-ho over whoever else.

Dave Jones: Exactly, no, you just don't care. Just make sure it's right. You don't even bother putting it in your BOM. You don't even bother specifying a manufacturer or part number. You just put in 0.603, 1%, 1K.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. You know? Yeah, and that's really, I mean, then, yeah, when you send it to a CM and they do, you know, they probably are going to have standard value stock anyways.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's right.

Chris Gammell: And that's always, I mean, and then the other thing that's interesting with, like, values, too, is when you start doing, when you start looking at the optimization that you can get from, you know, say you need a 1.3K resistor, well, you know, what kind of combinations can you do with 1Ks and 10Ks to actually, even if you take more space on the board, you know, you get fewer loads and then you can start to really...

Dave Jones: It can actually be cheaper.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, and I think you point that out when you see it in your design sometimes, don't you? I think I've seen you do that. Yes, yes, I have. So, I mean, and that's just good design practice. That's really optimizing for manufacturing, right? I mean, that's... Yep. So, this is a nice introduction to that stuff. And...

Dave Jones: Totally. Do Seed Studio just do assembly or do you have to sell through them?

Chris Gammell: I don't know that. I think a lot of people do sell through them, but I don't... Right. My main... Usually the example that I think of is, like, is, like, Dangerous Prototypes, right? So, Ian and his team, I think they sell exclusively through Seed.

Dave Jones: Yes. Yes, I believe they do. But... They did last time I checked.

Chris Gammell: I don't know, actually. I mean, maybe it would be, like, you can, like, send it off to a distributor like Marcus's, like, Little Bird, right? Maybe you could send them stuff and... But that would probably be... I have no idea. So... Right. So, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, it's interesting just to see, you know, thinking, like, 300 components or so, too. Like, you know, oh, how many designs can you possibly make with that? It's like, well, you can make quite a bit of stuff with 300 individual parts, right? I mean, like... Yeah, exactly. There really is a lot of interesting stuff in there, so...

Dave Jones: Well, they've only got four microcontrollers. You know, they've got a couple of AT megas and they've got a... Looks like a NXP arm or something... A small NXP arm or something like that. Right. Yeah, I mean, really, this is going to be... You know, they've got a few voltage regulators and...

Chris Gammell: I mean, this is going to be, like, around, like, the Arduino, you know, style products, right? Yeah, yeah, of course. Where there's a lot of volume, so... Yeah, that's right. But it's still... I mean, if you're looking to get stuff made, that's pretty cool. They also showed... What's the other thing they showed? It was, like, a self... It was a 3G Arduino shield. I'm sure they're going to show all this stuff off at Maker Faire, too. Maybe that's why they were in town. Right. I probably should have asked better questions, but... It's only your job. Yeah, right? It's not like I'm a member of the media. Or anything.

Dave Jones: Dude, you even have your own trade show booth.

Chris Gammell: I know, right? Oh, jeez. I'm not representing the brand well, Dave. I was thinking I need to print up new, like, business cards. And I'm like, I got to put a lot of logos on there.

Dave Jones: Dude, what you need is one of those six-foot cardboard cutouts like I've got. They're great.

Chris Gammell: That's a good idea. Just send that to the trade show?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Where did I see... I'm telling you. There's huge carpet. Yep. Big cardboard cutout. I was at an office, and they have one of those things. And, like, the lights were kind of dim. And I, like, looked back quickly. And I was like, ah!

Dave Jones: Who's that?

Chris Gammell: Because it's, you know, like, it's like the right, you know, it's the right profile. Yeah, it's the right height.

Dave Jones: And your... Yeah. Your mind has been programmed through... Right. ...evolution to, like, actually detect faces and movement. You know, like, well, faces and actually, you know, forms and shapes and bodies. Yeah. And you... Yeah, every time, even though you know the cardboard cutout is in the room, your mind just goes, oh. You know, and you suddenly turn around and, oh, there's someone there. No, there's not.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Even though you know it's there. Fight or flight. Exactly. Have some adrenaline. Darn evolution. Yeah. Oh, dear. Yep. So, yeah. So, there you go. That's terrific. Open parts live. But, like, people don't know that any subcontract assembler will likely have a list like this. They will be able to tell you what they regularly keep in stock.

Chris Gammell: Yes.

Dave Jones: Correct. And if you get, you know, made through a subcontract, you can actually, you know, add your part or any reasonable size contract manufacturer will. And they'll, you know, you can actually design your product around the parts that they have available and sitting on the machine and all preloaded and all that sort of jazz. Actually, I would love to know that, too.

Chris Gammell: If people do have lists like that, that would be a great kind of, like, wiki-style article to start. You have a wiki, right, Dave? On the EUV blog? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, I do. Kind of thing to start over there.

Dave Jones: I rarely use it, but, yeah, it's there. Okay. Yep. But then it's specific to a particular manufacturer, though.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but that's okay. I mean, like, but that's, that might, I mean, that's the thing. Like, that's what people assess when they go to CMs as well, right? Or whatever all the different ones are.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, it's all part of it.

Chris Gammell: I mean, usually I think convenience is probably, you know, people that are doing prototype level stuff are usually convenience first. But, you know, having those lists is nice. I don't know.

Dave Jones: But I find myself always working on projects where, you know, this thing just doesn't, you know, apart from your basic resistors, your basic capacitors, maybe some diodes and transistors. And, you know, if you use an LM358 or something, you know, 7805, yeah, okay, you can have those. But everything else is like, no, it's going to be custom, you know. They aren't going to have that in stock, you know. They aren't going to have that loaded on their machine, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right. No, I agree with that. And that's tough, too, if you do keep it in a separate library.

Dave Jones: It's just the way it is, but every man, his dog seems to be, yeah, every man, his dog seems to be making an Arduino shield, you know. Well, that's the murder that they're targeting, too, right? So that's kind of what they're looking for. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And as you said, you know, with these, you know, 100 parts here, you can actually make quite a wide variety of stuff. Yeah. You know. So, yeah. No, it's good.

Chris Gammell: One part they don't have on there is a part that I am interested in. Is this Chip of the Week? Yeah, Chip of the Week, yes. Let's go ahead and ring the bell. Note to self, we need a bell. Yeah, right. Ding. Ding. But basically, this is in that same range of family. Like, the LDC-1000 came out a while ago, I think. I think we talked about it, right? Did we? Yeah, it's basically like a resonant LC circuit. Oh, right. With the built-in analog-to-digital converter. Right. And basically, TI is doing the same thing, but now they're doing it with CapSense as well. And basically, using it as like a bunch of, you know, non... This isn't meant for CapSense like for like a screen or something like that, but more environmental sensors or sensors like that. So like when you can kind of have a node where you want to know the capacitance to, you know, general ground. And then being able to, you know, sense that for... Is stuff there kind of thing, right? So as someone walks into an area or fluid flows into an area, that kind of thing. Got it. Pretty interesting. And basically, it's like, you know, this is like, well, it's like replacing your analog person. Right. It's, yeah. I think I'm allowed to say that now. I mean, these are the kind of things that like I would have designed five years ago, you know, like basically...

Dave Jones: Aren't you glad you quit and took that job? Yeah, now I'm a software person. But I mean... There was no future in analog.

Chris Gammell: No, I mean, there is though. But like this is basically, it's just a consolidation, right? I mean, like this is where... Whereas before you might have had an excitation circuit that you built and you had to switch in and you had to normalize for, now you might not need to do that for simpler stuff. For really precise stuff, you still do need to do that, right? That's the kind of thing that you'll see is that like there will be limited specifications because they're putting it all on the same piece of silicon and stuff like that. You know, like if you have like a higher power circuit on board, you might not be able to use the right process to get a good DAC or a good ADC. You know, that kind of thing. Usually, I think with these kind of parts, they usually use a process that's probably already normalized for an ADC. So it might be good DAC and good ADC, but it might not be, you know, super low resistance FETs or something like that. Right.

Dave Jones: Got it.

Chris Gammell: But yeah, cool stuff. I mean, like basically easy ways to get more sensor data to an MCU. And like I said in the past, when we had the LDC 1000 on the, I think is listed on the site, basically I kind of see these in the short term. I always see people using, you know, basically hooking them up to like a Bluetooth sensor and hooking them to a phone, right? That's like the Insta Kickstarter. Got it. I don't know. I saw someone using a dev kit that I'd used in the past and basically like, this is an open source schematic now. And, you know, it was like an open source circuit. And I'm like, well, does that make it open source if you're just kind of republishing what they already did? Yeah, yeah. Right. I mean, I guess, but it kind of was when they gave you the circuit too.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Because by definition, app circuits and app nodes are open source. They want you to copy them. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's been that way for, you know, since before all of us were born.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right. Because they don't just use their part, their one branded part and then use other people's stuff. They're using everything theirs, right? They're putting the linear regulator is theirs and the, you know, the switching circuit is theirs and the FETs are theirs and yada, yada, yada, down the line. They want you to cut and paste. I saw a thing. I don't know if we mentioned on the show, but I remember seeing a thing that like something like 60 to 80% of all cell phone designs are just reference designs now too. Like basically the manufacturer will just grab the ref design and just drop it in there and not change a thing.

Dave Jones: And 48% of all stats are bullshit.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah. And Abraham Lincoln said, don't believe anything you hear on the internet.

Dave Jones: That doesn't surprise me at all because, yeah, it's a collection of off the shelf chips. Of course it is. The engineering is in the, well, the value add is in the physical form factor and the firmware and just the, you know, the general user experience. Yeah.

Speaker ?: Yep.

Chris Gammell: The design. Of course it's pretty much off the shelf. You know, I mean, yeah. Well, speaking.

Dave Jones: Because the technology is so advanced, you can't just roll your own.

Chris Gammell: Well, you could, but you're going to have losses along the way.

Speaker ?: Well, you could.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's right.

Chris Gammell: Or you're going to need to filter so much. Like you'll need to characterize parts so much that you'll spend a bunch of money doing that. Whereas the fab gets to do it automatically based on like testing. Speaking of designs using off the shelf things, did you see this teardown of the super battery or the batteries from the Tesla?

Dave Jones: The Tesla. That's very cool. Yes. If you haven't seen it, folks, go out there and check it out. That is awesome.

Chris Gammell: I was looking at it and I'm like.

Dave Jones: Of course I saw it. I was the one who added it to the list, dude.

Chris Gammell: Oh, you were? Oh, yeah. Okay. Dave does this sometimes. He does it for real. Oh, for realsies.

Dave Jones: Because, you know, like everyone knows how super secretive this battery pack is, right? It's Tesla's core technology, right? It's the thing that sets them apart from everyone else, you know? And this guy just bought one at a salvage auction.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So I guess they must have, you know, there was an accident with a Tesla and he just bought the battery pack, you know? And he decided, well, screw Tesla. I'm going to tear it down, you know? Right. And he even posted it on Tesla. Well, no, he posted it to the Tesla Club Forum. Yeah, right. No, which is actually Tesla. Well, I don't know if it's officially. It's probably sanctioned, but not run by it. Their official forum.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. They're allowed to use the brand at least, so.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. They're allowed to put the logo on the website, on the forum. Yeah. Anyway, he just, and he was very careful to say, yeah, this is not endorsed by Tesla and, you know, blah, blah, blah. So I think he even mentioned if they sue me, yeah, you know, fine. Anyway, yeah.

Chris Gammell: The crazy thing to me is just like, so like, you know, we've heard about this before, right? The big thing was, oh, well, they used off-the-shelf lithium-ion cells.

Dave Jones: They use 18650 lithium-ion cells, yeah.

Chris Gammell: 18650. I didn't know that was the number of it. Okay.

Dave Jones: 18650 is a standard size that's used in everything these days. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I never designed anything with batteries. That's another thing I realized recently. Right. Okay. I'm like, oh. There you go. I should do that. It's way easier when you don't use batteries. Yeah. Batteries suck. But I didn't quite, like, until like I scroll down, I'm like, what are all those little knobby things? And I'm like, holy crap, those are all individual cells. That's a lot. Like, that is a ton of stuff, you know?

Dave Jones: It is a lot of cells. Yeah. Yeah. And do you see, like, the individual fusing wires going from each cell to, like, a big bus plate? Yeah. So, like, the really thin ones, right, you're talking about? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So, I was wondering about what happens. Okay. So, it's a fusing wire. So, that's if, like, you have an over-voltage event on a battery. It just blows and pops.

Dave Jones: If a cell fails, yeah. If a cell fails, excess current goes through the cell. It breaks the connection to it. And bang. It just takes itself out of the circuit.

Chris Gammell: Right. But they're all in, aren't they all in series, though? I mean, like, that's what I was thinking about. Do they have, like...

Dave Jones: Ah, they look a bunch of parallel buses to me. It looks like a bunch of...

Chris Gammell: Well, but the voltage is 400 volts, so it's got to stack up at some point.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, it's a lot. Yes. So, they would have strings. So, yeah, it probably takes out a whole string. Right.

Chris Gammell: That'd be terrible. But I was really thinking, it was like... Yeah, but there's like... Because when Bob was on the show, when Bob Simpson was on the show...

Dave Jones: Yeah, but there's like 500 strings in this thing or something. Right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Okay. Well...

Dave Jones: I mean, there's, you know...

Chris Gammell: But that's still a lot to lose, though, right? That's a lot of capacity to lose.

Dave Jones: Well, it's maybe one one-hundredth of your capacity, and it's a fail-safe thing. So, it's not a huge amount to lose. If it happens all the time, yes. But, you know, this is designed for, you know, some gross overload.

Chris Gammell: Well, what I was thinking about was when Bob was on the show, he talked about his... Because, remember, Bob designed his own stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And he... Didn't he talk about something with like... Because when you recharge, don't you have to have like individual monitoring on each cell so that you don't...

Dave Jones: You have to have individual... Yeah. If they're in series, yes. The battery management system will have a floating voltage measurement across each cell. That's how it works. Okay.

Chris Gammell: So, and then... But then he had like a bypass FED, didn't he? Didn't he have that too? That's what I was thinking about.

Dave Jones: Hey, you can have a bypass FED in there. Maybe they have that. I don't know how this Tesla one works. Okay.

Chris Gammell: So, tear down good, schematic better. So, try better next time, guy. Or put your schematic on their Tesla, right?

Dave Jones: And their PCB doesn't look terribly artistic. It's okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But we've got some news there.

Chris Gammell: Oh, is this official news?

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's official. He's mentioned it on the forum.

Chris Gammell: Okay. All right.

Dave Jones: Yes. What is this news? He has mentioned it on the forum. A former guest, Vincent Himpey. He has...

Chris Gammell: A marathoner. The amp hour marathoner.

Dave Jones: Yes. That's right. He has quit his day job and he's got himself another day job where they'll no doubt work him to the bone, but he's now the head PCB designer at Tesla Motors.

Chris Gammell: Which is awesome.

Dave Jones: Awesome. Yes. Well done, Vincent. And I've heard the story of how he got the job and it's quite good. I've told you, didn't I? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You told me about it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And yeah, anyway, he might... Well, what we're hoping for is that he comes on the show at some point and he's allowed to talk about it.

Dave Jones: And tell us... We're not going to hold our breath.

Chris Gammell: Exactly. Exactly.

Dave Jones: So anyway, he thoroughly impressed them and they went, you want to be our head PCB designer? I'm not sure why they didn't have one. Or maybe, you know. Yeah. Anyway. So yes, awesome, Vincent. Well done. Yeah. And enjoy working your ass off because that's what they do there at Tesla.

Chris Gammell: But for a very good cause.

Dave Jones: But I'm sure that's, you know, but that's his style, right? Yeah. He's going to thoroughly enjoy that, you know, being challenged.

Chris Gammell: I wonder how they make the frame for this thing too. Like this thing looks like it's like solid steel. I wonder if it's like... It can't be milled. It must be like...

Dave Jones: Is it a big die cast alloy thing? Maybe.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean like... Because that's like the big part too, right? They're actually getting like the framing and all that stuff. Oh my God. Look at that. I didn't see... I didn't look at the extended pictures. The grounding wire is amazing.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's like... It looks like it's like...

Dave Jones: It looks like the top is machined on it. It looks like the top is machined. Maybe. Like the cover? I don't know. I'm not very good with... Yeah. Like the... That might be stamped. Hmm. Right. It could be stamped. Okay.

Chris Gammell: But yeah. I mean like this is the big thing to talk about. Because remember they were talking about... There was all that complaining about... Oh, there's Tesla fires. And there was like three fires. And everybody was all up in arms. And then Musk was like... Which was bullshit, of course.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: How many car fires are there a year? Kind of thing. Yeah. But yeah. This... I mean like looking at... I'm about like... Almost at the bottom of the extended pictures page. And there's a really nice picture of the frame. And it looks like it's one contiguous piece. It could be wrong. It could be welded too. I don't know. But... Right. Man, that's bonkers. Oh, he has an... Yeah. Oh, he empties it all out. Okay.

Dave Jones: There's an extended pictures page?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Down towards the bottom. He didn't want to load down. There's a second page, I guess. So...

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Right.

Chris Gammell: Gets even better, Dave. Even better.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Oh, I've only looked at his first post. Yeah. Oh, more pics here. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big red hyperlink text. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So make sure that everybody goes and checks that out because that's awesome.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Uh... Yeah. It is kind of crazy when you think about that though, right? I mean, like, so it's like there's the control electronics for the motor, and there's the electronics inside the car, and then the battery pack, and what else is there? Brakes? I mean, I guess there's braking systems and HVAC, but like...

Dave Jones: Oh, there's tons of stuff. There'd be hundreds of boards inside a Tesla. Hundreds.

Chris Gammell: But I'm just saying, like, in terms of total systems, right, you don't need to, like... Well, yeah, I guess I don't really know. I just think about, like, car computers, right? I mean, like, you have so many more things to monitor, you know, just on a single engine. And you have to, like, monitor timing and all that other stuff, especially as they try and push towards, like, these efficiency standards. I think it was, like, 2020 in the United States, they're supposed to have 50 miles per gallon per car. Right.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: Or kilometers per liter. I don't know how many. Go to Wolfram Alpha to find that one out.

Dave Jones: Oh, I just see the giant shunt in here. No. The giant shunt. Which one? This big copper cable stamped into one end of it.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. That's what I was talking about. I thought that was grounding. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. No, no, no. That's current shunt. That's where they measure the battery pack. Oh, holy crap. You're right. There's a monitor board there. Yeah. Yeah, there's a monitor board on it. Holy crap. Yeah. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Wow. That's serious. You know how much current shunts cost, too. I wonder if they just did it on the raw copper based on the copper...

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah. They've machined that themselves. Because once you actually calibrate it, once you stamp it... Well, in fact, what you do is you just stamp it out. Uh-huh. And then you calibrate in software. And as long as your stamping machine process for that shunt bar is fairly consistent, then you're going to have the same value. I'm sure they only need 5% or something.

Chris Gammell: I'm sure they don't need a huge tolerance on that. Yeah, I guess they can measure that on the windings and all that other crap, too, when it's actually delivered to the engine, that kind of thing, like if it's overcurrent or something. That's crazy. Anyway. So what do you think a current shunt like that would be, like, value-wise? Like low milli-ohms? Less than that?

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Well, by definition, it has to be. Just do the math. Yeah, power equation, right. Yeah. It has to be down in the micro-ohms. Well, how much does this... What's the spec on this pack? I don't know. It'd be 100... 85 kilowatt hours. The charging is hundreds of amps, right, on the super-fast charger.

Chris Gammell: Oh, right, right, right. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, we've talked about that before.

Dave Jones: So it's going to be hundreds of amps. So 250 amps, you're only going to want... Although it's a high-voltage pack, right? So you can probably tolerate a bit of drop on there. So it's not like you have to have 0.01 volts drop or something. You know, but hey, but even if you've got 250 amps at a volt drop, there's 250 watts, right, just in your... Right. Right. So you're going to want like one... You know, you're going to want two orders of magnitude. You know, you're only going to want, say, 5 watts, 10 watts in that shunt, maybe. Right? So... Let's see.

Chris Gammell: So 200 amps would be 200 squared, right? So that's 40,000. So whatever that would be, it'll be... Maybe you could burn a watt or two. You'd probably... One to 10 watts, maybe, in there? So whatever that would be.

Dave Jones: Yep. It's, you know...

Chris Gammell: I mean, actually, this thing could handle heat. It's a big chunk of copper, but you probably would want to, you know?

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Oh, wow. That's crazy. Speaking of estimations, there was an awesome video. I've actually never seen video... I think I saw a speech once, but it was a really old one. But Randall Munro's new book, What If... Right. My friend got it. He said it's amazing. I haven't read it yet, but... Yep. He actually talks about, like, estimations and, like, how the whole What If thing started. What If being, like, a sector of XKCD. It's these ridiculous questions.

Dave Jones: I've done some calculations. Hold that thought.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: Assuming it's 250 amps... Okay. And it's 1 milliohm shunt resistance. That's still 62.5 watts power dissipation.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, because it's 62,000 amps squared, right? And then times resistance.

Dave Jones: Yep. So you can do ballpark figures. Yeah, so it's going to be less than that. So it's going to be down in the hundreds of micro... You know, it's probably, like, 100 micro-ohms or something like that. Yeah. Would be my guess. It's going to be order of magnitude. I'd expect order of magnitude lower than that. So probably 100 micro-ohms shunt.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Eh.

Chris Gammell: No, that's good, though. I mean, that's the kind of, like, order of magnitude stuff that you want to do, right? I mean, that's the...

Dave Jones: Hmm.

Chris Gammell: That's the back of the napkin calculation, right? And Randall Munro talked about that, too, basically. That's all I wanted to point out, other than the book being awesome and Randall Munro being awesome. But he was talking about, like, just the order of magnitude calculations and how... Actually, the thing he mentioned was that it was developed in a pre-internet age, right? It was when he was sitting in class before there was Wi-Fi or Google.

Dave Jones: I actually watched this, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, you did, yeah. I mean, it's true, right? It's like, okay, well, I think just people will have a harder time. Maybe not. Maybe it won't be a big deal because there will be so much available calculations and stuff. But I think it's nice to have that ability. I've struggled with it. No, no, it's good. It's good to be able to make those quick calculations just to, like, sanity check, you know?

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's the whole idea of orders of magnitude in engineering, you know? And, you know, am I close enough? Yeah. Am I in the ballpark? Right. And the ballpark is, you know, times 10. Yeah. You know, are you within, you know, a tenth or times 10?

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's why they call order of magnitude.

Chris Gammell: Yep, yep.

Dave Jones: There you go.

Chris Gammell: Cool, man.

Dave Jones: We're 10 minutes over.

Chris Gammell: We are. That's our show. Yeah, we got through. That's good.

Dave Jones: I think I goofed up the order. I absolutely goofed up the calculation there at the start of our talk on that shunt there.

Chris Gammell: What about?

Dave Jones: I'm pretty sure I got Ohm's Law wrong.

Chris Gammell: What? I squared R? You don't have a power?

Dave Jones: No, yeah. I was thinking, you know, in terms of voltage. Yeah, in terms of the drop and everything. I think I goofed it up.

Chris Gammell: That's okay, man. I guarantee I've done that on the show before. So.

Dave Jones: We are design professionals, folks. We are professionals, folks. We demand to be taken seriously. Try doing a show at the same time, you know. Because your mind's always thinking about, you know, like it's actually not that easy to, you know. Well, no, it's fairly easy to do, but you're going to make mistakes when you're doing shows like this or when I'm doing my video blog, you know, and I'm doing the off the cuff thing. You know, all these sorts of things, they always happen. All these mistakes creep in because your mind is not focused. Your mind is, you know, wandering off on something else. Yeah. So all focused on the, you know, on the, you know, trying to say something half in half intelligent. And, yeah, you just miss all that finer details you normally wouldn't miss when you, you know, when you're just solving a problem. And you don't have to perform in quote marks.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right.

Dave Jones: Right. Dance, monkey, dance.

Chris Gammell: That's right, man. Now that we're bona fide with, you know, having a trade show stand. Right. In Sydney, the capital of electronics. Yeah, that's right. We'll worry when we get to Shenzhen. Damn, straight. Yeah. All right, man, cool. I'll talk to you next week. Awesome. Catch you next time.

Speaker ?: Bye. Outro Music