#244 – The Art Of Staying Interested In Electronics - Exponible Electronics Ennui

Chris Gammell: This is the Amp Hour Podcast. Recorded April 7th, 2015. Episode 244. Exponable Electronics on Weed.

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. Don't get me started. Dave is pissed. He's pissed.

Dave Jones: I am strongly resisting the urge to drop F-bombs everywhere at the moment.

Chris Gammell: Right, which we usually try not to, but they happen here and there. Usually I flick on the, what is it called, the extreme content or something. Extreme content. What's it called? Whatever, adult content. Oh, the adult content filter switch on iTunes.

Dave Jones: Right, Google.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, Dave lost some video footage this morning, which is disruptive, quite disruptive. Unbelievable. That sucks. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I did it yesterday. I did exactly the same thing yesterday too.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Exactly the same thing, but it didn't piss me off as much yesterday. Because it's, you know, it's the problem with the SD card. I've talked about this before. You know, SD card in the camera. And I lost a bit of footage yesterday on the same teardown that I'm trying to do. And it didn't piss me off nearly much because I thought, okay, yeah, it happened. I didn't lose a huge amount, you know. So I went and re-shot it. It was, you know, 20, 30 minutes worth. You know, it wasn't a huge deal. So I just, you know, sucked it up and went on and then came back this morning and whacked in my SD card and press record. And a couple hours later, I went to put in the SD card in the computer. Nothing's there.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: It just, you know, those 30 clips I just shot, just gone. You know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I was having that with the, uh, uh, KiCad was, was crashing every time I did a, I think it was just the one build that I had, you know, because I use all these, uh, these advanced leading edge builds now. And it was crashing every time I did a, uh, a copper pour. A pour, wasn't it?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Did I, oh, maybe I mentioned on the show before.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. No, you mentioned on Twitter, I think.

Chris Gammell: Oh, on Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean like, but it was, it was to the point where like, you know, you get far enough along in a design where you just, you're kind of on autopilot. Same thing you're doing with your camera, right? It's just like, you're on autopilot, you're ready to go. Yeah. And then you forget to hit save and you hit fill and you're like, oh no, oh no. Oh. Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's gone. And right. I know. Unless you, unless you do like, you know, regular backups, right? I mean like, so if I did like an hourly get commit or even just an hourly save or an autosave, I don't know if the new versions have autosave, but you know, just like, unless you get in that habit, which is basically a way of acknowledging that, yes, this is very broken, but I'm using it anyway. Right. You know, unless you have that in your workflow, then yeah, you're going to, you're going to keep stubbing your toe in that exact same spot and swearing up a storm. I mean, it's just, it's terrible. So yeah.

Dave Jones: I should give some background on this for those who aren't aware of it. Right. My, um, camera, right. I use as SM, all my cameras use SD cards. Right. And of course I record the footage on the SD cards. I sneak and edit, you know, I take it out. I carry it over to the computer, whack it in and I copy the files from the SD card, which is fine and dandy, right? You can copy the files. You can put it in the PC, copy the files and then go put the, you know, do some editing. Like, cause sometimes I like to do that. I like to like shoot half the video. And then like, I might go to lunch and I go, Oh, I'll just edit that video to see where I'm at, you know? So I'll edit the footage I've got now. So I copy over the footage I've got, edit it. And then, you know, after I've done that, I might, you know, I'll go back and take the SD card back, whack it in the camera and, and, and continue the second half of the video. Right. And this is normal. This is normal part of my workflow. So the problem is, is that if you touch any of the files on the SD card, if you delete a video file, if you, um, uh, rename them, if you, uh, if you copy another file on there, if you do anything at all, touch that card, write to it in any way, shape or form, which is normal for like windows and everything else, right? The camera can screw up, not always, but it can completely screw up and refuse to record video to that SD card, even though it's telling you, right? So I can go do a whole day shoot and the little red record button comes up. The timer comes up. Yep. I'm recording to the SD card. You know, it appears all normal and you get back and not, it hasn't recorded anything since you last touched those files.

Chris Gammell: Right. Just like a, uh, a backup isn't really a backup until you try and back it up until you try and restore it.

Dave Jones: And, uh, and of, and of course my camera has the dual. SD card recording facility, but do I do it? You know, so it actually records a backup to the SD card, but do I do it? You know, no, because I'm probably stupid and because it's an extra step that your heart, you shouldn't need, right? You shouldn't need to do it.

Chris Gammell: It's accepting, accepting that you have a broken workflow. Yeah. Yeah. It's exactly.

Dave Jones: I know. And, and it's extra work. So I've got to, they're fine. Two SD cards and format them. So I've got SD cards coming out my backside with all sorts of weird footage on that. I haven't done yet or whatever, you know? And so it's, I've got to find SD cards and whack them in there and clean, you know, erase the files, make sure I've actually copied them, make sure that I don't need them anymore. Erase them, put them back in, blah, blah. And that's hard enough for one card, let alone two. And it's just, when you do it every day, you know, it's just an extra step you don't want to have to do. Anyway, for those who think it is just, oh, well, don't use a Canon video camera. Well, it happens on my Sony too. So, you know, like it is right. It's happened on every, well, it's happened on my two Canon cameras that I've had the HFG 10 and the HFG 30. It's also happened on my Sony NEX VG 30. So for those who think it's just a Canon issue, it's not. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And for those who mention it, cause everyone does all just use a file recovery tool. No, it doesn't work. And yes, I've tried every fricking one on the market. So it's not that it just, yeah, it's unbelievable. Ah, it's just a pain in the ass problem. And yeah.

Chris Gammell: I hate to tell you how much better I am than you, but I just record straight from my computer now.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. You've got this weird, fantastic workflow, which produces, you know, videos. It's on the fly with no editing at all. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Oh, it's fantastic. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So people don't, I started doing it for contextual electronics. I started, I just started doing, what the heck is going to, sorry, something just started singing at me on my computer. What the heck is going on here?

Dave Jones: Yeah. I hate that when you have like 20 million tabs open and then something starts autoplaying. Some video starts autoplaying.

Chris Gammell: That was, that was, uh, Phil Collins started playing at me apparently.

Speaker ?: Right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: In the air tonight. Because why not? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Okay. I can feel it coming in the air. Drum solo.

Chris Gammell: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. But I started doing, uh, hardware stuff for like camera switching. There's this program called XSplit and it's fantastic.

Chris Gammell: I've used it. Yeah. I'll post a, I'll post a link to it, but yeah, it's, it's awesome.

Dave Jones: Well, there's nothing, you know, like when you're trying to. It's great about it. It's just that it has a pause button.

Chris Gammell: It has a pause button. During recording.

Dave Jones: You know, there's lots of programs that do the same thing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You know, record a lot of cameras and stuff like that. But I mean, like you know this and other people know this from watching your videos and stuff. It's hard to kind of, when you're looking over, like you, to replicate that looking over someone's shoulder, like experience, which is kind of what contextual electronics is. Right. Yep. That's kind of tough to do, you know, like, especially in a quick amount of time. So yeah, yeah. Video. It sucks. But it's kind of, it's still the best, it's still the best medium we have. Right. Unless, unless, you know, someone can like inhabit my consciousness and believe me, folks, you don't want that. Yeah. Don't go there.

Dave Jones: And for those who say, well, why don't I just do that and have, you know, live switching and blah, blah, blah, you know, all that sort of jazz. It's, it's just totally not suited to the styles of video that I do. And you may not notice until you do them, until you like compare two of the same video shot with the two different techniques side by side. And you'll notice that the, you know, the effort I go to, to produce my video, you know, every shot is framed. Almost every shot is framed properly. Right. I set the camera. I, I change lenses for every shot. If I've got to do macro things, you know, frame in the damn thing. I'm setting, I might set manual focus, manual exposure or, you know, all sorts of jazz before I hit that record button. That's why I end up, some videos can have up to 200 clips, you know, because I'm always doing that, but it produces a much better, you know, tightly flowing video at the end of the song.

Chris Gammell: That rambles on for an hour.

Dave Jones: Then just, yeah. I mean, mine, mine ramble on for an hour, but there's no wasted.

Chris Gammell: But the look, but imagine how good it looks.

Dave Jones: Imagine how good it looks and framing. And you don't notice that until you see the two videos, you know, until you did a, you know, AB comparison kind of thing.

Chris Gammell: So me and Dave will do a video off at some point in the future.

Dave Jones: So if, yeah, no, so it works great for the style of video you do. And if I was doing a live show, yeah, I would have the same setup. In fact, I, I want to set up my live rig again. Um, and that's, that's the plan. I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to have all the multiple camera angles and we can flick through them and all that sort of stuff. But then again, it's different once again, if you've got a live audience watching at the same time. True. See, because then there's no point using the pause button. Right. No pause key. Exactly. So, you know, uh, yeah, yeah. So. Yep. Yep. So you need the right tool for the job. You need the, well, you need the right setup for the job. The right optimized setup can make all the difference in the world.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yep.

Dave Jones: Hmm.

Chris Gammell: Man. So I was, uh, I was thinking about topics for the show today and I was playing my piano. I have a new piano. I don't know if I mentioned on the show. Uh, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, you sold all your other ones, didn't you?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And this is actually, so it's like a sampling piano. Right. And don't worry, folks, I'm getting to the point here, but what it was is like, so I had like all these analog pianos and all these beautiful pieces of old, old gear and stuff like that. And I'm playing this new piano and like everything about it is amazing. Right. It's a sampling piano. So it's not like, you know, like purists out there will be like, oh, well you can't do this and that and this and that. But like, honestly, it has everything, you know, like it, it don't need anything else. Right. And, and it, and it kind of felt like. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But didn't they have these like 20 years ago? These sampling keyboards with everything?

Chris Gammell: They did. Yeah. Yeah. You know, they did. They did. And, and like.

Dave Jones: So what's, what's different with a modern one?

Chris Gammell: Just like the depth of, of like how much they consider in the actual sampling. So they like sample the sound of you releasing the foot pedal. Like. Right. So, so it's just kind of like taken to another level and it's not like the best thing ever, but it's just, you know, for me, it's, it's just this next echelon. And I, and, you know, we're kind of seeing the same concern and it's also got like, it, it models all of the classic sounds that I like. Okay. And, but the idea is that it's consolidate all of these old, you know, I kind of think about in terms of like test equipment, right? There, there's like, so like looking at like a, you know, like that, this MDO 3000 that, that you and I both have and stuff like that and other, other gear that's out there, like everybody's just consolidating. It's just like, you just keep pouring more and more features into something. And what that ends up with is it's just, there's not as much interesting individual problems like there, you know, you could still go back and, and play with the, you know, the old analog piano and you can optimize it and you can rework it and you can try new things on there. But I just thought it was interesting from a, like trying, like it kind of makes the landscape more boring. And that's what I've been struggling with lately. Like, like some of it's just like, I'm kind of bored with electronics and people, I know I probably shouldn't say that on a show about electronics, but like, but like, it kind of

Dave Jones: feels like that with like, I understand. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, I mean, it's just like, everything's getting so consolidated that it's like, you know, like I, I, I find interesting problems here and there to work on. And I think that's a lot of stuff I'm doing in contextual electronics, but like, like, it just feels like everything is in everything, you know, like, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, Oh, well, here's this new micro, but it also has Bluetooth and it also has a power, you know, power stuff integrated. And it's just like, well, what the hell, man? Like where, where's the, and, and, and to be fair, the fun part is in, you know, the coding and the, the implementation of it. But like, that's not as fun for me. You know what I mean?

Dave Jones: Like that's not the hard part for, well, that is for me, the fun part is still the product design, you know, like it's not in the electronics as such, you know? Yeah. I can get a micro, I can whack it on. I can choose an ADC and whack it on. I can choose some op amps and whack them on, I can do a power supply and whack it on, you know, but, eh, you know, uh, I've done all that stuff before, you know, it's, it's not that exciting.

Chris Gammell: Whereas exciting stuff about, oh, there's such, there's such a push towards like small, smaller and lower cost and lower power. So it's not like there's, you know, 15 sub circuits anymore either. It's like micro. Like I got a teensy, right? So I got a teensy, uh, the 3.1 and this thing is, you know, it's gorgeous. This little board is probably what? Like an inch by a half inch.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And, you know, it's got a M Cortex something, something from the free scale and, you know, power and a little, you know, a USB serial, you know, it's just like, it's a similar to Arduino type style. But I mean, like, what else do you need these? I mean, like these days, like there's like, this thing does a crap ton. Like it has audio libraries on it and it does all these other, like, it's just like, it's crazy, you know? And it's, I know that I should be amazed by it, but I feel dismayed by it. You know, like it's just, I don't know why, I don't know what it is. Maybe other people feel this, maybe they don't. Like, but.

Dave Jones: Well, you know, we're electronics designers, right? That's what we've always done in industry. Right. And it's, yeah, it's just blasé to us, I guess. It's just, you know, you're worthy.

Chris Gammell: I guess, I mean, like, well, and I've said it before too, and it's like, like, obviously it contrasts with my other job, which is like building a site for shopping for parts, right? And I feel like that is a big part of our, as electronics designers these days, it's about who's good at shopping and finding good parts for an application. You know, it's always been about that, but now it's so much more about that, you know, finding the right parts, finding the parts that you can actually buy and, you know, actually use and, and, you know, like get on time stuff like, you know, stuff that we've talked about on the show before. But also like that, that takes so much fun out of it. You know, it's not like, it's not just transistor design or, you know, like, like, I don't know. And it's not like we can't do that either. Right. I mean, like, so like that is still part of the, I think, I think that, that, that might also be part of the problem of where I am personally in my career. Like, not that I've done so much, but just that. He's going through a big career across the space. I think I might be. No, it's just like, it's like looking back, right? So like, like all this stuff with the art of electronics coming out again. Right. And it's just like, ah, going through it again. Eh, I've done that. You know, I've gotten through so much of it. And like, I know there's new stuff, but like, and I, I get that there, that I, I should do that and I'll find stuff from doing a lot of that stuff. And, and like, even just, okay. Again, from the piano thing, I was, I was playing my piano thinking about it and like so much of learning electronics in the first place is about, you know, just kind of gritting your, not even gritting your teeth, but just not saying I need to invent something new and fantastic, but just to, to do what other, other people have done. Right. Just to learn the, the methods and to see the patterns, you know, like me playing songs that other people have written. Right. On my piano. Like that, that's the same thing. Electronics where you go through and you're, you're designing stuff, maybe you're using app notes, stuff like that. Like all of these things are still important and they're still interesting to me and there's still challenges with them. And yet, and yet, I don't know. Like, I think, I think you're right. I think it's just the, the, the mid, mid career doldrums. I think also because I don't have like a, you know, like I'm not working towards like a deadline product. Exactly.

Dave Jones: That's the big difference. That's the big difference. Yeah. And people say, yeah, why can't I develop products like I did in industry? Well, because there's no, no one whipping my ass, you know, to, there's, there's no deadline. I'm not being paid to do it kind of thing. Oh, but you are, you get video. No, it's not the same. It's not the same.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah. And I think, I mean, like, and I think that a lot of the projects I've been, I've been doing a lot of projects, right? So I got two boards in on contextual electronics since it's started back up, but.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Like, you know, like there's still that, I just, I want something, I feel like there's something around the corner, you know, like there's something I should be doing. There's some kind of technology I should be discussing. Like all this crap about batteries too. Like, I feel like there's something I should do there, but I, like, you know what I mean? Like, like, I know I'm telling myself, oh, you should be Tony Stark, but I am not Tony Stark. You know what I mean? Like, I am not that person. No, but I mean like, but like, there's all these problems that are out there that we should be solving and we should be working on and I just don't know where to go next. You know, that's kind of a, I have a lot of things to do. Don't get me wrong, but I just.

Dave Jones: And that's also, well, that's also the problem. You know, how do you commit to something?

Chris Gammell: You know? Right. That's, that's a good question. I guess you just start. I don't have the answer, so. You're right.

Dave Jones: You just start and then finish with your half-assed finished project and then you move on to the next one. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think, well, I think that, that actually, no, that does bring up a good point. Like having a economic goal, right? I mean, having that, like that hunger based on actual, you know, like if your, if your economic future is dependent on it, right? You'll, you'll do interesting stuff in that case. I don't know though, man. I don't know. The hunger's gone, huh? It's not gone. Well, that's the thing. Like there, I, like I'm building projects. I'm interested in this stuff. I have people that I'm working with and teaching and like all of this stuff, it's still there, but I, I don't know. Maybe, but it just, what it is, is this feeling about, about industry these days, you know, like about specifically like this hardware ecosystem, like all of the changes to the hardware side of things too. Like everybody's pushing, well, you got to get a app out there and it has to talk to a piece of hardware. And it's just like, I don't, I don't, I don't care. Like, you know, like so many of these, so many of these things, like, like I just, I read about these, like, oh God, the, the demo day startups. Did, did we talk about that last week or two weeks ago?

Dave Jones: No, demo day startup. No. So Y Combinator, right?

Chris Gammell: That's a, this startup accelerator thingy dingy. And like, so they, they, you know, they have a demo day where all these investors show up and. Oh, right. Okay. And like, it's a pitch day, is it? It's a pitch day. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, and you know, like all, like all of these, just reading the list of all these startups and it's just like, not all of them are hardware, obviously, but like so many of them are just like, what? I, why? I know. I know. And it's not like that hasn't happened in the past too. You know, like there's always been, you know, oh, social network for turtles and yada, yada, you know, like stupid shit like that. But like, I don't know. I, I just, I, you shatter of dreams, you, I think I'm just getting, I think, I think I'm a, an old codger, Dave. I think. I know. Welcome to the club. Five years in, you've, you've gotten to me. I've gotten you. Yep. I'm toast. Yes. I know. I know. Well, like, like internet of things and everything has wife and everything has wifi and everything has Bluetooth and I don't know how to do any of it. You know what I mean?

Dave Jones: Well, that's the thing. I'm developing a product at the moment and it's going to have Bluetooth, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And it's, I, I can't say what it is, but you know. Oh yeah. And everybody has secrets. What the hell? There are people who know what it is. My supporters know what it is. Okay. But yeah, yeah. It's not, it's not public yet because if it goes public, like there'll be so many people with so many opinions. It'll be the, it'll, it'll, it'll, it'll, it'll be the micro supply all over again. You know? Right. 10 times worse. You know?

Chris Gammell: I can't fault you for.

Dave Jones: Do it this way. It's got to have this feature. It's got to have that. What the hell are you doing that for? Oh, it's got to meet this price point. It's got to meet that price point. Anyway, it's going to be like a year long project. Um, and it's not just me. I mean, I'm partnering up with a professional manufacturing company doing this thing. So yeah, yeah. It's only stages yet. I've just gotten my concept prototype. You know, they, they did a proposal for me, you know? So I sort of gave them some, you know, um.

Chris Gammell: Oh, like early quotes and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it isn't even a quote yet. It's just like, oh, here's what it's going to look like. Here's how it's going to work. You know, this is the features it's going to have, blah, blah, blah. You know?

Chris Gammell: So that's what you were saying that or they were saying that?

Dave Jones: No, they're saying that that was, that was part of their proposal. I went to them and say, Hey, I want one of these things and, uh, let's work together to design and build one of these things for me. And, uh. Cool.

Chris Gammell: So you're kind of like the, uh, investor slash management guy now versus just the straight design guy.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah. I, I won't be like, oh yeah. I won't be designing this thing because this company specializes in making this, this product. Right. I'll be having a hand in it. Right. Right. But it's not like I'm, I'm going to be laying out the ball. No, no, no. This is, this is interesting.

Chris Gammell: Dave, Dave, the manager. I like this. This is like Dave. Now Dave has all the rants from the other side. Obviously Dave has an employee now. And, uh, he also has a product under his, uh, his care now. I don't know. You've, you've got profit and loss statements now. Dave, Dave Corp, Dave Corp, the machine is in full swing.

Dave Jones: That's it. So yeah. That's exciting. And, and this could cost a serious amount of money, you know, like I've probably got to, I've got to commit to, you know, a certain number of these things and, you know, there's the development and that's all to be discussed, you know, exactly how much it's going to cost. But yeah, I, I need to commit big time to it, you know, so it'll be a proper professional

Chris Gammell: mainstream product as people are used to. I, I, uh, I, I'm loathe to ask, but are you, uh, are you going to take on outside investment talking about startups? Nope. Okay.

Dave Jones: Like when it gets towards the end, I might do the crowdfunding thing just as a, as a, as a pre-sales kind of thing, but no, no, this will be my risk. This will be my risk. Yeah. Up front.

Chris Gammell: That's good. That's good.

Dave Jones: Yep. Hmm. Anyway. So yeah, hopefully I'll have stories to tell over the coming year about this sort of thing. But yeah. Good. Good. Good. You know, I can tell you, like I already, right. I gave them some specs, right. They're very top level kind of stuff. And they came back with this proposal. I'm going like some aspects of, I'm going, that just doesn't make sense. You know, like why have you put, why have you specified that? Like that's just, it just doesn't make sense.

Chris Gammell: Oh, so now you're going to be like the micromanager and like, uh, I'll just do it myself.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Something like that. So, uh, no, you know, I've, I've got to steer it. Cause if I, if I just said, yeah, that's fine. And they went off, it'd be a disaster of a product. You know, it'd be awful. Um, so yeah, I've got to, you know, rein it in and go, Hey, no, that's just silly. You know, we can't go down that path. We can't use that type of thing, you know, thing, that thing, that thing, that widget, that, that color of widget, that, that doohickey that goes on the thing. And there'll be a ton of compromises because, you know, people expect this product. Oh, because it's come from me and I've got such a, you know, and so many opinions about these sorts of things, you know, um, uh, and I'll expect it to be perfect and it won't be, you know, that's the shitty thing. There's always compromises, you know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's body design, right? I mean, like, and that's, I think, I think a lot of the, the engineering side of things too, we're always, not always, but some of that stuff gets, uh, shielded right in, in a good organization, that stuff gets shielded, you know, cause marketer marketing groups will ask for the moon in hoping, hoping that they'll get some portion of it. Right. And a lot of time managers will push that off.

Dave Jones: Sometimes you have to produce the moon for them, even though it's absolutely ridiculous and it's going to kill the product, you know? Yeah. It might get it to market, but it might be a complete joke because you included the moon, you know? Like, and it might be a complete failure, but that's what you were tasked with doing, you know? And yeah. Yeah. The perils of being a design engineer. I've done it before.

Chris Gammell: You don't want to like have a, you know, you don't, you don't want your product to fail in the market, but nobody wants their product to fail in the market. But if you, if you're just doing what you were asked and sometimes, and that is the downfall and if there's not, you know. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I've worked at companies like that and we've discussed it before, I'm sure, where I've been working on a product and I'm going, this is stupid. This is the dumbest idea ever. It's never going to work. And of course it doesn't work, you know? And, you know, you try and tell them and they go, shut up, do it or leave, you know?

Chris Gammell: And well, you do say that kind of, kind of more often than you probably should though. You do say things won't work very often. So there was a balance point there, I think, you know? Yeah.

Dave Jones: And, you know, sure enough, you're right. And, you know, it's as plain as day to anyone who has any clue, but of course management often don't have a clue, you know, they've got, you know, their head in the clouds and yep, what can you do, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Nothing.

Dave Jones: It's a job. So you go, yeah, okay, well, yeah, fine. You know, you try and score little wins. You know, they're the kind of stuff that makes it interesting. You know, sometimes you can go, you know, look, you really argue for something. Look, we really should put this in here, you know? And it's just, yeah. And they finally agree to it and you go, yes, you know, small little win. You know, even though their product overall is going to completely fail, at least you knew that you put in something that would be good. Extra resistor, that was me. Exactly. That's right.

Chris Gammell: 9.1K instead of a 10K. I showed you bastards. So, okay, so actually we had a question on Twitter about, so someone, Samuel, Sam asked about project worthiness and he said, when's it worth taking a project to the next level? And I think that's an interesting question in terms of you because-

Dave Jones: Which level, from what level to what level are we talking about?

Chris Gammell: He said from MacIn to Bench to Prototype to Macrofab to Kickstarter to Big Money. And I think that's actually an interesting question because a lot of times, like a lot of the hardware stuff that I've worked on in the past always has these like, these big gate reviews and, you know, there's these, you know, there's always the marketers have these big pile of requirements and the engineers say, well, here's where we are with this. And, you know, there's like a formalized process around it. And usually it's a lot of dog and pony show, but there probably is some actual, you know, like it's all based probably around good theory. So the question is, do you plan to do that kind of thing with your product? And have you seen it, have you seen it work or not work?

Dave Jones: This is a difficult question. The reasons for going to the next level, it's going to vary totally. Depends on who you are and what your goals are. Is your goal to form a company as a lot of people coming out, you know, a lot of kids coming out, oh, I want to have my own company. It doesn't matter. Let's just brainstorm a product idea and run with it. Cause the whole goal is to do a startup, you know, and get, and maybe get rich, you know, like feel fast. Or is your goal, you know, like I'm so passionate about, you know, this particular topic and I'm going to develop this product and I don't care if anyone buys it. I just want to do this, you know, because it's, it's, it's my passion or is your goal to, you know, start a, some sort of, you know, not the, not the startup culture, but I just want to have a nice range of test gear or something. So I'm going to develop some nice test gear and, and form a company to do it and blah, blah, blah, you know? And like when you actually care about the product, but you know, so there's lots of, I don't know, which, which camp do you want to, which camp do you want to discuss?

Chris Gammell: Oh, uh, I don't know. I mean, I think, I think these days it's like of the things he listed, he said, napkin to bench, to prototype, to macro fab, to kickstart it, right? So macro fab we had on last week. Like, I mean, I think so much of that stuff is cheap these days and even Kickstarter, like you can, you can throw it out there.

Dave Jones: If, if you're going to macro fab, you don't need your Kickstarter. Why do you need your Kickstarter? You've already got, unless you're, well, no, you need it. What you need Kickstarter for is for the publicity, right? It's a publicity machine, right? You don't need it because you need the money. When you're going to macro fab, you can whack out your prototypes for, you know, like a few hundred dollars and you've got yourself, you know, you've finished working sort of, you know, prototypes. Like anyone who can't cough up that sort of money themselves shouldn't be doing it, right?

Chris Gammell: You shouldn't be doing it. Yeah, and you're probably not in electronics anyways, to be honest. I mean, like a lot of the struggles with people getting started in electronics anyways, it's like, I don't know, 500 bucks minimum to get started, you know?

Dave Jones: It's what pisses me off. You know, people who do a Kickstarter and they haven't produced a prototype, you know, oh God, they go to Indiegogo because they haven't produced a prototype. It's like, why haven't you? Why haven't you, you know, because they want the Indiegogo money to produce the prototype. It's no, piss off. Go and spend your own money and produce the prototype.

Chris Gammell: Make it out of cardboard. Go, yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: You know, that just pisses me off every time. Get angry at people who do that, you know? It's just, oh God. Especially hardware that is, you know, you can spend a little bit of money and get prototypes. You know, the world we live in now, you can get your $5 prototype PCBs. You can buy parts in one-off from DigiKey. Any part you can possibly imagine. It's possible to build low-cost prototypes, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, and your prototype might be $300, but you might be a $30, you know, end product board. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: And then that's when you go to the next level.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So if he's talking about going to the macro fab thing, then you're already there.

Chris Gammell: I think he was just asking generally. But yeah.

Dave Jones: Jeez. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: I think about a lot of this stuff, though, too. Like, so much more of it, like the stuff that we talk about, like the stuff that we talk about electronics-wise, like that's not a company. Like a piece of, you know, a PCB is not a company. It's not a product. It's, you know, maybe a project that other people want to buy, and it can be bigger, right? But, you know, there's a lot of other crap in there. There's all the other, you know, case and packaging and marketing BS that's in there. And it's, I think that's the real question is do you want to deal, like, because I think that, you know, if you look at other people that have done this, you don't do electronics most of the time, right? I mean, I think this is the struggle that a lot of this stuff is, is like if you want to be an electronics person, go be an electronics person, right? Go be a consultant. Go hire yourself out, you know, start finding clients, and then find the hardware startups that have no clue what they're doing and tell them what to do for lots of money, you know? Like that's what you're going to be doing if you want to do electronics, I think. And, you know, the whole lots of money might not show up. You know, that depends how good you are and how many people you know. But I think that that's the decision you have to make is are you willing to never work on electronics again? If you really want to start a company and do that stupid startup stuff and, ugh. I've talked about it too. I'm working myself up here.

Dave Jones: You end up becoming a business person and, you know, I'm already like a business person. That's what I'm doing, you know? I hardly do any electronics design, you know? It's all just the business side of things.

Chris Gammell: That's right, folks. Never thought you'd see it. Chris does more electronics design than Dave does.

Dave Jones: No surprise there.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Goodness gracious.

Dave Jones: Yeah, because you're in the business of teaching it. That's a different thing. Whereas I'm not, you know, I'm not doing that. I'm not running a course. You know, you've got to practically demonstrate it, you know? I do, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's forcing you. If you weren't doing that, would you be working on designs?

Chris Gammell: Probably not. Nope. Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, unless I went back in the industry and get a job, right? Exactly. I mean, like, I think that, yeah. Otherwise, I mean-

Dave Jones: You would have the odd hobby project on the side, right? Which you dabble in every now and then. But, yeah, you'd end up like me.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Oh, no. I think that's probably the best part about contextual electronics starting back up is that I- It's just about having, like, an end goal in mind. Like, even though the project we're working on is silly, like, it's just having a project in mind is so, so, so important. Like, you need to work towards something. And then all the- I think, I don't know. Like, I think that that could be, you know, I think that's good for, like, and, like, you know, so, like, Hackaday Prize, stuff like that. Like, one of the hard parts about it, like, it's good that there's, like, a theme, you know, more of a theme this year of, like, fix the world. And then there's that list that we talked about a couple weeks ago of, you know, things that you could do, and you could pick one of those out. But, like, even still, you need to have a thing, like, the idea you're working towards, because then you start, like, because then it becomes a problem of constraints, right? And this is a problem that I run into all the time. When you're, when you don't have, like, monetary constraints, when you have, like, soft constraints, it's actually much harder to find parts and to, like, make engineering decisions when you don't have, like, someone else setting the constraints for you, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. The product must cost $20. It must fit in, you know, like, 10 square centimeters. It must use less than, you know, 30 milliamps quiescent. Like, all, I guess that's a lot, but all of these things, you know, like, they, you know, these are what define your decisions as you step through the project. Then you go back and you compare against. And if you don't have those at the beginning, you're like, eh, I guess it can be, you know, it could use an amp in a resting state.

Dave Jones: Designers are much more efficient when they have focused, fixed goals. They're much more efficient. We've talked about it on here before. You know, like, we need this product finished before the trade show on X date. And it's like, you get it done with 10 minutes to spare. You finish it as the trade show doors are open. And how do we do that? It's because, well, engineers are very good and very efficient when they're focused like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And when you're just running your own hobby project, that's, you know, there's zero focus like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And back to the question you asked with the product I'm developing, you know, the goal, like the why am I doing it kind of thing. Is that what you asked?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, there's several reasons here. One, I've always wanted a product with my face on it.

Chris Gammell: One of these things.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. I've always wanted, you know, my own. Right. I've always wanted.

Chris Gammell: So that's a legacy thing. Right. That's a.

Dave Jones: Well, no, it's just a, you know, a fair. I've had fantasies since I was a kid. Right. Maybe ego. I don't know. It's just, you know, I just think it's cool.

Chris Gammell: I think ego is okay, man. Like, honestly. It is. Totally.

Dave Jones: Right. But I don't, that's not the right word. It's just, I think it's cool. And I want one. Right. I want, I want my own that I.

Chris Gammell: Oh, so it's a scratch your own itch kind of thing. Yeah. Maybe. With your face on it. You want to scratch your own itch with your face.

Dave Jones: That's it. Anyway. So there's that aspect to it. And there's the business side of things. Like, I know I can't always rely on the advertising income. So I want to, you know, get more. I want to develop more products that I can sell. Right. So that I have a second income stream there apart from the ad revenue, which is basically the only place. Well, apart from the microcurrent. Right. If you're not, if you said I didn't have the microcurrent, all of my revenue comes from advertising, all of it. Right. Yeah. That, that, that's how I feed my family, you know, and that's, you know, subject to the whims of advertisers. Right. And so, yeah, I want to, you know, expand on that. So, you know, I've got the microcurrent, but with the new employer, I want him to start designing some products that have been on my back burner because I've been to, you know, haven't had the time or the, you know, inclination to go ahead and finish them off. So, you know, that's, that's part of his job. And this, this is just another thing. Yeah. It'll be another unique thing that I can have in my, uh, you know, portfolio of products I can sell, you know, because I don't want to just like, I've got the audience to like set up a shop and I could probably do quite well. Right. And just like reselling stuff. Right. Be, be, be, be like an art of fruit kind of reseller. Right. You know, small fruit or I kind of reseller. I could do that, but I don't, that doesn't interest me. I don't want to do that.

Chris Gammell: I mean, like the thing they do, the spark funds and native fruits, they, they think they do really well as the supporting content. And I'm guessing that's actually the interesting stuff, maybe the manufacturing side that they

Dave Jones: do as well, but like the actual being a sales channel and the, and the, and the information channel behind all that. But yeah, I just don't want to become yet another.

Chris Gammell: But like being, but being like a fulfillment house is boring. That's really boring. I know. I just, yeah. Even if you're good at it. I just don't want to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So I could start a company, right? If I had any sort of, you know, business now, right. I would capitalize on my success, right. With my large audience and go high, you know, go actually put some decent money behind it. Maybe even get some investment and go former, you know, go start, well, probably not investment, but I would spend my own money, right. I would borrow some money and I'd go start up a business with, you know, a good chance of it, you know, a distribution business or whatever with a good chance of being successful. I'd hire someone to manage it and all that sort of stuff and just, you know, take an income stream off that. But I don't want to do that. That's just like, that just doesn't interest me in the least. So, you know, if I'm going to have, if I'm going to have a shop, which I do, right. Have one product. I want to sell products that are unique to me, right. I just don't want to resell stuff.

Chris Gammell: I think that's probably the only way forward in like, and like, I think that's part of what's adding to a lot of my like feelings these days too, right. Because everything feels like it's the same. Everything's like a rebadge of things. You know, you see like all of these media sources shutting down and you see these companies shutting down just because like, because the internet allows for basically one winner in each space, right. There is one Amazon. There is one Google. There is one EEV blog. And like, because of that, like you kind of have to have that, you have to be that, that one thing, you know, and just be really good at that one thing. I think.

Dave Jones: And also the distribution is a race to the bottom. You know, you've got to compete. Yeah, that stuff sucks. You know, you've got to, yeah, it's just, you know, it's crazy. Okay. I make my 10% on this sale, you know, whoop-dee-doo. Well, the, another guy comes along, he sells it. He's happy with a 5% margin. You're screwed. You know, everyone's going to buy from there. And it's just, ah, it's just cutthroat race to the bottom, you know. But yeah, your Spark funds and your Art of Fruits can be successful. And you know, there's other players out there. Well, because of that other stuff they do.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But I mean, we see this too. Yeah, it's the other stuff they do. They value add and all that sort of jazz, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, I mean, we see this in the chip industry though too, right? I mean, so like, like all of these chip companies are all buying each other just because that same thing. Like there's less and less margin for each chip because they keep, you know, everybody says, well, we're going to make more stuff next year because the industry keeps getting bigger and we'll sell more and we'll keep making more money. And everybody does that. But then eventually the small guys can't compete and the big guys eat the little guys. And now, you know, I don't know how many chip companies we have left, but it's, it doesn't, sure as hell doesn't feel like many. You know, like.

Dave Jones: No, I know. They're just merging like this. You know, I didn't think there were that many that these mergers keep happening. They go, oh yeah, right. I completely forgot about them. Okay. They're merging. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. So I'm in the, I'm in the midst of, of picking out a microcontroller as well. Like just for, for my latest project. And like, and it, it, it feels like it shouldn't be.

Dave Jones: Arm or is it an 8-bit arm?

Chris Gammell: No, it's going to be bigger than that. I mean, at least, at least 32-bit, but.

Dave Jones: Oh, right.

Chris Gammell: But you don't know whether or not you're even going to go for arm. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Like, I mean, like, but it feels like there's, it feels like at the same time, there's so much choice and there's no choice. Right. It's like, you look at all these things and you're like, these all look the same to me. You know, like how can you really compare all of these different platforms? And honestly, what I'm looking at is actually the, the usability side of things. Right. That's kind of where the differentiation point for me is, is like, so I started looking at embed and I started looking at all the different compilers and the different IDs that are out there, you know, cause I also don't want to just use Arduino. You know, like I want to try something different. I want to actually, you know, be coding and see stuff like that stuff. That's still challenging. But, uh, you know, like how, how do you then, how do you go? Like how, how do you decide on a micro? I think that we've talked about on the show before most people, when they pick a micro, they're like, well, what did I use last time?

Dave Jones: Well, it's, it's either. What did I use last time? Because I'm familiar with the tools or in a lot of my case, it'll come down to component cost. Okay. Versus features. Okay. Which one?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Like just in my micro supply project, I've actually swapped back and forth between pick and Atmel several times. Right. Because I go, Oh, okay. This one needs X. So, you know, I want to get my price, you know, I want to get my cost down, but Oh, the Atmel one, it's just like a general purpose one. Oh, look, microchip have this really nice targeted one that just has the features I want. And it's 50 cents cheaper, you know? So I'll switch back, you know, just because of that.

Chris Gammell: And there's, and there's a huge switching costs. And this is all before you go to the market, right? I mean, you're, is your supply out? No. Yes. No. No. No. It's not out? No, no, no, no, no. Right. So if you did, I mean, once you're in the market though, then it's like, then you're done. Right. So you're also trying to pick something that like when you're, you know, five years down the road, you can't switch it. Right. Because there's tons in the field. You got to support everything. You know, it's like, that is your, of course, that is your child in the marketplace. You don't get to swap again. Yeah. And actually, so there was an article in, I think it was Jack Ansell's newsletter about, so I, like I said, I was mentioning, I mentioned embed, like I was looking at that because that's interesting and it's kind of, there's a lot of people interested in doing that stuff right now, but that's an online compiler. Right. And then like, you think about like long-term support there too. And this is what the people wrote about. It's like, you, you can't count on it. Right. Like, no, you can really count on, you can count on GCC. Right. And you can count on like, you know, like something that's been around for 20 years.

Dave Jones: It's always going to be there. I can still download the compiler for, for my source code from 25 years ago. Right. For some program I wrote. Right. I can just download it and run it and it recompiles. No problem.

Chris Gammell: But that's never going to go on an arm. Right. Like all of these things, like these are the trade-offs we have to make these days. Like, you're never going to be able to make that different, that like, if you want something that's leading edge, I mean, this happens in components as well. Right. You get, you get, uh, a component, uh, like, like, like a new A to D or even like a, you know, micro, you know, micro with a A to D and a Bluetooth chip and everything like that. Uh, they have footprints that are just like, it's just them, you know, like TI owns that footprint or microchip owns that footprint type. Right. There, there is no drop-in replacement because no one's literally allowed to use that footprint. Right. And it's like, yeah, you pick and you got to go, you know, like that's a good thing. That's why like all this, it, like, it, it feels like it's getting easier, but at the same time it feels like it's not, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, there's, there's a lot more loaded into single decisions instead of a lot of small decisions. It's like a couple big decisions and, uh. Got it. It sucks. It does. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Should we get onto like a list? People complained last time that we didn't cover anything on the list.

Chris Gammell: Calm down folks. Calm down. I know. How many? 244 episodes. You can go back and listen to one or two. I know we talked about Arduino way too long. Blame Dave. Yep. Yep.

Dave Jones: We did. And I wasn't the least bit coherent and, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Whatever. Yeah. One thing. Exactly. I actually got to see an other mill. So we've talked about a lot about, uh, uh, the board etching stuff like that in the past. Um, so I was at a talk that, um, Mike SD from other mill gave and I actually got to see one operating and stuff like that. And, uh, that's a pretty cool little piece of equipment. Um, so.

Dave Jones: This is the PCB at, um, milling.

Chris Gammell: Uh, milling machine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, and actually the thing again, kind of talking about the, uh, the workflow stuff there, that is actually where I think they are doing the best, like, because that's the hardest part, right? Like being able to snap something on and not go and like, I have a milling machine, right? And I've never used it for milling PCBs because the workflow, I've tried it once.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. The workflow is awful. Yeah. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: The workflow is awful. Yeah. And like, that's where that's fantastic.

Dave Jones: You can do it if you had to, you know, but like, yeah, just to get it working would be.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: The other one that I'm excited about with that, and I think that might even beat out the other mill, but it's not out yet is the, uh, the carbide 3D, which I think we've mentioned on here before. Right. But I haven't seen them yet. So I, I've only seen it at a trade show. So we'll see.

Dave Jones: But once again, as, as I said before, this is a technology, which is a niche thing because they're, you know, prototype PCBs are so cheap and high quality. It's just insane to try and compete with that with a do it yourself.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, and I mean, I, so when, I don't know about your workflow, but like, especially when you're doing like prototyping. So the way, the way that we're doing contextual electronics is like we do little boards, but like, well, one little board is out at fab, we're building another one. And then while that, you know, like we're always in just kind of a cycle, like you're always doing that anyways.

Dave Jones: Sometimes I'll do that, but often I want it now. So I'm going to hack it together on some sort of proto board, you know, so I'm going to, you know, dead, dead bug style or, you know, point to point. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And I mean, there's some stuff that you can't do direct on the copper like that, but then you can get like those, you know, if you have a pile of little breakout boards or, you know, if you buy them or you make them and then you kind of, you just have them on hand for, for soldering that kind of stuff. And yeah. Yeah. I do that as well. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But I'll just do it on a breadboard, you know, because I've got some little SO adapters, you know, so I'll whack them on there and yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: And if people, people say, oh, well, you can't do it for super high speed, but it's like, you know, you can't go point to point with a lot of high speed stuff anyways, just because of the, you know, the, the rise times and stuff like that, you'll, you'll start to have noise issues and weird, weird stuff happening like that. So you can't really, you can't really do that anyways. You'll, you're stuck with making a board and if it's small enough, you're not going to be, you know, using one of those board cutters anyways. So you're kind of screwed either way.

Dave Jones: And, and often I just want to prototype a part of the circuit. I don't want to prototype the whole thing, you know, because I like, because I'm just concerned about one little part, whether or not, you know, I'm going to have to tweak it, whether or not it's going to work properly, it's going to be stable or whatever. So I'll, I'll breadboard that up and just play around with that or I'll hack it and prototype it together, play around with that. Yeah. I don't want to lay out a board to do that. You know, what a pain in the ass, right? I want to lay out a board for my finished product or, you know, have a shot at my finished product. Right. Even though I'm probably not going to get the first goal, at least want to have a shot, but, but I don't want to experiment with, you know, something that I'm not sure about. So I'll build up that, that little part and just hack it together any way I can just to get some confidence. So.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, it's about, it's about getting to the point where you feel like you should spend the time on a layout and do it right at that point, you know, that you're, that you can get the parts and that they'll, they'll work and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Ah, that's fun.

Dave Jones: So it's, it's not often that I'll lay out a board just to test a little aspect of a circuit I wanted to do. Usually it's just hacking.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So. Well, a lot of the time these days too, I mean, like so many of the, the dev kits that are out there, like so many of those, you know, like the, in a part family, there might be 10 parts in a family and there's only one part that has a dev board, but so much, so much of the functionality you can get just from that one dev board and then, you know, change the footprint or whatever you need to, in order to, to get your application. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: To play. Yep. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So. Hmm. That's what we do.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about Art of Electronics. You have an Art of Electronics 3.

Dave Jones: I have Art of Electronics. I have not read it yet. Ah, okay. So sorry. I can't. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Comment on it. I haven't even ordered it yet. I probably will be shunned for that.

Dave Jones: Look, but seriously, if you like the second one, get the third one. Like, it's a no-brainer. Just go get it, right?

Chris Gammell: Seriously. How much is different? I mean, that's the part I don't understand.

Dave Jones: I don't know yet. I've got to go through. I've got to spend hours and hours, days and days, probably like flicking through, knowing what's changed and what hasn't. Yeah. Yes, they've left some chapters out that are in the second one, not in the third.

Chris Gammell: We talked about that, right? You said that Wynn had posted about some of the stuff that's different, but.

Dave Jones: And he's, um, and the, um, X chapters hasn't come out yet. There's some complaints that, you know, in the book it says, oh, go see the X chapters book for more details. You know, these X chapters are supposed to be like more, they treat it more in depth. No, no. It treats a subject more in depth, right? Because the art of electronics is not an in-depth book. No, no. If you're after in-depth theory, it's the wrong book for you, right? If you're, if you're doing an in-depth theory course on, on, you know, op amps, it is not, you know, on the internal architecture of op amps, it is not the book for you, right? It is, you know, a high level practical kind of book that covers things in, you know, practical high level detail. It's, it's, it's not a theory book.

Chris Gammell: The feel and the, and, and like the, uh, getting, getting like the, the mental models that you need. That's the, that's what it's really good about.

Dave Jones: Yes. Yes. That's right. So it's, you know, if you're doing a, a hardcore engineering course and you think this is a textbook for you, no, it's not. I mean, you know, get the book, textbook that they subscribe, you know, is it Serata and Smith or is it, you know, whoever, what are the other common ones? You know, they go into much more detail.

Chris Gammell: Oh, you're saying if you want like the math, like the heavy math stuff.

Dave Jones: The math and the theory and the, you know, and, and the plots and, you know, and, and everything else, you know, like it's, it's. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: There's a range of books out there. I put, I posted actually a, a picture of my bookshelf for someone, uh, earlier this today on, on, on Twitter. Oh, right. But just kind of like, I thought it was fun actually. Maybe people could do this as well. Just kind of, cause it's nice to see what like other people have posted theirs as well, just to see, uh, what other people have because it's like, oh shit, I want to, I want to have that one, you know, like kind of just looking at titles and like looking at, looking at my own shelf, even like, you know, some of them are really practical ones, like art electronics and that, uh, that Dobkin and Jim Williams won the analog circuit design, which was a refactoring of a lot of like app notes, stuff like that. But then like, yeah, I mean, I've got some DSP books on there that are just like math.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Because you had to buy them as part of your course, you know, there's lots of ones I had to buy as part of the course because that's what they, you know, like it's hard to do the course without getting the prescribed textbook and it's just, and it's just awful. You know, it's, it's, it's a book I never go back and reference because it was just, it was, it was just so horribly awful into the in-depth theory and just didn't explain things the way I wanted them explained and, you know, or I felt comfortable with or whatever. So, yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: But we're practical, we're practical electronics people. We're practical people. Yep. Yep. They're the, they're the, the theory math people. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: No, if you're into IC circuit design or something, you know, the art of electronics is useless to you, you know, like it's just, it just isn't the book for you. If you're into, you know, really, you know, discreet, uh, you know, audio op amp, uh, you know, or, you know, discreet transistor RF design or something, you know, something really happens to you, you know, it's just not the book for you. It's yeah.

Chris Gammell: But the nice thing is there's a crap ton of books out there that could be, and that's what this could be good for is sharing bookshelves as, you know, that's, that's what that sounds good for.

Dave Jones: So yeah, everyone's got their favorite book for everything, but you know, the art of electronics, I like it as a go-to thing because I haven't, you know, if there's something like a practical circuit that I, I might vaguely remember from, you know, when I studied it, you know, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, right? I'll vaguely remember it and go, but I have no idea. Right. Like my memory is not that great. Right. So I just go grab the art of electronics and sure enough, it's in there and how to practically implement it. And I go, yep, good enough. That's what I need.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That'll get you far enough that you can pop it into Spice and see enough that you feel confident to go stick it on a board and then, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I don't care about the in-depth theory of how the, you know, the miller capacitance works here and here. Like, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right. Because you're not, you're not writing the Spice engine, you're using it, right? Yeah. And that's the difference, right? If you're, you know, if you're at the research level, then you might want to go do that kind of thing. Uh-huh. But yeah, it's where, it's where you are in the, in the chain, I think.

Dave Jones: Yes. So, there you go. But yeah.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah, I got to go order that book for sure. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I think everyone should, like, if you don't have the art of electronics, I mean, I think it should be on your bookshelf. It should be on any practical electronics engineer bookshelf.

Chris Gammell: And it's pricey. Like, people are talking, like, on Twitter. Oh, it's not true. Yeah. It's like $120, but that's an investment, right? Yeah, yeah, of course. This is a book that'll stick with you for a long time. So, I wouldn't worry about that. Yes.

Dave Jones: And you'll keep it for, like, the old one. You kept it for 25 years, you know. Yeah. Or 30 years since it came. Is it? What is it? 25 years since the last one came out? Oh. In 1989 was the last one.

Chris Gammell: It's like 25, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Woo. Exactly. And the old one is still relevant. Second edition is still relevant.

Chris Gammell: Hey, that got me my first job back into electronics. Right.

Dave Jones: It's funny. I just retweeted something this morning. Somebody posted a photo of the art of electronics saying it's already out of date by the time it was published. They showed a photo of it actually says, where to go to get parts? Tandy Electronics.

Chris Gammell: Oh, sad. Yeah. Oops. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Oh, Radio Shack. We don't really miss you. I saw there was an article about how they're supposed to be rebranding as a convenience store. Radio Shack, that is. I don't know. Is Tandy's gone, gone, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, they're Tandy's no more? Yes. In Australia, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, Tandy, no. I don't know. Well, there might still be a couple of Tandy stores around selling mobile phones or something. I don't know. I haven't looked into it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's, but like apparently the ones that still exist, the Radio Shacks, are being reimagined as convenience stores. So you could just go in and, you know, pick up a charger off the wall. I don't know. I'm imagining like a- What's the difference? That's what Radio Shack always was. The electronics convenience store. A bank of like, you know, like vending machines. Like, that's what I'm imagining, but I don't think that's what it really would be.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but they've always had pretty clueless people in there. So what's the difference between a clueless person or a machine? You know, one of those Japanese vending machines that dispenses anything, you know? Right. Arduinos. Yay. Here we go. Pop out.

Chris Gammell: Well, there's a lot of those out there now. You can get the- Yeah. I mean, a lot of the hackerspaces have those too. The, you know, they'll just buy an old vending machine and put like, you know, Raspberry Pies in there and stuff like that. What? Really? Oh, yeah. Like, my buddy bought a Raspberry Pi out of the NYC resistor vending machine. Oh, really?

Dave Jones: Oh, that's- Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's hilarious. It's hard to find that many $5- It only had a $5 bill, ones and fives. So finding that many $5 bill things was kind of tough, but- That's neat.

Dave Jones: I like it.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. I mean, and that could work someplace. Like, I mean, Best Buy has that now too, right? Like, it's not like you need a lot of customer interaction or, you know, like retail interaction to do that stuff, but yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but what's the difference? Like, what's the difference? Why don't you just order it online? You know, sure, you can go pick it up straight away, but geez, it's a limited market.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's the idea. That's the idea. And I think that's what they're talking about for Radio Shack too, is like the convenience side of it.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Well, hence the name, convenience store, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right. Of course. Of course. Because it's just there.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but don't Amazon ship in like six hours now or something, same day?

Chris Gammell: Not yet, but they're getting there. It depends what city you're in. Like, Cleveland doesn't have any of that stuff, so it's still got to go through a center. But yeah. Yeah, I think that's kind of the, I think that's a lot of the, kind of the balance point for a lot of the technology we have these days too. Like, so we were talking about the, you know, the board cutter and stuff like that, 3D printing, things like that. Like, all of these things are basically, can you, like, because there's 3D printing services too. You can go to Shapeways and order something and they'll send it to you in a couple days.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, like, it's, and like laser cutting, all of these things. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's just about, you know, are you, are you willing to pay the capital investment for your own lab to have it immediately and then have all the overhead of the tasks you need to have with it as well? Right. Like cleaning and having, you know, milling, milling end mills on hand and, you know.

Dave Jones: And learn how to figure out how to use it and getting up to speed. Right. And, oh, I haven't, haven't used it for a year. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I was going to ask, have you used your 3D printer in a long time?

Dave Jones: I've used it fairly recently. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, I still know how it works.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But, you know, there was one point where since I last used it, they'd completely changed the software. Like, like completely. Right. Right. And I downloaded, oh, because this machine didn't have it. Right. So, I downloaded, oh, what? What? I've got to go learn this new software.

Chris Gammell: Like, Jesus. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, and like, I mean, there's some practical use. Like, so like there was a Hackaday article about these, was it Pogo pins? Someone 3D printed Pogo pins holders. Right. Like that's an awesome idea and something that you wouldn't, no one's going to injection mold that kind of thing. This is actually a really, really good use of a 3D printer. This isn't a case of like time. This is a case of, you know, like ingenuity, I think. Right. That's, that's interesting.

Dave Jones: Well, it's a case of need, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You needed something.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And like, but again, you could have someone, you could design this and send it off to Shapeways and they could send it back. And, you know, like it is possible to do this kind of, and actually you don't have to do Shapeways these days. There's actually a service, I forget what it's called. You can, there's a service you can do where like you can see who the closest 3D printer is to you and then you can, they list the price and then you can like send it to them. And it's just like, you know, it's someone's house. It's just an unused, it's just a, it's like an Airbnb for 3D printers. Right. And startups, huh? But yeah.

Dave Jones: Hey, I see this little 3D printed pogo pin thing. It's like a test holder. It's like a test pin holder. Yeah. It's a jig. Yeah. It's a jig. Yeah. Yeah. It's a jig. They've actually got a lot of effort. There's a lot of separate parts on that. Yeah. That seems almost too complicated for what it's, you know.

Chris Gammell: Maybe. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I think this is. It depends how proficient you are with the 3D tools and, you know, things like, I am not proficient. Right. So it's a pain in the ass for me. Right. Right. But my employee, Dave too, he's very proficient at it. Right. So he can just do something and then whack it on the 3D printer. Bam. There it is.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. Right. Yeah. And if you get good with like a, like my buddy Marty is, is really good with, with a lot of tools like this. And he'll just do a, just a board holder and stuff like that. He was just doing fixtures for his, his bench. And like that actually is another really good use of it. He showed me a couple of the holders where it's just, you know, just for like work holding and when you're soldering in weird positions or if you need to, you know, have card slots, that kind of weird thing. Uh, it, that was another really good use I thought. Right. And so, I mean like there, and there's, that's how it goes, right? You find uses over time because it's kind of like a cognitive, cognitive excess of, well, what do I use this thing for? And it's like, oh, well I have a problem and I could throw a 3D printer at it and this finally makes sense. So.

Dave Jones: So yeah, I see, even if I had the 3D skills, I wouldn't have bothered with that. I would have just got my, uh, I was got the pogo pin board, thrown it in the, and a vice and then just set the right angle and put it down and maybe prop it up with a book or something or, you know, like just some sort of, you know, pack like that. Yeah, but that's for one.

Chris Gammell: If you were doing 10, right, there's always a crossover point. Oh, no, no, if you're doing 10, right. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: There's definitely a crossover point.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. And a certain point becomes a, you know, it's, when it's not DFM, right? If it's not designed for manufacturing, DFM, uh, yeah, then you, then you have to, uh, figure something else out. I mean, you used to do that all the time anyways with your, used to make fixtures.

Dave Jones: That was a big part of my job doing it and designing test jigs and all sorts of stuff for, for, or production. Yeah. And you'd put a lot of work into it, you know, because they're very, you know, some of them were very complex and technical and, you know, because, hey, you know, you had to run 10,000 boards through, you know, so it's, it's important to have it right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Hmm.

Chris Gammell: Well, uh, we're at the end of the show cause we need to cut it short this week. Not short, but you know, actually an hour, uh, things I would love to hear in the comments this week. One, obviously I'm, I'm feeling a bit of ennui this week. Uh, I'm feeling a little down about the electronics industry. So I'd love to hear what people are excited about. Like maybe I should be excited about something and I don't even know it yet. But that would be great. And then other things for me are, uh, I'd love to know what people are using micro wise. I think that that, uh, that would actually really help me out because, you know, like, like I said, there's so many.

Dave Jones: I don't think it will. No, I know.

Chris Gammell: It'll be everybody saying something like I use this, I use that. But even if you just point me to resources, I don't care. I'll read everything. That's what I'm trying to say.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Yeah. So instead of just picking one and getting on with business, you got to dick around, just reading everyone. Well, I have a little time yet.

Chris Gammell: I'm not, I'm not on that. Yeah. I'm not on that yet. So, yeah. I mean, but that's a big deal, right? That's a big decision point. Uh, you know, micros like it's better or worse. That's a big part of any project these days. So, um, that's yeah. Dave, do you want them to say anything to you in the comments? I think we should do this, you know, to prompt them instead of, no, you didn't tell us anything this week.

Dave Jones: Oh, people will call me idiot for losing my.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Stuff again. Go ahead. I don't care. Yeah. Man. Hey, somebody suggested, should we do an AMA with episodes, with answers as an episode?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, we can. I mean, we've 244 episodes in, you've heard a lot of our stories, but yeah, you got questions. So here's the thing. We, you can always ask these questions on the subreddit like that. Just do a text post there. Just hit submit. What is it? Submit a new text post to the Amp Hour subreddit.

Dave Jones: So that we, so that we'd never get around to it.

Chris Gammell: Right. Well, and if, and if that doesn't work, there is an email button on theamphour.com. There's, that goes to both of us. So shoot it and I'll actually post it to the subreddit.

Dave Jones: So this is something someone complained about the other week and that, um, apparently we used to do shows where we went through the list a bit more religiously.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, we went through the list, you know, we did an episode based on a list and whereas now we sort of take a more laissez-faire approach and, you know.

Chris Gammell: We should go look at the old list because the old list was like, it was like six items and we had to talk about everything.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: We talked about the list because that's all there was. There wasn't public. And also I was thinking about the other day because of this, uh, Y Combinator thing. They have the, the hacker news, the, uh, it's like, it's like Reddit. Remember when we used to have that list and it used to always crash and remember that thing? No.

Dave Jones: Oh yes. Yes. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It used to be like our subreddit was.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Ah, the good old days. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Good old days. Jeez.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: When I was a boy.

Chris Gammell: Yep. All right, man. Well, I can't wait to hear more about your, uh, Dave is a manager project. This is, this is very exciting for me.

Dave Jones: It's, it's just another product that's been designed by, designed and made by a big company.

Chris Gammell: How's it? What's happening? Yeah. Anyway, it's going to, it's going to take a long time. Talk about your TPS reports.

Dave Jones: Yeah, right.

Chris Gammell: Oh boy. That's what I'm mostly excited about. I'm mostly excited about making, about making office space jokes.

Speaker ?: So.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Office. I love office space. I'm going to have to go watch it again. Yeah. Okay. I haven't watched it for a while. And yeah, cause I used to be in that sort of, uh, yeah. Yep. When you work for the man, you'll really appreciate office space. Yeah. It's great.

Chris Gammell: All right, man. All right. The man. We'll talk to you next week. Cool. Bye.

Chris Gammell: This week on the Amp Hour, Dave plays the man. Yeah. Hi. Yeah. Hi. Yeah. Hi. Hi, Peter. Uh, yeah, we're starting at the normal time today. Uh, at nine o'clock. It's not a, it's not a half day or anything. Uh, yeah.

Speaker ?: Uh, yeah.